Divisions and Precisions

Then and Now

I started an entry two days ago about nostalgia, reminiscing about my very first semester in college, in the fall of 1989. One thing I have not ceased to be amazed with, for the past month, is how very different things at Eastern are from things at Lipscomb.* I suppose part of it could be that Lipscomb was and is a very small, private, Christian university, where Eastern is public and -- at least to me -- very large. I think a lot of it is also just the fact that I'm an old fart, and that twelve years is a long time in college time.

The biggest difference I've noticed? Well, at least lately, is how many cell phones there are on campus. It's like freaking everybody has a cell phone. Nobody talks to the people around them on their way to class, because they're all talking on their cell phones. I ride the shuttle bus after my last class, because it's the easiest way to get back to my car. At one of the stops we made, three out of the four people who got on were all talking on their cell phones. Teachers complained about Walkmans when I was in school before. Now they complain about cell phones. I find myself watching with amazement at people who can dodge and dart swiftly through a crowd of co-eds without missing a single "Well then he said... then I told him..."

The ones who aren't talking on cell phones are smoking. I know that's a Lipscomb Culture Shock thing for me. It catches me continually by surprise to see how many students smoke. Going into any building at any given time (particularly the larger buildings) means wading through the crowd of smokers outside. The next item on the Culture Shock List is teachers who swear in class. Gasp! One of my lit prof's favorite expressions is that someone's a "goofy bastard". I think he said "fucker" at some point and I about fell out of my chair. Now, anybody who's read much of this journal ought to know that I don't turn green at a dirty word or three. I use them and hear them enough that I don't usually think much about it. Hearing it in a classroom though, is so foreign to me that it still throws me a little bit. Reading literature with dirty words and "questionable" content. I doubt Zorba the Greek has ever been taught at Lipscomb. The main character sleeps with a bunch of women, gets drunk, and spends a lot of time calling God a devil. This would not go over well at a university where most of the Bible faculty wanted to lynch the one Bible faculty member who actually associated with them sinful Baptists (he was part of an interfaith group, y'see).

A lot of things are foreign enough to me that had I tried to go to a public school immediately after two years at Lipscomb, I probably would have died from culture shock. I miss Lipscomb sometimes, believe it or not. Or rather, I think I miss that time frame and those people and the person I was. I doubt, for example, if I had a chance to go back and attend Lipscomb at this point in time, that I would take it. There's too much about the school that would make me bonkers.

College has definitely been a interesting adjustment if nothing else. It's interesting for the little sociology nut who lives inside my head (well yeah, I have one, doesn't everyone?) to try and determine what changes I see come from the decade that's passed since I was in Nashville and what changes come from the difference between a "Christian environment" and a secular one.

^*This is me, wondering if Lipscomb checks their referrer logs. If they find this page, they'll probably pray for my soul, quit bugging me for donations, and ask me to remove the link. Heh.

Adding to yesterday's whine: I

Adding to yesterday's whine: I want a nice weekend away somewhere quiet where I can sit with my laptop and look at trees and snow and write, then alternate the rest of my time between soaking in a hot tub, watching movies, sleeping and eating.

Why yes, I think I am stressed, thanks for asking. My first government test is Tuesday and my paper for that class is due on Thursday. I really shouldn't be worried about this paper. I mean, it's 3-4 pages double-spaced, which I think comes to about 2,000 words. 2,000 words of my own opinion, yet. Heck, an average journal entry for me is about 500-1,000 words. I'm honestly more worried about the test.