The "Non-Date" Update

If anyone has read my blog regarding my wonderful "Non-Date" experience, I thought that it might be a good idea to do an update.

My "Non-Date" date, Zach Cruse, is now my boyfriend, and thanks to my amazing best friend Lauren, we're pretty much ecstatically happy together.  Cliche as it may be, it's definitely thanks to her.  Momma Lauren got it perfectly right, and her "love-tinglies" deserve all of the credit.  So to her, I say, thanks for caring enough to want me to be happy, and for setting me up with someone so amazing.  And to Zach, I say, thanks for being awesome, and not a creeper.  I would have felt bad if I had to use my pink can of pepper spray that night.

As for my prom date disaster, prom was really fun, but the date part didn't last.  That interest fizzled and died, and I think his interest in me fizzled sooner than I thought, or maybe wanted.

I think that everything happens for a reason, and that I've been extremely blessed to have a friend that truly cares and a boyfriend that exceeds any expectation I may have ever had for a relationship.  So to God, I pray thanks for the blessings You have bestowed upon me, and for the amazing people You have put in my life.

A Scene in My Life: The "Non-Date"

It was the end of June and the heat had anyone who stepped outside sweaty, red faced and sticky within minutes.  My air conditioner was broke, I was working seven and a half hours every day and I was more concerned with how I was going to pay for my mission trip to Arizona that ran at about $400 and how much a new A/C air compressor was going to hit my already feeble bank account.  For the first time since I was 15, dating was the last thing on my mind.

My best friend, a perky, tall blond, that always had her hair in a ponytail, and when she walked, it bounced.  Her bouncy ponytail described her personality to a tee.  She could be a bit pushy, and she always wanted her friends to be ecstatically happy.  As for me, she decided ecstatically happy would only come if I were seriously dating a good Christian boy that Momma Lauren would approve of.

After a disastrous prom date setup, I had pretty much lost all confidence in Lauren, so when she texted me that someone was interested, I rolled my eyes and calmly replied, “Really? Who?”  The text back was “Zach! Zach Cruse! Remember him from the lock-in?”

After that qualifier, “from the lock-in,” it hit me.  Zach was the guy I had talked to at 2 a.m.  I was running on very little sleep, and everyone else had been ridiculously hyper, but Zach and I weren’t.  We wound up talking for three hours about nothing specific; music, our love/hate relationship with Death Cab for Cutie, movies, our die-hard love affair with Star Wars and our disagreement on William Shatner Star Trek or the absolutely horrible (in my opinion) Next Generation.  That random conversation was what stuck out to me.  I couldn’t really remember details about what he looked like, so I did what any other curious 19 year old female would do: I Facebook stalked his pictures and scoped out his friends.

Zach seemed like an interesting guy, so I gave Lauren the thumbs up and the go ahead.  She gave him my number.  I think I was more worried about her forcing him to text me than if we would actually like me or not, and yes, she had forced texting on a guy before.  The prom fiasco was still vivid in my mind.

The first text came on July 1.  I was at work, sneaking my cell phone from my purse when I knew my boss wasn’t around. He was at his Grandma’s.  For five straight days I woke to a text and fell asleep to a text.  SMS messaging was the new pilot light for relationships in my life.  We clicked immediately, and I knew I wanted to see where we could go.

Five days later, Zach and I had our first “non-date.”  I agonized over what to wear. I still didn’t have my air fixed yet, and at a humid 95 degrees outside, I was worried I would show up at the bowling alley with melted make-up, sweat-stains under my arm pits and crazy hair that would make me seem like a Scary Spice Girl wannabe.  I was running late, per usual, and I was already nervous.  Dating wasn’t something I did very much in high school.  In all actuality, I hadn’t dated in two and a half years.  I got to the bowling alley and there he was.  He looked fairly harmless.  I was pretty for sure I could take him down if I needed to.  And then he smiled, and said hey, and I forgot about my little pink pepper spray bottle in my purse.  I smiled back, we bought two games of bowling, and immediately started conversation. 

It was like we had been friends for years before then.  We talked about church, our friends, school, and anything else that popped into our heads.  He made fun of my little dance moves after I tossed my bowling ball down the alley.  He laughed at the thud it made when I accidently lofted it.

The night wasn’t all about bowling though, it was about finding my way back to being social, to saying hey, I’m capable of going out on a “non-date” and surviving.  It was a liberating thought.  And I got a bonus out of the entire experience.

“Huh,” I thought to myself.  “I really like this one.”

A Scene in My Life: On Graduation Day

The first thing that ever stuck out to me about graduation day was my shoes.  I absolutely loved my dress.  It was white, to go under our white gowns, and it was perfectly cut to fit correctly in all the right places.  My hair looked good, for once, and I put in a little pearl clip to help hold my hair in place. 

The oddball to my entire outfit ensemble was the shoes though.  They were on loan from my mother because they were the only pair of white shoes that were sophisticated enough for graduation and fit to the point that they wouldn’t fly off when I attempted to walk.  The problem with these shoes was that they were white, but they weren’t a perfect white.  The color was off so slightly that you could just make out the difference.  To a perfectionist that slight difference was enough to drive me mad.  They were my only option, so I had to go with them, but I thought to myself, “This doesn’t bode well for the rest of graduation.”

