#30: aquatic friends

There are only two places in this world where Speedos are appropriate: Sweden and OBU swim meets.

Sure, some may say “hey, wow, that small piece of spandex you’re wearing screams ‘TMI!’” But such people have obviously not experienced the aerodynamic efficiency that said piece of swimwear provides. And not only that, it is highly preferable attire at outdoor sporting events. Who wants those awkward shirt and shorts tan lines?

A variety of adjectives (occasionally with more than four letters) may be uttered when the subject of our aquatic friends at OBU comes up in conversation. Some may complain about the exclusiveness that said group often adheres to. Others may be frustrated about their dining location in the caf (whatever, we didn’t want to sit there anyway). And others may simply be intimidated by their confidence in rocking minimal clothing.

Yet, let’s be honest, any hard feelings we Ouachitonians may feel towards our dearly beloved Tigersharks are only motivated by one thing: jealousy. That being said, I think that we must bond together to overcome this breaking of the 10^th commandment together. The only way to avoid being totes jel of one’s neighbor is by making said neighbor your friend.

So, here are some great strategies for becoming besties with the OBU Tigersharks…

mission: BEFRIEND A SWIMMER

1. feign a near-drowning:

This plan involves both acting and swimming abilities. Be timely. Make sure you attempt this during the regular hours of swim team practice, lest your Oscar-worthy performance be all in vain. You have two options: A. The “Oh I was just casually strolling by the water’s edge when I stubbed my toe and fell in” plan and B. The “I was swimming laps when, out of the blue, I suddenly went belly-up like a betta fish” plan. A Tigershark will have dived in that pool and swum to your rescue faster than you can hum the JAWS theme. And everyone knows that saving someone’s life equals lifelong friendship.

CAUTION: If you do not have the level of swimming proficiency necessary to put this plan into action, please divert to one of the other options, lest your attempt at faking your drowning result in your actual drowning. (The OBU Tigersharks are not liable for any deaths that may occur in efforts to befriend them).

2. maintain a daily caloric intake of 20,000+:

You will not be able to avoid bumping into a Tigershark as you both return for the 10^th time to the mainline. You’ll chat, bond, and plan a rendezvous for maximum bonding at one of Arkadoo’s all-you-can-eat buffets. Friendship is sure to ensue.

CAUTION: A diet of this proportion may necessitate your spending hours each day in vigorous exercise.

3. try a new hairstyle:

Boys, you know you’ve always wanted a Mohawk. Not only will said hairstyle land you on the path to being chummy with the swimteam, but you will also blend in at all local gatherings of both the KKK and British punk bands. Win-win.

For the girls, rock the sopping-wet bun. They won’t even know you’re not one of them.

4. Eat breakfast at 5:00am

The Tigersharks will not be able to ignore your heart-breaking loneliness as you dine morning after morning in the caf alone. If you don’t have a table invite in no time I will lose my faith in mankind. (However, if they do, by some chance, fail to notice you, try wearing an ankle-length rainjacket. By the time they realize you’re not actually a part of the team, you’ll have already won your place in their hearts).

5. when thinking life-science lab partner, choose a Tigershark:

Nothing says fellowship like making a baby potato head together.

Dear swimming Ouachitonian, if you are reading this, know that we long for your companionship, to understand where you’re coming from, to embrace diversity and tolerance through unity with YOU, our fellow Ouachitonian. I’ll leave you with a twist on the poetry of one wise mermaid—your comrade, if you will. Consider it an insight into all of our hearts:

When's it your turn?
Wouldn't you love, love to explore that world up above?
Out of the sea
Wish you could be
Part of our world.

**The idea for today's post was submitted by Amanda Seeley!

#29: Chehpel

Going to Chapel every Tuesday is like eating one of Bernie Bott’s Every Flavored Beans.

One day, after a few good choruses of “See God’s Light,” you may plop down in Row C, seat 107, to happily discover that today, Tony Campolo is speaking. Today, you picked a chocolate mousse bean.

Another day, you are slightly surprised. You don’t know what to think about the fact that there is currently a mime on stage, and said mime has replaced his invisible-box routine with the entire book of Hebrews. Today is a Marzipan day. Not bad, just not quite what you expected.

And then of course, there are those Tuesday mornings when you realize that today you lost your game of Chapel-Roulette. You should have used that chapel skip rather than saving it for flu season. And you find yourself repeating the famous words of Albus Dumbledore, “Alas, earwax.”

