Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Observations on student life

(a.k.a. the counseling student vs the M.Div guy)

Note: based upon years of research. I am not prejudiced. You can trust this.

On Facial Features:
  • Counseling students tend to have (1) large smiles or (2) perfect teeth. Best case scenario: large smile with perfect teeth. Counseling students smile a lot (through roughly 88% of the conversation). This is their way of non-verbally demonstrating that they like you, they feel your pain/satisfaction/anger/hope/hunger/cold/happiness/fear/headache, and the smile is a natural response to their personal joy in counting your 5 minute conversation toward their 6,000 hours needed to graduate.
  • M.Div students don't smile at women. If the woman is single, a smile might lead her on. If the woman is married, he runs the risk of defrauding another man's wife.
On Daily Wear:
  • Standard attire for M.Div: khaki shorts, polo shirt (or t-shirt), running shoes or sandals. Attire reflects the youthful attitude needed for ministry these days as well as providing an easy transition to the golf course (also a ministry necessity). Running shoes bonus--provides a quick exit if a woman is spotted.
  • Standard attire for counseling students: pearls (only for the women)
On Vocabulary:
  • The average M.Div student mentions "John Calvin", "megachurch", "quasi-emergent", and "ordination" roughly 7.4 times a day. Those looking for an immediate senior position after ordination prefer parsing Greek verbs during a conversation.
  • If someone asks you to debrief a conversation, you are speaking with a counseling student.

9 comments:

Scot said...

I believe you forgot a few things:

Counseling student:
- The phrase "how does that make you feel?" is as natural as breathing.

MDiv student
- Arguing is a way of life.
- Words like supralapsarianism, infralapsariam, impassibilty, and ordo salutis are part of your everyday vocabulary.
- Words such as ecumenism, Rob Bell, slain in the Spirit make you cringe.
- You can put "-ism" or "-ist" on the end of any word.
- You can do that without noticing that you just made up a word.
- You take sides to argue who has the greater shock value when speaking: John MacArthur or John Piper.
- You read websites such as this and understand every joke on them.

Scot said...

Correction: You can do that without anyone noticing you just made up a word.

Unknown said...

i'm so happy you're back in school

Amber Rose said...

hilarious

- john said...

yup... narcissistic personality disorder
(counseling students secretly diagnose their friends)

Cindy Lynn said...

Thus begging the question if counseling students actually HAVE friends ;)

Unknown said...

John, how does that make you feel?

Anonymous said...

too funny! and the women really wear pearls?

- john said...

Good question, Cindy! :D
being my friend is NOT a prerequisite.

(I'm writing this down...
Cindy: Chronic Mood Disorder, with Depressive Features)