Clubbin'

Yes, I know this post title was lame and corny, but when it popped into my head I just couldn't resist. Today we're going to take a look at the churches, clubs, and societies whose call-outs I've attended. I'm only actually joining three groups that require consistent participation - church, hort club, and the medieval society. With a 19-credit hour schedule, I'm going to try to keep myself sane by minimizing extra-curricular involvement.

Grace Campus Fellowship
Grace is now my church here at Purdue. They are a house church that meets on Sunday and Thursday evenings a few miles off campus, and they're everything a church should be. They're a family that serves as a refuge, yet they emphasize sending us outside of the refuge to bring others in. Julia and I felt at home there from the second we arrived at their picnic the weekend before classes. Beyond the basics required at any church, they also value apologetics and will help me start a series of lessons on campus about the existence of God. Plus, they watch MST3K and Lord of the Rings, and some of them play DnD and Settlers of Catan. I also love the fact that about half of the congregation is international students and professors from China.

Intervarsity
We went to the Intervarsity "beach party" right before we went to the Grace picnic. I didn't like it much. It seemed like just a college version of Younglife - all fun and games and fluff.

Campus Crusaders
I wasn't against Cru, but by the time we went to their call-out Julia and I had already started attending Grace, and I was set on being involved there. I really don't have the time to do studies and such with another group in addition to Grace. It's about the quality of time spent with the church as a whole, not the quantity.

Northview
I went to Northview my first Sunday morning on campus. Julia had gone there the previous Sunday and told me it was a long walk, but I didn't know she meant three miles. I was not wearing the proper shoes for such a trek. My heels were mutilated by the time I got there. Fortunately I got a ride back to campus. I didn't really feel at home there. I don't know how else to say it, but I just didn't fit there.

Boiler Green Initiative
I thought BGI would be an environmental service club, but they're more on the side of extreme activism. I'll probably look into one of the related service-oriented groups they mentioned, but I don't know if I'll have the time to be much of an active participant.

Botany Club
I went to the Botany Club call-out to see if I would prefer it over the Horticulture Club. As much as I would like to be in the botany club, I opted for horticulture. I don't have time for both. At their call-out I created a new friend. His name is Wallace, and he's a chia head (pantyhose filled with potting soil with grass seed at one end). I'm trying to style his grass-hair into a mullet.

Horticulture Club
The hort club doubles as a fun club and a club that will benefit me in the future when I go job-searching or apply to grad school. I'm still not sure if I'm going to grad school. From their call-out I got Maggie and Nadine, a maidenhair fern and a mystery fern. The hort club has interesting speakers come to their meetings, and we do things like carving pumpkins with the botany club, ropes courses with the LA club, and all sorts of great stuff for the hort show in the spring. They also do a fall break trip every year, but I won't be doing that this year. I need my Cincinnati fix.

Outing Club
I'm still up in the air about the Outing Club. They do things like rock-climbing, back-packing, camping, kayaking, and other outdoorsy sports things. As much as I love stuff like that I'm definitely not going to be a regularly participating member. I just don't have the time. I may very well choose to go on an outing or two, but there will be no intense commitment. Maybe next year.

Medieval Society
Oh, the Medieval Society. This is my strictly-for-fun group. They're even more out there than we are at NHCC. They're almost LARPer status. The Medieval Society is part of the SCA (the Society for Creative Anachronism), and they do things like sewing, fighting, singing, and crafts from the middle ages. Although "medieval" is part of their name, they don't restrict themselves to that time period. For example, there's one guy who's a Viking. I'll be joining their singing group and learning to do some combat. They do heavy weapon fighting, "fencing" (it's more like swashbuckling, they use the same weapons, but they don't follow all the rules of fencing), archery, and mounted combat. I'm not sure which one I'll do. I'll probably try them all.

Boiler Volunteer Network
This group falls into the same category as the Outing Club. I love being involved in community service, but I don't have the time to dedicate to a hard-core service group. With the BVN, they just send out massive emails about individual service projects, and whoever wants to can go help. This way I can still help people, but I don't have to stress if I miss projects. Next semester when I have fewer credit hours I'll hopefully be able to be more heavily involved, but for this semester it will just have to fit where I have time for it.