Exploring the World

I’m at college, and it is hard.

Monday morning we leave for Camp Bighorn. Finally it will just be the Explore and Discover folks again. It has been getting quite crowded here. The high school uses the dorms and dining hall, both of which are annoying me. Now the food line is really long and we have been kicked off our “Explore” table several times.

I liked it better when there were only a few PCAATer’s plus Explore and Discover. You knew everybody’s face. I am not the only one to feel this way. I guess since we got here first we felt like the campus was “ours” and we feel like our territory is being invaded. Hopefully tomorrow we will play a game of ultimate since it is our “day off”. We have been told that days off aren’t really that. We will probably have meetings and stuff. Tomorrow I do know that we have a Bible content test. That should be interesting.

Almost got sucked into playing basketball tonight. Argh.

Tomorrow is our Summit test. A group of us studied together for about 3 hours today. They plan on studying more tonight but I do not know if I will join them. The group was Dylan, Joel, Nathan, Danny, and me. Found out today that Dylan is from Ohio, is 22. Tim is only 19 or just turned 20, which really surprised me. He seems a lot older. Kinda like the Dominic effect.

Today we worked on splitting Explore into new groups according to workout goals. My group is Jason, Tim, Levi, Zach, and Brad. And me of course. We have cool plans to incorporate frisbee into workouts.

Note to self: Never play basketball again.

Yeah I’m homesick now.

Yesterday the Summit group took a trip down to Calgary to interview people about their worldviews. The bus ride was about 1.5 hours. As expected, I fell asleep. I was sitting next to Brad, who is quiet like me. He was reading most of the time.

When we get there, the bus unloads and we all group up in 3’s. We have to walk across a suspension bridge to get to the park, our destination. I wish would have brought my camera. Across the bridge we step into this amazing park. It is beautiful, with plenty of open space for games, a large playground, and walking trails. Evidently, there was some big Hispanic festival going on, and we saw a lot of Hispanics. Maria wasn’t there :(. Some of the Hispanic kids were playing soccer, and as soon as Nathan notices, he runs over to join them.

I was with Danny and Joel, both of whom are Canadians. Joel is the most talkative of us all, a meloncholy sanguine I would say. Sometimes he does completely random things, but most of the time he is fairly subdued. We interviewed a total of 8 groups of people in the 1.75 hours we spent there. We talked to a Buddhist, Humanist, Post Modernist, and several who weren’t really able to articulate what they believed. We asked 4 main questions:

Do you have a purpose?

What is the really real?

Who am I?

How do I know what is true?

Of course we ended up asking more questions, mainly just to clarify what people said. The Buddhist was the most complete in his answers. It was obvious that he had thought and studied a lot about the subject.

A lot of people answered “To make money” to the question of whether they have a purpose or not. Most people did not believe there was anything beyond what they could see. Most people experience made things true.

One guy Dylan and Kyle talked to claimed to be Jesus. He was spinning around in circles with a bucket of water in one hand, and a toilet cleaner brush in the other making designs on the concrete with the spilled water. Dylan said he kept bringing up the number 666, and variations on it. He quoted scripture, especially Revelation. He said to several questions, “I am not ready to reveal that yet.”

Overall it was an enjoyable time. It really was interesting to listen to what people believed. Some people had never thought about this before.

The bus ride home was interesting. Zach and Rob argued the whole time who had the better military. Rob is ex Canadian military and Rob is America. Finally we decided to decide the issue for ourselves by duking it out at Camp Bighorn. Rob knows some pretty cool war games. Later that day at dinner Dylan called me a “little guy” and “punk”. I told him I could take him anytime. We finished dinner and went outside. He took off his jacket, so I thought he was serious. I took off my pullover and we began to circle. I had mentioned that I knew some jujutsu moves. There were a bunch of girls eating dinner at a picnic table right there.

Unfortunately the jujutsu moves I know are all defense, and depend on the the opponent attacking first. Dylan did not, and instead backed away when I approached. Finally I just for him, tried to pull his legs out from under him. That didn’t work. Dylan’s calves are immense. He tried to put me in a headlock, but I threw him off and was about to attack again when he called it off on account of the gals. “It isn’t proper to fight in front of girls” or something like that.

Today we probably will continue the fight. However, this morning I beat Dylan in chess, so I feel pretty good.

Wake up at 2:30 EST, or 12:30 Mountain time. Fly to Salt Lake City for a 2 hour layover. Notice girl with black hair, wonder if she is going to Prairie. I wondered several other college aged looking kids. Fly to Calgary. Immigration is a pain. I have to wait in a long line waiting for other people who don’t have proper documentation to enter the country. Black haired girl sails through. Finally, it is my turn and I answer a ton of questions about finances and transportation. The immigration officer finally says I am ready and goes to print my student permit. Their printer stops working. She then tells me to go get my baggage and come back. I go look for my bags, but the conveyor belt for my flight is completely empty, and no one is hanging around that area.

After much frantic searching, I finally find my bags on the other side of the room about to be tagged to be taken away by the airline. I make my way back to the immigration office. Unfortunately, more people are there and I have to wait again. Finally my permit is printed, and I am on my way to find the meeting place.

I find Tim Hortans coffee shop, and the black haired gal is there. I then ask her if she is going to Prairie, and she is. Her name is Kimberly G. Brown, 18 from California. Her brother did the program 4 years ago. She wants to be a police officer. She has 3 brothers. We talk a lot because we have to wait 3 hours for our shuttle to arrive. We are the only ones on the shuttle. Peter Mal and his wife Mel are the shuttle drivers. Very nice people. Peter is the admissions guy. He met Mel at Prairie.

We arrive at the campus and eat a quick dinner, unload luggage into my dorm. Erin showed me around a bit, and told me some facts about the college. She was homeschooled also. We arrived too late to go to the first orientation session, so I use the time to unpack some. My roomate’s name is Nathan Smith, though I have not seen him yet. When I first get into my dorm I notice how well organized all his stuff is. All his bags were out of sight, and he has already put books on the shelves and stuff. His bed was made.

Shane comes and knocks on my door telling me that there will be another session for Explore students at 7. I make a note. I still don’t know where anything is on the campus. The session was taught by Pam Koop, the wife of Dwayne who is the Explore director. She really shared her heart about what the program is all about, and I really enjoyed what she had to say. She also had us do and interesting game. Basically, she would say everyone who likes football go to the right side of the room, and everyone who likes hockey go to the other. Oh, there are like only 6 girls in Explore.

I meet my roommate. He has earrings and a Mohawk. Really nice guy. He is an Okie, so we are at least from the same country. He is 20, and the oldest of 4. More later. Oh yeah, both he and I are on the “Red” team.