I was very nervous about
defending my thesis. My head said there was nothing to worry about, but since I
have always been a nervous person and got rattled easily, I had my doubts about
succeeding. I knew I would be drilled on philosophy. I had no doubts I could
get through the sections on the coach and the practice. After all, they didn’t
care much about that part and I was confident I had that down pat. I had plenty
of experience.
Three professors sat behind a
table and invited me to come and sit in a chair located in the middle of the
room. If they were really going to be friendly, why not let me sit at the same
table with them. I felt like I was being interrogated – which, of course, I
was.
My evaluators totally ignored my
third section on the practice. They didn’t really care. They just looked for
typos and grammar. They did ask how I came up with so many different ways to
practice. I had actually used most of them. Some came from other coaches. That
was it. That section still holds up well. I believe variety is the spice of
life.
I was looking through the book in
preparation for this posting and laughed out loud about a section in on
preparing a budget. I suggested that the cost of travel ought to be planned at
12¢ a mile. Gas was selling at 53¢ a gallon. Those were the days. Made me long
for the past.
I loved rereading the stories
found in the philosophy section; I relived many of those quizzes. I had written
to a number of former quizzers to ask about their stories and get permission to
include them in the book. Holden Bowker of Saskatoon wrote:
“Quizzing was the most important I had during my teen years. I must
admit that at times I enjoyed it more as a game and a release for my
competitive spirit. But in retrospect I realize just how subtly the word of God
was implanted in my heart.” Holden manages at major para church
organization in Canada now (2012).
Bob Peters memorized several
books of the Bible as a quizzer and continued the practice as a pastor and into
his role as a district superintendent. By the time of his premature death in
the mid 1990’s, he had memorized about 2/3’s of the Bible.
Errol Rempel is the senior pastor
of a large Canadian church in Abbotsford, BC. He said it developed him
spiritually and believed it also helped him to think faster. These were my
quizzer and I have always been exceptionally proud of their accomplishments.
The committee liked the personal
stories and felt it supported the value of the program. I was glad about their response,
as I had to help them all get past seeing it only as a game.
After I was finished with the
interview, I was excused while they deliberated. I was pretty sure I had Norm
Wakefield’s approval but worried about the other two. One I did not know at
all. Can’t even remember his discipline at this time. I remember the Bible
professor as I had classes with him. He made me nervous and with good reason. I
didn’t like him very much and suspected the feeling was mutual. He required
that we buy a notebook for his class that he at written. It was a fill in the
blank workbook. He lectured and we filled in the missing words. OK, I thought
it was a throwback to high school. In the first exam he ask a question I
considered absurd. “According to page ---- of my workbook, what did I say about
-----?” What? Who memorizes pages in a professor’s workbook? My mistake was
that I wrote on the exam paper how silly I believed the question was and gave
no answer. Besides thinking it was a horrible way to word a question, I had no
idea what the answer was. I probably got hung up on the comment about the page
number. He accepted my comment but wrote that I had an ‘F’ on that question.
Whoops! I didn’t really care. It was only one of two questions I missed.
When called back in I was told
the thesis had been approved. I had an ‘A’. When I told Della, she was so happy
and proud. Then I told her that everyone gets an ‘A’. You have to keep redoing
the paper until you do get the ‘A’. At least I didn’t have to rewrite it.
No comments:
Post a Comment