Wednesday, October 26, 2005

I'm Discovering... a Lot of Suckers at Gordon

Hello, world of blogginess. I haven't blogged in over a week. I am very busy. (As opposed to most other college students, who of course have loads of time on their hands to do nothing at all.)

Yesterday we had what Gregg called "a water blizzard!!" It rained alot and was incredibly windy. Most people whine about the "bad weather" but I've never minded it.

On Saturday I earned $150 playing in a string quartet at a wedding. We played "Off We Go Into the Wild Blue Yonder" as the recessional; it was a military wedding held at a base. It was kind of fun... and of course, I like the money.

I've been spending the past three or four weeks fighting the administration - excuse me, I mean petitioning - to waive the Discovery Expedition requirement. I participated in a very similar program during the summer prior to my freshman year, and I have already met the overarching goals of the Discovery program. My petition was initially denied; I petitioned to a person higher up in authority, and I think it will be denied again - but first they have to spend several weeks deliberating on it while I continue to attend this class in the meantime. (I can think of numerous fitting adjectives to modify 'class,' but I'll refrain for the time being, since I'm trying to prove to the administration my great maturity. But let me just say that I promise, I don't need to go on an enforced camping trip and spend time climbing ropes and building community with perfect strangers I'll never see again after this class ends and then keeping a journal about all of that in order to grow closer to God. I have many feelings about these kinds of fad mountaintop experiences, but I won't go into detail right now.) As far as the administration of this great school is concerned, apparently the program I participated in during the summer before I went to Biola couldn't possibly be as great as what is offered here at Gordon - so once again I encounter the deep-set Gordon College inferiority complex that makes them fight every class I've taken anywhere else while mindlessly insisting that "we are an accredited institution, and we have policies!"

I've been to the first two class sessions, and boy have I Discovered a lot. For example, we played a game with a tarp. The instructor and TA held the tarp, and the class divided on either side of the tarp. One person at a time on each side went forward and crouched right by the tarp. The instructor would drop the tarp, and the two people had to say each others' names. Now if that's not Discoverytastic, I don't know what is.

I said I wasn't going to rant, and I meant it - that was barely the tip of the iceberg, my friends. The bottom line is that I can't stand to have my time (3 hours of class time a week, a whole Saturday, and a whole weekend!) and money ($475!) wasted when I've already met the purposes and goals of the Discovery program through another (*coughmuchbettercough*) program, and it's a really frustrating situation. When this is all over, I will be writing a letter to the administration summarizing factually, succinctly, and maturely exactly what I believe about all of this.

In other news, Fievel has a great post on worrying; it's definitely worth a read.

And now I must go, because today is Wednesday, and Wednesday means that I get to go Discover things. Oh boy. I might pee my pants with the excitement of it all.

4 comments:

  1. Good for you--stick to that resolution!! I know it's not a funny situation, and I sympathize because I know how you feel when up against administrations who are stuck in their ways, but the way you wrote about it made me laugh. :) I'm so impressed that y'all can name each other... I need to have that kind of community to help my spiritual life...

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  2. Rats, I used carrots and they didn't come through in the post. The "resolution" I tried to quote was where you said you were going to write to the administration. :)

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  3. Hey, at least you're not wasting money on La Vida. Count your blessings, all $XXX worth of them.

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  4. Wow, Sarah! *Pulls out his hairs in sympathy* Hang in there; what a mess! I've been through the exact same things with my administartion at school, although it wasn't over giddy Discovery courses. (sarcasm) I must admit I'm so jealous of the opportunity they grant you to discover yourself (end sarcassm). I hope that it goes by very quickly, to say the least. I also hope for you that this is the last you have to put up with administrative nonsense and institutional snoberry.

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