Of jugglers and Christians

Zoh my gosh zoh my gosh zoh my gosh, I'm so excited!

I woke up to a phone call from a lady named Cindy from the UAF Academic Center. We were supposed to have a phone appointment at one, but apparently she had a meeting to go to, so she called earlier. Glad she told me, because I was really disoriented. "What? I slept till one? Sheesh, am I getting mono again or something?"

Anyway, apparently some of my credits aren't transferring very smoothly, like science. For core requirements, I'm supposed to take two four-credit science classes. Well, I've taken two three-credit science classes. (Three if you count Philosophy as a science, but apparently that's actually a "social science" which isn't the same thing.) Also, since I took Elang classes instead of Linguistics classes, they're not transferring right even though they're exactly the same thing, just with a different name. But Cindy says once I get to UAF, I can sit down with someone and work it all out and it'll all be good. Worst case scenario: Four semesters instead of three. Not too terrible, I guess.

Apparently, they're not really big into Latin, so I still have to take another semester of Latin, but it's a correspondence class, and I go in to the teacher once a week and get one-on-one tutoring for a bit. Intense! Also, funny thing, it's a three-credit class. Weird! Foreign languages have always been four credits!

So I'm taking Latin, morphology, and three core requirements: ethics, public speaking, and advanced writing. Then I asked the lady if UAF had anything like Leading Edge. She said "Why yes, you're talking to the right person, because I'm in charge of it! It's called Icebox." I told her about the work I'd done at Leading Edge and she said, "Oh, that's it, then. We need you. You have no choice now, you're helping us." Yay! I liked her a lot; she knew the answer to every question I asked her, including questions about residency status and juggling club.

That's what got me so excited, actually. Juggling club! WOOT! The club is called Gravity Works, "dropping things on the floor since 1993." The coolest thing ever, though, is... they meet three times a week!! Zoh my gosh, that's so awesome! YJuggle only met once a week, and for the last three semesters at BYU, I couldn't go because Leading Edge overlapped it! (I checked; Icebox doesn't meet at the same time as Gravity Works.) Three times a week, that's so epic!! And you know what else? They get to juggle knives and fire!!! Fire's not allowed on BYU campus. Zooooh my gosh!

Cindy told me she started a horse club a while back too. Horses! On a college campus! What the heck? I need to ask about that too--I love horses!

Yeah yeah yeah, I know, I won't make the same mistake I made my first semester at BYU and join so many clubs that I fail all my classes. And hey, I didn't fail them all... I just got lower grades than I'd anticipated.

Anyway, so now I'm totally stoked for school. Cindy sounded really nice, she said the teachers I have are really good, and I'm so excited for juggling club I can't even stand it! And I'm finally allowed to start thinking again! Finally, people who actually appreciate it when I think differently than everyone else!

Okay, calming down now. Calming... I'm calm.... Someone told me once that you should avoid extreme highs like getting super happy or super excited because then you're subject to extreme lows like severe depression. I think that's a little silly, personally. Besides, being happy is good for you. If you don't believe me, you should try it. ;)

Changing subjects! I went with Tyler to his church thing yesterday. Worship service, I guess it was? They meet both Sundays and Wednesday evenings and I think Tyler's trying to convert me. He says "I'm not trying to convert you, it's entirely up to you." Whatever. He's trying to convert me. Anyway, it was, quite frankly, a little terrifying. Can you say "fanatics"?

There were only about half a dozen people there. We started off by singing a song. And by "singing a song," I don't mean someone played the piano and we sang from a hymnbook. I mean they put a Gospel song on the stereo, complete with guitars and drums and everything, and sang along. I didn't know the words, so they handed me a sheet with just the words written out (sloppily, with about thirty typos per song) and no notes or anything so I could read along. They told me to "focus on the words." So I read over the words. Every single song was basically "Yay Jesus, praise Jesus, you're so amazing, woohoo, go you, I love you so much, love love Jesus Jesus." While they sang, some of them stood up, clapped their hands, waved their arms, and swayed back and forth. That was weird enough, but halfway through the first song, people started chanting "Yes Lord" "That's right Lord" "Thank you Lord" "Oh Christ Jesus" and so on. It was a little eerie. They closed their eyes and the lady giving the lesson said what I assume would be the opening prayer while the song was still playing. The whole time, everyone chanted along in a low murmur "Yes Lord" "Yes Jesus" "That's right" "Be with us, Lord" "yessss.... yessss..." "Please Lord."

