Blog Jones

Exams are over, thank goodness. I did pretty well. Final grades came out last night: 4 A’s, 2 B’s. And one of those B’s really should have been an A. But, no matter. I’m pleased anyway.

Yesterday and today we’ve been having all of the “Commencement Week” activities. I arrived late to the Sermon Contest yesterday morning, because somehow I managed to misplace an hour in getting ready. I woke up at what I thought was my normal time, took a shower, came out, and *gasp* it’s 6:50 instead of 6! I usually leave at 7 to get there in time for my 8 o’clock class. Fortunately, the contest started at 8:30, so I was able to get ready in what should have been enough time.

But naturally, because I was running late, the passage from I-85 to I-385 became horrendously slow for no apparent reason, even coming to a full stop on a couple of occasions.

Needless to say, my attention was less than well-focused on the sermon contest. That, and both of the speakers I heard were talking about the Great Commission, IIRC, and how we should witness to people, and all that. Nothing we hadn’t all heard a million times already.

So, my mind started to wander off into what I would preach about, were I ever to be compelled to preach. I think I’ll eventually make the topic into its own post later, so I won’t spoil it here.

Then there was an hour break for some reason, probably to allow time for the stage crew to set up for the next of the day’s festivities: the Fine Arts Awards Ceremony/Recital. Apparently there are contests going on throughout the semester in music, art, and speech, and the winners get to perform in front of the entire student body. To me, that would be a punishment rather than a reward–I hate getting up in front of people to do anything–but I guess that’s why I’m not a fine arts major. Yeah, I’m a business major, so that means I’ll be doing presentations from time to time, but the bar is set a lot lower than for fine arts folks. All I have to do is get the information across to my audience clearly without putting them to sleep. Fine arts guys aren’t allowed to make mistakes, period.

The recital went well; as seems to be typical for Bob Jones recitals, the music was good, but too long. The speech parts were excellent, especially the “duet acting” presentation. A guy and a girl did a scene from The Taming of the Shrew, which was hilarous.

After the recital, there was a break for lunch–yay for Jack-in-the-Box–followed by the Scholastic Bowl championship. For those of you who don’t know, the Scholastic Bowl is a trivia contest that runs throughout the second semester of every year. The societies each send teams of three representatives who have to answer various obscure questions ranging from music history to science to business to BJU-related trivia. Each correct answer is worth 10 points; if you answer incorrectly, you lose 5 points and the opposing team can answer for a chance at 5 points.

This year was apparently the closest champtionship ever in the 21 years the games have been played: The winning team only scored 5 points more than the losing team. The contest was at least mildly entertaining.

That was it for yesterday: I came home, changed, and bought a DVD burner. It’s very pretty:

I like it.

Today was more of the same; an awards ceremony, which recognized a bunch of students who performed well academically throughout the year, as well as teachers who had reached various milestones in their teaching careers. I was amazed to learn that there are a few teachers who have taught at BJU for 50 years. I can’t imagine staying in one place that long, no matter where.

I also saw a production of Hamlet, which was very good. I’d never seen Hamlet before. My favorite part: Hamlet has just killed Polonius, the long-winded and annoying, yet decent, nobleman who is the father of Hamlet’s one-time love interest Ophelia. (In fairness to Hamlet, Polonius did take him by surprise, hiding behind a curtain in the Queen’s bedroom.) Soon after enters Claudius, Hamlet’s uncle who has killed the rightful king, Hamlet’s father, and who has taken his kingdom and his queen, and who (combined with the ghostly apparation of Hamlet’s father) driven Hamlet to madness.

KING CLAUDIUS: Where is Polonius?

HAMLET: In heaven; send hither to see: if your messenger find him not there, seek him i’ the other place yourself.

At this point much of the audience made a noise like “OOoooooo!” as if to say “Touché!”

There’s also some concert thing tonight, but I don’t have to go. Why? I’m a town student living 30 miles away. BJU has graciously relaxed the rules for people in my situation: I only have to attend two artist series performances and two vespers in per semester, while the dorm students have to attend all of them. (Of course, dorm students also have a 45-minute shorter commute than I do, so it all evens out.)

The last of the commencement week activities is commencement proper, which I’ll be attending tomorrow. I normally wouldn’t attend, but I think that I ought to come to at least one commencement before actually participating in one. I expect it to be at least a little interesting: Dr. Bob is handing over the reins of BJU to his son, Dr. Steven Jones tomorrow.

And now you know why I try to avoid the “here’s what I did today!” kind of posts–they’re long and boring. I’ll have to say something of substance in the near future. Until then, good night.