Let me tell you a story.
I grew up in a conservative fundamentalist Christian home. I was the perfect child. When I graduated high school, I came out 11th in my class out of 188, had straight A's, took 3 AP classes and passed the exams for every one, and had never kissed a boy. I was accepted into both colleges to which I applied: Milikin University, and Olivet Nazarene University. Both were much closer to home than I would have liked, but seemed nice, and were offering large scholarships - the biggest stipulation in my future college career.
Ultimately, mostly due to my parents' influence, I chose the nice, conservative Chrisitan school, which promised a beautiful campus, prayer and devotions at the beginning of every class, chapel services twice weekly, an on-campus church, and the kind of fundamental God-centered environment you can only create with strict Bible-based rules and a community of shy, mostly homeschooled "good-kids" who wouldn't dare break them.
This is the story of how that environment turned me into the heathen I am today.
I started at Olivet in the Fall of 2010, two and a half months after graduating high school. I chose to study music - another area into which I was pushed by my parents, both music majors, themselves - with a concentration in Composition. I was going to write musicals.
As a music major, and with 8 years experience playing flute, it's only natural that I ended up in the Olivet Marching Tigers - the university marching band, one of the largest in the state. This meant arriving on campus a full two weeks before anyone else - making move-in deceptively easy with no other freshmen to trip over. Living in the Freshman Girls' dorm meant that I got to move into my room right away, rather than having to wait a week for the Bears to move out of the rest of them.
Oh, yes. The Bears. As in the Chicago Bears. The football team. Who held their training camp at Olivet every year, cutting into the first week of camp. Whose presence created such massive traffic jams that it became unreasonable to make a brief trip to the Walmart just two miles from campus during our hour-long lunch breaks, because you would never make it back in time. And who were apparently so in fear that I would stab them to death with my flute that for one week every year, I wasn't allowed to walk through the quad in the middle of campus, venture any further than my own dormitory, or even park anywhere other than the practice field parking lot - 6 blocks off of campus. I had to wear a security badge just to get lunch in the cafeteria or walk into my dorm.
I hate the Bears.
But, I digress.
Band camp, for those of you who have never been, is not the wild orgy-fest you see in movies (not even at a party school. I've been to one of those too. I'll get to that later.) What it is is two weeks of sweaty, exhausting, sunburnt hell...
...And still, somehow, the best time of your life.
Now, the experience at a community-based college like Olivet is a little different from a state university, as I discovered, but the principle is the same. You spend a week learning and re-learning all the basic marching techniques you've somehow un-learnt over the last 9 months, followed by a week of putting drill chart after drill chart onto the field in an effort to be ready to march an actual show during the halftime of the first game of the season, which unwaveringly takes place the very first weekend of classes. Because it's not like you had anything to do that weekend, anyway.
Evenings at Band Camp at Olivet were a lot like a youth group or VBS - the band was broken into randomized teams (to encourage inter-sectional friendships, something you don't see at state schools), and then competed in camp-style games like eating contests, trivia matches, or physical stunts, to earn points toward a pizza party at the end of camp. Each day of camp featured a theme, such as "twin day," "fantasy day," or "dress like the professor day," (there was always a "dress like the professor day.) for which everyone came to rehearsal - both on and off the field - in full (probably painstakingly homemade) costume. Believe what you will about band geeks, but we're the real cool kids.
It was in the midst of these blissful, hellish weeks that the first rule violations of the year always took place.
Now, of course, what happens at band camp stays at band camp, so most of these violations went unreported and thus unpunished. It always started small - dress code violations in the form of tank tops and short shorts, an effort to keep somewhat cool while marching in 105 degree full-force afternoon sunshine. From there, it moved to things like letting guys into the girls' dorm - mostly to help move heavy wood furniture, but a violation nonetheless. Perhaps the occasional curfew was broken in favor of finally making it to Walmart for sunscreen or ramen or a lamp or whatever else it was you desperately needed. For the most part, all tame, innocent violations. Sure, you heard the occasional story of seniors going out for a drink (Olivet is a 100% dry, zero-tolerance campus. You can get suspended for throwing away someone else's beer can that you found on the street.), and once I heard tell of a brass player actually getting laid on campus during camp (scandalous!), but for the most part, we were a tame bunch.
And then, school starts. Campus explodes with life. Students arrive in a frenzy of coordinated bedding and mile-high cardboard boxes.
This is where the fun begins.
