The Chesterfield McFisticuffs Blog

Top 10 Tyndale Moments... PART 1

Having graduated with a B.A. in Business Administration from the illustrious Tyndale University College (stay tuned next week for an entry entitled "A day in the life of a Tyndale grad"... should be a good one) approximately 2 weeks ago, I've had a lot of time to reflect over my time at Tyndale and have come up with my top ten memories of my experience at Tyndale. For the most part, these are humorous and lighthearted things but there might be a couple of serious or sappy parts in there, as would be expected. However, those are few and far between.

Without further ado, presented for your enjoyment, here are my top ten Tyndale moments, starting with numbers 10 through 6:

10... "Are your pillows dirty or clean?": In quite possibly one of the most heated moments in the history of the spring banquet celebrations, Jon Gordon manages to alienate the entire female community while the vast majority of the school goes into an uproar over his controversial "dirty pillow" comments. The alleged incident included possible organized dancing, of an inappropriate variety, that may or may not have caused Tyndale President Brian Stiller's heart to skip a beat and his Bible to fall off of his night table and land open, possibly on the page containing Exodus 32:19. As for Jon, he managed to ride out the situation, tucked away from angry faces and sharp pitchforks, taking refuge in the school library.

9... "We're going streaking": In what could otherwise be termed a complete bust of a weekend, the RA retreat was livened up by a little male RA bonding on the beaches of Grand Bend, with the entire male component of the student leadership team went streaking along the shore. Not only was the late night/early morning a dark, cloudy, and cold one(thus promoting an excessive amount of shrinkage), but it was also made even more interesting by the fact that we didn't realize that the vast majority of the female population on the leadership team were mere feet away from us, thus getting a show that they won't forget (but may want to) for a long time.

8... "The John Mark Factor": You may remember an earlier story on this blog that describes the adventure it is to be assigned a business presentation with the infamous John-Mark Raddatz. John-Mark is a very enthusiastic and zealous person, traits that do not particularly help him in the realm of business presentations. Incident #1 has been previously described, but here's a refresher anyway. John was given a strict script to stick to in the presentation, and not only did he ignore that script altogether, but he also made up millions of dollars worth of numbers and figures in the presentation and punctuated his point by vigorously circling his final, made-up, figure and proceeded to spike the whiteboard marker directly into the floor before walking off-stage. Incident #2 was just recently. We were assigned a case study on how to make changes to a board of directors that had no outside authority. John managed to turn his 5 minute segment into a ten minute rant on the emerging church, which had nothing to do with anything we were talking about. To top things off, fellow groupmate Chris Lewis burst into laughter in the middle of the presentation and didn't stop until John was finished.

7... "Residence 2002-2003": My first year of Tyndale was spent in the confines of 4 north, which was an amazing dorm, top to bottom. There was always something going on in 4 North, whether it was naked cartwheels or wrestling in the hallway. One memorable moment was the waxing/shaving/nairing night, which took place in the lounge. Bushey and Feeney waxed their legs, Smitty shaved his, and I naired my chest. Unfortunately for me, I failed to fully read the instructions, which warned against the Nair creme touching my nipples, and as a result, they were on fire for a week. Lesson of the day... If the instructions say "Do not apply to the nipple area", you'd better damn well heed those instructions. A favorite activity in 4 North was the game called "Bowling for Nuts" which essentially was the bouncing of a tennis ball at the other guy's groin. One epic moment came when Bobby McKay, 100 pounds soaking wet, floored Oliver Clarke, Hulk Hogan lookalike with a no look head turned backhanded bounce that kept him down until well past the amount of time it took Bobby to sprint down the hall, locking his door and hiding in his room.

6... "Summer 2003": My 2003 summer was spent working maintenance at Tyndale from 8:30 in the morning until 4:30 in the afternoon and in the process I got to know the ins and outs of the school on a much more in-depth perspective. The first thing I realized is how ridiculously crappy the building is. If a fire ever started in that place, the whole building would be gone in a matter of minutes. Secondly, I learned that the administration either has absolutely no idea how much they are overcharging their students to live in residence, or they just don't care. Either way, that looks awful on the administration. All that aside, I had a great time helping to fix up the school and in the process getting to know a good friend in Jarod Broughton. We worked together every day tearing out walls, patching them, sanding, and various other repair jobs. With Jarod being a lot more mechanically inclined than I, it presented a great opportunity for me to learn from him. The highlight of the summer was when we got to demolish classroom 143 in order to make way for the new student life wing. Andrew Fortier, my boss, set us loose with crowbars and sledgehammers, knocking out walls and tearing them down. Another example of how cheaply this building is put together presented it self when I tried to have a little fun. From about 70 feet away, I wound up like a baseball pitcher and launched by crowbar towards the wall. I expected it to dig into the wall and hold, so that I could pull out that section of the wall. What actually happened was that the crowbar went straight through the paper-thin wall (i had no idea HOW paper-thin it actually was), and flew right in between the faces of Andrew and another colleague, who were having a conversation on the other side. Needless to say, I did no more demolition work on that day.

Check back in a couple of days for numbers 5 through 1.

posted by Chesterfield McFisticuffs III @ 4:22 PM