The lesson was about how we need to open our hearts and be ourselves because God loves us just the way we are and he's always with us so we can't be afraid of anything. Oh Jesus Jesus.

Then they turned the music back on and swayed and clapped and sang five more songs while chanting along. Each song was between five and ten minutes of "We love Jesus, oh praise Jesus." They turned it off and the lady talked for a few more minutes, bearing testimony, I think, then said "Let's sing that last song again." I managed to avoid that by starting to ask questions. I tried very hard to not ask questions that made it sound like I was challenging them, but unfortunately, I instead came across like I was investigating and interested in converting and "being saved." My main question was "What do you have to do to get into heaven?" The answer, just as I had expected was "All you have to do is confess Jesus as your Lord and Savior and open your heart to him." I think that's ridiculous, frankly. Any "fair and loving God" wouldn't base your eternal salvation on whether or not you believe in someone you may not have ever even heard of. "Oh no," the lady said, "God makes sure everyone on the earth has a chance to hear about him and accept him." I don't believe it.

Another thing that I wasn't impressed with was the fact that they said everything in the world is a lie except the Bible. Evolution is a lie. The world was made in seven days, God made Adam, he ate the forbidden fruit, we're all punished for that, we're all sinners, but God's so merciful he loves us anyway. Yes Jesus. But science is a lie. Most of history is a lie, unless it's the Bible. People are liars and want to separate us from Jesus. And by the way, this isn't a religion, it's a relationship. Oh Lord Jesus. And the answers to all my questions are in the Bible.

"How do you know the Bible is true?" I asked.

"You'll know it in your knower," the lady replied. "I would recommend you start with the book of John and work from there, and if you get frustrated or have a question, call someone and ask."

Then a lady came up behind me and put her hands on my shoulders, making me jump about a foot (I don't like people coming up behind me and touching me), and starting rubbing my back and shoulders and praying over me. And everyone chanted along. "Yes Jesus." "Thank you Jesus." "Answer her questions, Lord." "That's right." "Please Lord."

I asked a million questions and didn't really buy most of the answers. Finally, the lady in charge said it was time to go, and thanked me because I was the answer to her prayer, because just last week she had prayed for God to send her someone who was trying to find Him so she could show them the way to Him. Yes Jesus.

I successfully made it all the way home before cracking up. They were nice people, but zoh my gosh, I thought that kind of creepy fanaticism only really existed in movies and Alabama!

What really confused me, though, was that it felt very similar to how some of my LDS church meetings felt when people said "Oh, the spirit is so strong!" I guess I had sort of assumed that this "Spirit" was something that was only there when you were being Mormon. Maybe it was just the giving off of the feeling of sincerity, though, however kooky it seemed to me. I wonder if that "Spirit" is what makes people believe in religions, and if it's there in all of them. If that's the case, I wonder if there is any "true" religion, and if it even seriously matters which one you join as long as you're not hurting anyone else.

I believe in that which I can observe, that which can be proven, and that which makes logical sense to me. I also believe that dancing around and chanting makes no difference to what happens to your soul after you die. If there is a God and a heaven, or some kind of reward for the way you live your life, that it would be based on what you did with what you had, not what religion you decided to practice.

I've also decided that Mountain Dew Supernova tastes better than Mountain Dew Revolution. I haven't tried the third new flavor yet, but it's in my fridge for as soon as I finish the Revolution one.

This post has been brought to you by the word onomatopoeia.