The drive to my high school was hot and sticky.  I was in a hurry and I was nervous.  I was one of the first people to be walking in to the traditional graduation fanfare, and I was scared out of my mind that I would fall and trip over my stupid off-white shoes and slow down the entire procession.  It was a common fear among my classmates, but they were lucky enough to not have my sense of balance and coordination.  My fear was a legitimate one.

As I was rushing around to get into place I felt very disjointed from the celebrations going on around me.  I was still unbelievably nervous, but I no longer felt the gripping anxiety.  I smiled and took pictures with some of my good high school friends.  I smiled and took pictures with people I had talked to all of five times throughout high school.  The entire time I kept thinking, “I am not going to miss this place at all, or these people.”

Finally, it was time to take my place in line.  As a member of the top ten, I was able to sit in the front row, and I would be one of the first to receive my diplomas.  I was excited about this because it meant I could space out and daydream about going to dinner with my parents and stepbrother to my favorite restaurant.  I was ecstatic my stepbrother had made it, and I wanted to spend time with my family.  The ceremony felt like a formality.

Our row stood up and moved to the stage.  I felt my breath catch in my throat and my nerves came back full-force.  Although I felt fairly detached from the importance of the ceremony, I didn’t want to make a fool of myself in front of my family by tripping.  When my name was called, I took a deep breath and put one ugly shoe in front of the other, shook the hand of a school board member I didn’t particularly know, grasped my diploma, smiled and headed off the stage at a quick pace.  It was finally over.

The real highlight came when walking by the teacher section after receiving my diploma.  The moment I would never forget is my past instructors standing up to give me a hug as I walked by.

My newspaper adviser, as odd and funny as he is, stood up with a wide smile on his face, shook my hand, and said congratulations with more enthusiasm than I ever heard him use outside of discussing NPR. 

My advanced placement English literature teacher stood up and gave me a big hug.  She whispered, “Congratulations, JWray,” into my ear, and patted me on the shoulder as I drew away.

It was those two instances that made me value that graduation ceremony.  Aside from the fact that my family was there to see me, those two teachers made me realize that although I wouldn’t really miss my peers, or the academics, I would miss the people that I had come to know as my instructors.  The lessons and the values I was taught in and out of the classroom would be the building blocks I’d take with me to college.

That handshake and hug were my graduation ceremony.  The diploma, that I worked so hard to get, is lying at the bottom of a box somewhere right now.  What my instructors taught are still with me today. 

A Scene in My Life: The Move

For the first time that I could remember, I was packing up all of my stuff and moving.  My mom and stepdad had bought a house in town and we were in the process of packing up everything and moving it.  That was the day all of the heavy furniture was leaving.  That was also the day that I would see the rooms of my childhood house completely empty.

I remember my mother telling me that I didn’t have to help with the move.  She rolled her eyes and gave a little huff, “You might get in the way,” she said.  But I wouldn’t listen.  At fourteen, I thought I would be fine.  I could help, and I’d get to be in our home a little while longer.

The moving men came in and took out the heavy Amish oak furniture from my parent’s room first.  They broke down the headboard and wooden rails, carrying them down the stairs and into the bed of their enormous truck.  I stood by and watched as my mom flitted back and forth from room to room, carrying more boxes of small knick-knacks and books to our cars.

Next, the movers went to my room, strapping down my large maple vanity with two mirrors attached to a larger center one that would swing on their hinges and bang against the wood.  After moving that furniture piece, my pale, pink rose-colored wall looked empty.  They then came for my bed, metal bedrails clanking as they carried it down the stairs as well.  Mom and some of the movers carried out the headboard and the nightstand next. 

That’s when I lost it.

I was standing in the middle of the room, looking at the bare walls when I broke down.  The ugly white carpet with large Victorian roses that I had always hated was uncovered, stripped of my furniture and immature Beanie Baby stand.  I felt the inoffensive carpet was mocking me.  The pale pink walls were unadorned; certificates from elementary school had been taken down the weeks before, my ribbons from my two-year stint in gymnastics packed away.  My pictures of family and friends were in boxes, loaded into cars or already in the new house.  This room, with the hideous carpet and blank walls, wasn’t my room anymore.  It was somebody else’s.  Some other little girl would get to grow up in my room, play in my closet and lose her Barbie dolls somewhere in the corner of my room.

The beads that used to hang from my ceiling were no longer there.  They didn’t make the obnoxious “clank” sound when I walked by, or catch a strand of my hair.  I was crying softly at first, but the more I thought about everything that had happened in that house, in that room, it hit me: there weren’t going to be any more memories there.  After that, the sobs came.

My mom could hear me crying, and when she saw me, she said go to the bathroom.  We walked through her and my stepfather’s old room.  Everything was gone there, too.  The picture that hung above their bed, of a little girl playing in a creek, now hung somewhere in our new house.  And as I walked through their room to the back bathroom, I started crying even harder.  I’m not normally an overly emotional person, but the move hit me hard.  Someplace I had spent so much time, my sanctuary, my haven, was no longer mine to own.

