Episode XIII: Entertaining Interviewees

I had planned on entitling this post "Attending Class" and just talking about some of my classes, but then I started writing about this whole interviewing weekend thing at the end, and it got so long that I had to delete the first part about attending class. So maybe classes will come next week.

But for the time being...

This weekend and the next are “interview weekends” where the school invites prospective graduate students to campus to decide whether or not to admit them, and to show them what a nice program we have. The current graduate students are asked to help with a variety of tasks. The good things that we get to do are take the kids out to eat at some restaurants (above), paid for by the department; and on the actual interview day we have access to unlimited free coffee, donuts, pastries, cookies, baklava, etc. In fact, that was the only thing I had all day, breakfast lunch and dinner.

The not-so-good things that we got to do were to share the duties of picking up and dropping off the students at the airport. I had volunteered to drop some people off at the airport, and as luck would have it, a surprise snowstorm began just an hour before I was to leave. The department was having us drive their giant 15-passenger vans, the schedule was tight, the sun was setting and the snow was falling fast (I imagine an inch had already fallen). In addition, I had to continually answer questions and make conversation with the students while driving, and I really really had to urinate (too much free coffee).

Every couple of minutes it seemed we would pass a tow truck, or a police car, or a car turned backward on the side of the road. The drive was very intense, and what should have been a 1-2 hour round trip ended up taking 4 hours. And four hours of constant adrenaline can be exhausting. A few of the things that happened on the road:

• While still in Lawrence (a fairly hilly city) the van made it 2/3 of the way up a hill, and refused to go any further. I spun for a while, traffic building up behind me, until I came up with the wise idea to make everyone sit in the very back seat. It worked! And I made them sit there until we got on the highway.
• I found that the window didn’t work, so I had to sort of get out of the vehicle to pay the toll-road fees.
• While driving a conservative 35 mph on the highway, coming back, I noticed my speedometer suddenly shoot up to around 75 mph and stay there for a couple of seconds, before returning to 35.
  

Well I did make it back all in one piece. After returning the vehicle I went back into the building for a final, celebratory donut. Below is a picture of me saying “thank you” to the van for not getting me killed. It is also the first camera-phone picture that I have posted so far. Notice the difference?

Episode XII: Meeting with the Saints

It is interesting that in a town of about 80,000 residents, there should be four separate congregations with the name “church of Christ”. I would submit that there are a number of reasons for this phenomenon; the only reason that I will mention here is that Christianity in general, and “church of Christ”-ianity in specific, seems more prevalent here in Lawrence Kansas than back in Southern California.

While a couple of the aforementioned congregations are rather large, the congregation that I meet with is rather small. I would estimate that average attendance Sunday morning is about 25, otherwise around 15, and apparently the group is quite a bit larger than it was a few years ago. Below is a picture that I took while I was supposed to be giving a speech. It wasn’t the best day to do so because there were quite a few visitors. Nevertheless, you can still see most of the regular attendees. Super extra bonus points for anyone who can guess where I usually sit.

I daresay they are a good group of people, and fairly diverse. I have met school teachers, hunting enthusiasts, college students and faculty, an IT worker, a KU fanatic (who happens to be an elder as well), and an acoustic engineer. Of course there are still people who I don’t really know, and some of the people above I have only talked to occasionally. One thing that has been very nice for the college students is the hospitality of both of the elders and their wives. It seems like every other Sunday one of them is inviting me over to eat at their house, where they likely have a roast, among many other things, waiting to be eaten. I feel as though I were living in the storied “good old days.”

Another nice thing about the group is what is known as “the boxes”. The boxes are basically boxes, in which some of the more senior families and individuals put food, candy, beverages and such as a gift to the college students. Each college student that meets there has their own box, and the boxes are on permanent display on the back pew. It is always nice to take home some delectable delights after a meeting of encouragement. In fact, I just finished off a tin of butter cookies that some kind soul contributed to my box a few weeks ago. I would have to say that if certain KU students knew about “the boxes”, they might start coming to church for that reason alone. And here they are, in their full glory: the boxes. If you look carefully, you will be able to distinguish my box as the one without all the glitter on it.

Two final observations:

1) The only time that I have really been affected by ice on the road was a few weeks ago, trying to get into the building's parking lot. There is a somewhat steep driveway to get into the lot, and unlike the city streets, there had been no snow/ice removal, so there I was in my rear-wheel drive vehicle, with not a lot of traction left on the tires, and I simply could not make it up the driveway. Someone suggested that I try and drive up in reverse, but I opted to park in the preschool parking lot across the street instead.

2) Different people have different opinions about the use of artwork in church buildings, but I rather enjoyed this piece of artwork, the first thing I noticed upon entering the building: a large photograph whose central image is a most lovely, shining, mosque.