Due to the Forrest Gump, life-is-like-a-box-of-chocolates nature of Tuesday mornings at 10:00AM, many students have discovered means for combatting those earwax-flavor days. For, as every college student knows, nothing is more fatal than Boredom. And “listening to people older than us talk” and “Boredom” go together like Richard Simmons and inappropriate use of the unitard. I mean, how can anyone who doesn’t have a facebook possibly have anything worthwhile to say? I bet they can’t even spell the word relevance, let alone #hashtagit.

Visitors to Chapel may be flabbergasted to discover that Ouachita students regularly use Chapel as study hall. And sure, to those unenlightened outsiders, this practice may seem disrespectful. But how are they to know that home-working during the message is a long-standing Ouachita tradition? And not only that, it is a serious attempt at self-preservation lest the style of a speaker not measure up to our I’d-rather-just-listen-to-a-podcast tastes. Who, may I ask, would be liable in the case of a campus-wide epidemic of death by Boredom?

I, for one, am grateful for the way Ouachita Chapel has taught me how to cope with unentertaining situations. Heaven knows I’ll often be bombarded with them in the real world. Committee gatherings, seminars, board-room meetings, conventions? I'm confident that life after the bubble will involve circumstances that wreak havoc on my ADD, rendering my attention span comparable to that of a goldfish.

In fact, I have already started applying these coping methods to situations in my dad-to-day life. I now carry my IPod and Life Science text book on my person at all times.

Just the other Sunday, I showed up at church to discover we would be reading out of Deuteronomy that morning. I managed to don my headphones and whip out my Cellular Respiration notes before the pastor could say “thou shall not.” Maybe he was offended. I’m not really sure. I was too busy bobbing to the beats of Katy Perry to notice.

Next week I am supposed to go to this thing where the Pope like gives an address and stuff to a bunch of people. I’ve heard he’s pretty longwinded. Good thing I have an iphone. And unlimited texting.

#27: hypochondria

As an impoverished college student, I am hesitant to spend money on frivolous things like insurance or flu shots or doctor’s visits.

So what if my whole left arm has been purple for three days? It probably just needs circulation, nothing a few games of ultimate Frisbee can’t fix. And so what if I’m running 106 °F and the substance I’m currently blowing out of my nose looks radioactive? Nothing a little RnR and OJ won’t purge from the system in no time. I mean, do you know how many taco bell runs and pumpkin spice lattes could be funded for the same price as the co-pay on one trip to the doctor? The ratio is dizzying, my friend.

So understandably, I find it inconvenient when monthly (weekly?) I am confronted with a notice of my impending death. Such warnings come in the electronic medium of Kluck. Medical. Emails.

The signs started appearing September of freshman year when I first opened my Tigermail Inbox to find that Holy Cow! I had Measles/Mumps/Rubella! That kindergarten booster I endured back in the day was obviously faulty, because not only did I have fever, general malaise, sneezing, AND nasal congestion, but I had been fightin’ off a brassy cough for weeks! Sure, I could chock it up to the mold growing in my Francis Crawford AC unit, but that would just be pathetic disregard of the facts which were so blatantly staring me in the face, denial at its very finest.

And come October, I was taken aback to discover that the shortness of breath I was feeling when climbing the ESC stairs was not in fact due to too many boxes of Chik Filet waffle fries but instead, a nasty case of Sickle Cell Anemia. The signs were simply unignorable.

Since freshman year I have been dismayed month after month to learn that, not only do I have Lassa Fever, Ebola, Trichinosis, Prostate Cancer, HIV/AIDS, and three different kinds of Meningitis, but darn it, I’m pretty sure I have a rather persistent strain of SARS. (I knew I shouldn’t have eaten that civet cat kebab on our family vacation to Chongqing. Curses.)

Besides the stress it has caused my family, the most inconvenient part about this whole diagnostic process is the way it greatly conflicts with my college student search-under-seat-cushions-for-quarters-for-the-McValue-menu lifestyle. I mean, if you thought pediatricians were expensive, you would never believe the dolares one can charge when one holds the title “specialist.” And I regret to tell you that some of these diseases go beyond the scope of expertise of local physicians. I challenge you to find a doctor here in Arkansas who can confidently confirm your case of Guinea Worm Disease.

Dear Dr. Kluck, as much as I appreciate not only your concern for our physical well-being but also for our medical education, it has to stop. I just can’t take it anymore. And neither can my grandmother. After your December installment alerted me to her Coronary Artery Disease, I’m worried that her poor heart can’t take one more blow. And unfortunately, I have a growing suspicion that I have the bubonic plague. I’d just rather not know if this is true. As the saying goes, ignorance is bliss. And I think in the case of both me and Grandma, a strong dose of ignorance is just what the doctor ordered.