I sat down in the bathroom and let it out.  My mother shut the door so I couldn’t see the empty bedroom beyond.  I couldn’t stop crying no matter how much I tried.  I heard the movers go through room after room taking all of the material objects that marked my history, my growth, out of my home and into some foreign living space that was about as personal and familiar as a hotel room.

After everything was out of the house, and the movers had left, and my home was no longer my home, but what we called “the old house,” my mom came and fetched me from the floor of the bathroom.  I was curled up into a little ball, a habit I revert back to when I’m really upset.  She told me it was done, and that it was time to go.  She let me cry a little bit more, which for my mom was a huge act of kindness and understanding.

I slowly uncurled myself, got up, and walked out of the bathroom door.  Once I saw the barren room again the tears began pouring.  I cried down the stairs and out the front door.  I cried in the car on the way to our new living area.

To this day, I still think of that house as my home.  Even after a lovely young couple, with a baby girl only about a year younger than I was when my parents first bought that house, moved in.  We’ve driven by it a couple of times.  The swing-set that my father built is still there, but the stack of wood for the fireplace is in a different place. 

The first time we drove by I couldn’t help but start crying.  After four years it’s still a sore topic, and one I try not to think about too much. 

Jeff Zeleny speaks at Franklin College

Photo: Jessica Wray

“I am not a witch,” was the first statement Jeff Zeleny, national political correspondent for The New York Times, made at his lecture on Oct. 12.

Zeleny’s statement emerged from the Tea Party Republican Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell and her ad stating, “I’m not a witch, I’m you.”  Zeleny kicked off his lecture with that to chuckles among the crowd.

Zeleny discussed in his lecture the importance of this year’s midterm elections, and the consequences that they might have on Capitol Hill and in the upcoming 2012 presidential election.

One of the main points that he emphasized is the House of Representative seats that are up for reelection this midterm and their importance in Congress.  Zeleny said that out of the approximate 75 seats up for reelection, the Republican Party only needs 39 to win back House majority. 

“It’s well attainable, they can come up with those 39 fairly easily, and perhaps a handful of them from here in Indiana,” Zeleny said.

One of the comments he also made was on the outlook of progress in national government for the United States, based on the increasing partisan division happening in Washington.

“At the end of all this, I think we’re probably heading towards a couple years of stalemate in Washington, and the outlook of that, I’m not too optimistic of the changes that will be done,” Zeleny said.

After discussing Congressional impacts, he also spoke on the emergence of Republican politicians who may be making a run for president in the 2012 elections.  Among national figures, Zeleny also mentioned two Indiana Republican leaders, Gov. Mitch Daniels and Rep. Mike Pence that he suspects might run.

Senior Franklin College student Matt Foreman said he enjoyed the lecture and found it to be informative. 

“For someone who spends a lot of time around politics, he was surprising neutral.  We all get enough partisan views floating around, so it’s refreshing,” Foreman said.

Students need more than test skills

In a press conference call with college and university student journalists, President Barack Obama discussed his administration’s work toward lowering the cost of higher education and strengthening the curriculum so graduates can compete in an international workforce.

One of the points Obama made was that one third of college stu- dents and approximately more than half of minority students fail to earn their college degree after enrolling in an institution.

High school’s main purpose is to prepare students for a higher educational system or the workforce. Public school systems have become so centered on standardized testing and its correlation to funding that it makes me wonder if America is losing the edge in critical thinking.

College preparation in critical thinking, problem solving and real- life application is difficult to transition to when high schools emphasize test-taking strategies over how to become a life-long learner.

Could lack of preparation be the cause for these failing rates? Even if the rates increase, will students be prepared to enter into this new workforce with strong international competitors? If for 12 years students have been mastering tests rather than the material, will four years in a higher education
system really be what breaks that cycle?

The beauty of a liberal arts education is the well-rounded back- ground that it gives students. It promotes the development of skills and knowledge outside intended areas of study. The narrow focus in high school on standardized test scores, and the pressure for students to learn how to take tests rather than master the material, diminishes the goal of preparing students in a similar fashion. If students are worried about scores, when will they absorb skills necessary in a career-focused world?

It starts with the government taking action to increase freedom of instructors to creatively shape their lesson plans. Yes, there need to be some standards nationally, and standardized assessments for higher education entrance, but the overwhelming amount of tests need to be cut.

I respect Obama’s plan to better prepare students for the workforce, but it needs to start much sooner than college. Our competitive issues do not lie solely with higher education institutions, but in elementary and secondary education school systems.

Preparation is the problem. If we can get back the outside-of-the-box thinking that America is supposedly known for, we can retain our position as number one in college graduates. By trying to compete with other countries in test scores, we have lost sight of America’s educational crowning- glory: critical thinking and analytical problem solving.

This story was first published on TheFranklinOnline.com
http://www.thefranklinonline.com/blog/forum/students_need_more_than_test_skills