See, although a fundamentalist Christian school like Olivet promises a wholesome, God-centered, strictly enforced environment, the outcome is far different from expectation. Because what happens when you get an entire campus of repressed, latently-rebellious, formerly-fundamentalist, newly-minted adults, getting their first taste of freedom, ironically, is that all hell breaks loose - in a rather literal sense.
These fresh grown-ups with all their new responsibility and stunted rebellion are not looking at these new, strict "community guidelines" as a way of life, they're looking at them as an infringement on the first taste of freedom they've probably ever had. So, rather than obediently follow them to the letter, we found loopholes. And if there's one thing Christians love, it's loopholes.
And my, did we get creative. If there was a way around something, we found it. Figuring out ways to get around the rules is what the cool kids did on weekends - mostly because there wasn't anything else to do. Entire cafeteria discussions revolved around how to bypass the oppressive system of violations and fines (Olivet has an obsession with fining people. Because our $40,000 tuition wasn't enough for them.).
My friends and I got around the rules against swearing by coming up with alternative swear words, or swearing in foreign languages. Our policy was, "If Dr. Bowling (university president) can't understand it, you can't fine us for it." Marching band became a constant excuse for dress code violations. "But it's too hot," we'd protest, pleading with RA's to forgive us the crime of wearing shorts before 4:30. It was never anything major, never enough to draw attention. Just enough to get by, to regain a few personal freedoms.
Now, of course, there were those who did follow the rules and saw no need to embrace their newfound freedoms, and there was a clear divide between us - the "sinners" - and them - the "saints." In fact, there was a literal divide, since the cafeteria was split into two sides, which frequently split the two camps evenly. These people were the pastors' kids who grew up to become pastors themselves, the shy, homeschooled masses, who had never seen an R-rated movie, read a fantasy book, or taken a sex-ed class. By senior year, many of them would convert to "sinner" status, but there were the precious few who made it out unscathed. I was not one of them.
Upon arrival at Olivet, I immediately embraced my freedom, taking the opportunity to finally make decisions for myself - something I had never been allowed to do at home. For once, I had a choice: which bedsheets to buy, what classes to take, whether I could eat nothing but ice cream for dinner (yes, I could, and did), and - the decision that would change everything - who to live with. It is in this way, I ended up, by the second semester of my freshman year, living with my best friend, and now, roommate. And so it begins.
[Continued in Part Two.]
I grew up in a conservative fundamentalist Christian home. I was the perfect child. When I graduated high school, I came out 11th in my class out of 188, had straight A's, took 3 AP classes and passed the exams for every one, and had never kissed a boy. I was accepted into both colleges to which I applied: Milikin University, and Olivet Nazarene University. Both were much closer to home than I would have liked, but seemed nice, and were offering large scholarships - the biggest stipulation in my future college career.
Ultimately, mostly due to my parents' influence, I chose the nice, conservative Chrisitan school, which promised a beautiful campus, prayer and devotions at the beginning of every class, chapel services twice weekly, an on-campus church, and the kind of fundamental God-centered environment you can only create with strict Bible-based rules and a community of shy, mostly homeschooled "good-kids" who wouldn't dare break them.
This is the story of how that environment turned me into the heathen I am today.
I started at Olivet in the Fall of 2010, two and a half months after graduating high school. I chose to study music - another area into which I was pushed by my parents, both music majors, themselves - with a concentration in Composition. I was going to write musicals.
As a music major, and with 8 years experience playing flute, it's only natural that I ended up in the Olivet Marching Tigers - the university marching band, one of the largest in the state. This meant arriving on campus a full two weeks before anyone else - making move-in deceptively easy with no other freshmen to trip over. Living in the Freshman Girls' dorm meant that I got to move into my room right away, rather than having to wait a week for the Bears to move out of the rest of them.
Oh, yes. The Bears. As in the Chicago Bears. The football team. Who held their training camp at Olivet every year, cutting into the first week of camp. Whose presence created such massive traffic jams that it became unreasonable to make a brief trip to the Walmart just two miles from campus during our hour-long lunch breaks, because you would never make it back in time. And who were apparently so in fear that I would stab them to death with my flute that for one week every year, I wasn't allowed to walk through the quad in the middle of campus, venture any further than my own dormitory, or even park anywhere other than the practice field parking lot - 6 blocks off of campus. I had to wear a security badge just to get lunch in the cafeteria or walk into my dorm.
I hate the Bears.
But, I digress.
Band camp, for those of you who have never been, is not the wild orgy-fest you see in movies (not even at a party school. I've been to one of those too. I'll get to that later.) What it is is two weeks of sweaty, exhausting, sunburnt hell...