#26: having unspoken (but never to be broken) rules of modesty

As a senior in high school, scrambling through that giant pile of college advertisements, my list of "things I look for in a university" had to get super specific. I mean, if I was going to be feeding my kids soup for the next 20 years until I finally gave those student loans the boot, I wanted it to be for the sake of a worthwhile educational cause. So, I started getting choosy, thinking about what really mattered in a college. I even developed a system for sorting pamphlets into the "heck no techno," "hmmm...probably not, but I'll dangle that admissions counselor by a thread a little longer," and "yeah, I think you could make all my varsity dreams come true, so I'll definitely give you a shout out this Wednesday at prayer meeting when peeps ask me where I'm thinking about going" piles.

Some colleges made it into the final rounds of the decision making process, only missing my tuition check by a few yards. John Brown, had you not roomed me in an "we-secretly-have-Mennonite-sympathies" suite during your version of SCOPE/GROW, you might have been the one. And Hardin-Simmons, you almost had me with that free CD; it's not your fault you had to go and locate yourself in (excuse me as I spit) Texas. U of A, you were definitely in a close second; if only you had appreciated my papier-mache volcano project as much as you did that Japanese-Indian-Korean-Pakistani-American kid's independent cancer research and given me that Fellowship instead, we could have had a beautiful life together.

Other universities were a no-brainer, their fliers going straight from the envelope to the shredder. Wellesley Private Women's College, thanks for the invite, but you just didn't comply with my stay-at-home-mom fall-back plans. Yale, it was fun going on that emotional roller coaster with you, but some acceptance rate statistics would have been nice along with the bumper sticker, personal interview, and 2007-2008 handbook you mailed me. And Liberty, ooohhh, Liberty. You had me for a split second with that colorful add frequenting the pages of WORLD magazine. Your mission statement and scholarship options were pretty legit. You just made one slip up: you included a picture. Yeah, sure, the girl standing on the steps of your chapel was really pretty, and some might have been fooled by her super relevant t-shirt complete with ambiguous slogan and tree graphic, but I was cunning. I knew what to look for, and my scrutinizing eyes could not miss the blaring statement sent by that floor-length khaki skirt...DRESS CODE! You went straight to the "heck no techno" pile, Liberty, faster than I could flip channels from 700 Club to MTV Cribs. Yes, yes, I know. I did ask for a Christian liberal arts education, but I had no intention of getting doc martins, an IMB logo-polo, and a head prayer-shawl in the mix. Better luck next time.

So, after months of googling, GROW-ing, alumni-facebook-stalking, essay writing, campus-visiting, and the occasional session of spontaneous weeping, I finally decided that Ouachita was it. With my down-payment on its way to Arkadelphia, I took comfort in knowing that I had made the right decision. I had been told that, in fact, Jesus went to OBU. And "by golly," I thought, "if it's good enough for Him, surely it's good enough for me."

Naturally, I struggled to suppress my shock when I arrived on campus to discover that, in spite of boasting to be as good as Liberty except "like not fundamentalist and stuff," Ouachita did indeed have its own set of clothing do's and don'ts. Sure, you might not find them printed in the Tiger Handbook, but you would find them engraved somewhere else: on the hearts and minds of Ouachitonians.

Perhaps that spaghetti strap and jeggings combo I rocked last week wouldn't land me in Keldon Henley's office, but it would merit me a concerned spot on the Wednesday night prayer line-up, if not by name, under the not-so-unspoken heading of "those girls." You know "those girls:" "those girls who have not yet had the 'being-sensitive-to-the-struggles-of-their-brothers-in-Christ' revelation." We need to really keep "those girls" on our hearts. Perhaps, if worst comes to worst (i.e. leggings as pants or heaven forbid, something strapless!) the situation may call for a little loving dose of confronting via a friend, an anonymous 'girl-don't-you-know-that-outfit-is-only-suited-for-street-corners' note, or better yet, a passive aggressive blogpost. :)

Freedom, grace, no longer being a slave to sin? These are all grand concepts, and Ouachitonians like to help keep them happenin' through intensely specific social conventions. Though at first I was wary of the subtle clothing regulations, I have come to realize their benefits. I mean, it is nice to be able to sleep soundly at night knowing my righteousness is still intact. Not to mention that it majorly cuts down on the number of quail that I have donate for my personal atonement every spring. (I especially appreciate this latter repercussion around tax time. I can never figure out if temple sacrifices are deductible!) Said conventions also sure do make all those passage about sexuality and adultery and stuff a lot more comfortable to sit through in Sunday School when I know that I am guilt free thanks to extreme personal discipline, the gouging out of one of my eyes, and the commitment of my brothers to gloves, turtlenecks and MC hammer pants.

