So this evening I had to drive out to Carlingford for a camp meeting. Jimbo, who is speaking on the senior section of this camp (“The Real Thing” camp down at Port Hacking. Should be a cracker! Tim has the official title of “Resource”) came along in my car too.
Conversations with Jimbo are always interesting. We set “challenge words” that we had to work into conversation during the meeting (He had to say “dragons”, I had to say “Saucepan”) we talked about our girlfriends, we talked about theology, and then on the way back to college we talked about what it’s like to live with so many different types of people here at college. It was at this time that mobbsy dropped the profound statement…
“Everybody is somebody’s wierdo!”
It’s true isn’t it. For all the of the strange characters that we encounter in our worlds, we are playing the role of “weirdo” for someone else in the play that is their life!
It’s a glorious thing! As one could expect, there is a certain level of uniformity when it comes to people’s characters in Bible College. That said, it is stunning to see the kind of diversity that is on display in this crazy town. There isn’t a guy I live with who doesn’t have some kind of strange habit.
I certainly can’t claim to be devoid of quirks in my personality that would make me the weird one. So, since I am stalling doing some study, maybe I will play “confessional” and see if I can come up with some of the things that make me someone else’s weirdo…
1: I bring my own pepper grinder to meals. Not just a cheap plastic model, but a proper, classy grinder with three different settings. Other’s like their own plunger coffee, I like to know that my meal is going to be seasoned as it should.
2: I also have in my possession, but have not been required to use, a store of salt that I brought back from Poland. A time and a reason, for every season!
3: I have a fear of conversation with people I know vaguely, but not well. I can deal with talking to strangers, but idle chit chat with people I sort of know, but don’t feel like I know well, well that is a no go for Goldy. Morning tea us usually avoided for this reason.
4: I count stairs. I don’t do it all the time, but I do do it most of the time. I know the number of stairs between any two places in college. I can still remember the number of stairs around my old work at Vision Valley camp site.
5: I have orders that I eat almost all of my foods in. An order for roasts (Green vegetables, other coloured vegetables, potato, then meat), I have orders for M&M’s (Brown, Blue, Red, Green, Yellow, Orange), and I even have orders for fast food! (Eat all the fries first before you are allowed to have a drink, then you eat your burger and drink, usually in tandem, so that you have the middle part of the burger left till last & enough drink to have a couple of decent gulps!).
6: I have to keep my inbox as empty as possible. The idea of having more than 5-10 emails in my inbox is disturbing, and if I can keep it down to 1 or 2, then I will. I am the same with anything. I have to subcategorise & refolder things on my computer, so that you can end up going through about 10 folders to finally get to stuff. (But I can ALWAYS find my stuff!).
OK, so there are some of my peccadillos. Anyone else willing to share one of theirs?
Tim Goldsmith 