...And still, somehow, the best time of your life.
Now, the experience at a community-based college like Olivet is a little different from a state university, as I discovered, but the principle is the same. You spend a week learning and re-learning all the basic marching techniques you've somehow un-learnt over the last 9 months, followed by a week of putting drill chart after drill chart onto the field in an effort to be ready to march an actual show during the halftime of the first game of the season, which unwaveringly takes place the very first weekend of classes. Because it's not like you had anything to do that weekend, anyway.
Evenings at Band Camp at Olivet were a lot like a youth group or VBS - the band was broken into randomized teams (to encourage inter-sectional friendships, something you don't see at state schools), and then competed in camp-style games like eating contests, trivia matches, or physical stunts, to earn points toward a pizza party at the end of camp. Each day of camp featured a theme, such as "twin day," "fantasy day," or "dress like the professor day," (there was always a "dress like the professor day.) for which everyone came to rehearsal - both on and off the field - in full (probably painstakingly homemade) costume. Believe what you will about band geeks, but we're the real cool kids.
It was in the midst of these blissful, hellish weeks that the first rule violations of the year always took place.
Now, of course, what happens at band camp stays at band camp, so most of these violations went unreported and thus unpunished. It always started small - dress code violations in the form of tank tops and short shorts, an effort to keep somewhat cool while marching in 105 degree full-force afternoon sunshine. From there, it moved to things like letting guys into the girls' dorm - mostly to help move heavy wood furniture, but a violation nonetheless. Perhaps the occasional curfew was broken in favor of finally making it to Walmart for sunscreen or ramen or a lamp or whatever else it was you desperately needed. For the most part, all tame, innocent violations. Sure, you heard the occasional story of seniors going out for a drink (Olivet is a 100% dry, zero-tolerance campus. You can get suspended for throwing away someone else's beer can that you found on the street.), and once I heard tell of a brass player actually getting laid on campus during camp (scandalous!), but for the most part, we were a tame bunch.
And then, school starts. Campus explodes with life. Students arrive in a frenzy of coordinated bedding and mile-high cardboard boxes.
This is where the fun begins.
See, although a fundamentalist Christian school like Olivet promises a wholesome, God-centered, strictly enforced environment, the outcome is far different from expectation. Because what happens when you get an entire campus of repressed, latently-rebellious, formerly-fundamentalist, newly-minted adults, getting their first taste of freedom, ironically, is that all hell breaks loose - in a rather literal sense.
These fresh grown-ups with all their new responsibility and stunted rebellion are not looking at these new, strict "community guidelines" as a way of life, they're looking at them as an infringement on the first taste of freedom they've probably ever had. So, rather than obediently follow them to the letter, we found loopholes. And if there's one thing Christians love, it's loopholes.
And my, did we get creative. If there was a way around something, we found it. Figuring out ways to get around the rules is what the cool kids did on weekends - mostly because there wasn't anything else to do. Entire cafeteria discussions revolved around how to bypass the oppressive system of violations and fines (Olivet has an obsession with fining people. Because our $40,000 tuition wasn't enough for them.).
My friends and I got around the rules against swearing by coming up with alternative swear words, or swearing in foreign languages. Our policy was, "If Dr. Bowling (university president) can't understand it, you can't fine us for it." Marching band became a constant excuse for dress code violations. "But it's too hot," we'd protest, pleading with RA's to forgive us the crime of wearing shorts before 4:30. It was never anything major, never enough to draw attention. Just enough to get by, to regain a few personal freedoms.
Now, of course, there were those who did follow the rules and saw no need to embrace their newfound freedoms, and there was a clear divide between us - the "sinners" - and them - the "saints." In fact, there was a literal divide, since the cafeteria was split into two sides, which frequently split the two camps evenly. These people were the pastors' kids who grew up to become pastors themselves, the shy, homeschooled masses, who had never seen an R-rated movie, read a fantasy book, or taken a sex-ed class. By senior year, many of them would convert to "sinner" status, but there were the precious few who made it out unscathed. I was not one of them.
Upon arrival at Olivet, I immediately embraced my freedom, taking the opportunity to finally make decisions for myself - something I had never been allowed to do at home. For once, I had a choice: which bedsheets to buy, what classes to take, whether I could eat nothing but ice cream for dinner (yes, I could, and did), and - the decision that would change everything - who to live with. It is in this way, I ended up, by the second semester of my freshman year, living with my best friend, and now, roommate. And so it begins.
[Continued in Part Two.]
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