I only have one suggestion I would like to submit for Ouachita Dress Code consideration. I feel that my addition would be immensely helpful in our striving toward modest-is-hottest communal living. Two words: Invisibility Cloaks. In fact, why not just replace all previously unspoken rules with just this one? We could rid ourselves of a lot of ambiguity by simply investing in a campus-wide set. We're already giving incoming freshman beanies these days. So why not throw a little 100%-purity guarantee into the mix, Harry Potter style?

#25: mail time

It's Tuesday, post-lunch, and I've got a good 30 seconds to kill. What am I going to do? Check mail, of course! Maybe I've already checked it twice today, and maybe there wasn't anything to be found. Ir-relevant. Anytime is the perfect time to check mail. Who knows what distant relative, WOM lady, or sweet my-spiritual-gift-is-writing-encouraging-notes-on-craftastic-homemade-cards friend might have felt so led in the last 120 minutes to send a little love over to 410 Ouachita St., box 4493.

So, I head over to the student center, avoid eye-contact with 40+ potential acquaintances lining the couches and corridors (I am on a mission here) as I scurry down the stairs, turn right, duck under some stairwell architecture jutting down from above (and threatening to concuss many an unsuspecting freshman), hang left, and finally reach that blessed small, silver square--a tangible representation of all my post officinal hopes.

I stop. My breath catches as I dream about what could be awaiting me inside box 4493. A giftcard? An Emilee Wade original bird-gram? or perhaps...homemade chocolate chip cookies? Do I dare to dream? I do, I do indeed.

I try my combination, not once, not twice, but seven times until finally I hear the melodious click of success, and I throw open the door to find...Huzzah!...there are contents within the vault!

But wait! Are said contents for moi? Alas, 3 are for my blasted boxmate. Foiled once again. Does he not know that mail checking is a daily--albeit hourly--responsibility for every self-respecting Ouachita student? How could he be so inconsiderate as to raise and crush my hopes with his postbox negligence? I know that mass-mailed tiger serve day announcement is not fresh. I mean, I recycled mine ages ago--hours even!

Gasp! But what's that!? Do I spy with my little eye an orange slip? Orange slip, orange slip! Blest be thee, orange slip! Art thou for me? Yes yes, you are indeed!

I hastily grab said orange slip as joy fills my heart. I slap my box shut and skip over to the post office window where a friendly work study worker greets me with a smile. She takes my slip and darts behind the wall to retrieve my glorious parcel. She returns carrying a box that, much to my heart's delight, is twice the size of my backpack! I check the return address! Alas, it is from my mom! She does love me!

I rip open the box only to find a bookmark, my medical insurance card, and three socks I left at home over Christmas break. I sigh, trying to suppress my disappointment. I check my watch. 30 minutes until my next class. Perhaps I should take my non-chocolate-chip-cookies package back to my room. It really is quite cumbersome. But wait! My friends are still in class. If I head back now, how are they to observe that someone loves me 12" by 14" by 6" and $6.47 S&H's worth? They don't have to know that my box's contents are far less exciting than its exterior.

I decide to stick around student center for a while. I choose to sport my package on my shoulder rather than risking the floor's dust or the couch's obstruction of the view of my box to peers passing by. I mean, I would hate for someone to lose out on the blessing of getting to congratulate me on my mail-time luck!

As I wait, a song fills my heart..."here's the mail....it never fails...it makes me wanna wag my tail. When it comes I wanna yell: Maaaaaiiiiill--lllll!"

**The idea for today's SOL was submitted by James Taylor. Thanks, J.T.!

#24: squirrels

I would like to take this opportunity to affirm my fellow Ouachitonians. Overall, I would say that we are a pretty reputable bunch. We serve the community in many ways: chillin' with the elderly, taking internationals to walmart, pickin' up trash once a semester on Pine St., and making Arkadelphia at least 400% hipper just by gracing it with our v-necked presence. We have passion. We have com-passion. We have compassion children. We eat. We pray. We love.

However, there is a group in our midst for whom I feel we have not reached the level of brokenness that is due.

Daily they wander around our campus unnoticed and unloved. All they ask for is a safe place to hunt, gather, and raise their kids. Usually, they are pretty inconspicuous. If you're especially astute and an early riser, you might just might spot one scurrying--naked and cold--through the grass, nervously, desperately, searching for something, anything, to take back to his family for sustenance. And oh to be a fly on the bark at night, when anguished fathers and mothers whisper of the coming winter, when there may be no walnuts on the table for dinner and no acorns in the children's stockings at Christmas.

Sure, they may not be as cool as the rest of us. Maybe those coats they usually sport look just like the one's their ancestors were rockin' back in '85 BC, but does mean they don't deserve our respect? Does it mean they don't still need acceptance?

Ouachitonians, we are called to care about the "least of these." I just don't think we have even begun to understand what this means when it comes to the furry ones among us. Our responses to them may vary. Some of us choose apathy. Others choose ignorance, pretending not to notice
when we see a furry brother crawling out of the trashcan with a chic fillet wrapper in his paws. Others are even downright cruel, making them objects of pranks and "relocating" them to new homes down at Degray. Did they ask for that? What have they done to merit such unjust treatment?

As much as I want to keep patting you on the back, friends, I just can't with the situation at hand. Something has got to give. Love, diversity, tolerance, antidiscrimination. These are not just words we throw around in ethics class. Whatever happened to personal application? What happen to faith+deeds? I have a dream, my friends, a dream that one day this tiger nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all (ver)-men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the gray side-walks of Ouachita, the sons of former squirrels and the sons of former squirrel hunters will be able to sit down at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Arkansas, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, sweltering with the heat of 90% humidity 9 months out of the year, sweltering with the heat of mediocre dormitory temperature control, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children (yes I do indeed have four of them just in case you didn't know but I have to keep it on the DL since I'm pretty sure Francis Crawford rooms are only supposed to house two so they all secretly sleep on pallets under my bed and only leave at odd hours of the day when no reslife staff members are around...let's just say I have a past) will one day live in a tiger nation where they will not judge others by the color of their skin and/or fur but by the content of their character.

#23: the sexy prayer voice

The concept for today's post was submitted by Jacob Watson and Sky Howard. However, Jacob and Sky are not to be implicated in any sacrilege that may have snuck its way into today's post. For that, the writer of SOL is entirely to blame (and apologetic).

Thanks to the writings of those like John and Staci Eldredge, Susan Campbell, Hillsong, and many creative interpreters of Song of Solomon, phrases like "being in Romance with Jesus," "Jesus, lover of my soul," and "Dating Jesus" are now regulars in the world of Christian dialogue. This kind of lingo can become confusing to those of us Ouachitonians who depledged from the exegeting club after taking that Bible Interp final. As inspiring as these phrases may be for some, I often find myself wondering if, when I pray, I should be envisioning an image of that wimpy, creepo Jesus depicted in many Baptist Foyer paintings, or rather, something more along the lines of Will Smith. And should I change my facebook relationship status from "single" to "in a relationship with Jesus Christ?" For me, talking about Jesus in an eros kind of way leaves room for implications that make me just a little squirmy. But, maybe that's just me.

However, though I may be the only one wrestling with these particular questions, the discussion of romancin' it up with the Creator of the Universe has definitely had some subtle effects on the way we Ouachitonians express our faith. I would now like to call your attention to a phenomenon that has been sweeping Ouachita prayer circles for some time now...the Sexy Prayer Voice. The Sexy Prayer Voice (let's call it SPV, for short), has a dramatic way of entering the scene whenever someone decides that, yes, right here, right now, we're going to take things there. We're going to invite the Lord into this conversation we are having, even though we secretly know that He has been here the whole time.

You've heard the SPV before, likely you've even rocked it before: voice drops at least half an octave, words become more slowly and emphatically enunciated, aspiration of consonants dramatically increases, and ending "s's" are held just a little bit longer. Everything sounds at least 250% more heartfelt.

There are many reasons to rock the SPV. Perhaps God will be quicker to answer if He knows that you are really feeling it for that someone on whose behalf you are interceding; I think I read somewhere once that His ears are in fact more attuned to words spoken in the style of Morgan Freeman. And I can guarantee that your lowered pitches will be more easily heard by all the elderly ladies and cocker spaniels in your prayer circle. Furthermore, your slower speaking speed will be greatly appreciated by all the non-native English speakers around you.

However, the greatest reason to bust out the SPV when you are having quality time with the Lord in the presence of others is to sky-rocket your level of matrimonial eligibility in the eyes of those who are both members of your prayer circle AND the opposite sex. The SPV reveals that you are sensitive to the needs of others in an I'm-not-obligated-to-say-this-I-really-do-weep-myself-to-sleep-nightly-for-the-orphans-of-Africa kind of way. Furthermore, it proves to those available co-eds that you are lovin' Jesus in the same kind of way you'll be lovin' them. Forget about having to prove your awesomeness through expensive, eternally insignificant means like flowers, chocolate, fancy dinners, and original song serenades. All you need is love. And nothing shows your capacity for love like the sexy prayer voice. You're welcome.