To Dear Alma Mater We Pledge Fidelity

Last Thursday, our school hosted its annual college night. This year for the first time, our school’s guidance counselor invited teachers to set up a table and represent their colleges.

I emailed the recruiter at Calvin and had her send me a box of literature. I started spending time on the Calvin webpage getting up to speed on all things Calvin (hey, nice remodeling of the Fine Arts Center by the way). I made a big “Calvin” sign. I brought my notes to the dinner table to study (did you know that 83% of Calvin professors have achieved the highest degree possible in their field?). Julie pointed out that I didn’t study this hard when I was at Calvin. Too true.

The night of the fair, I decided to forego the too-obvious Calvin College t-shirt and instead opted for the more professional-looking shirt and tie.

The doors opened and we were flooded with enthusiastic parents and high schoolers.

One of my colleagues with whom I love to banter and spar in the faculty lunchroom was set up at the table next to me. She was representing Cal Lutheran which is in sunny Southern California.

She wasn't being quite so self-serious. She didn’t go quite so overboard in her preparations. What she did do though was find a web page that will print out a line graph comparing the annual temperatures of two cities of your choice.

So as future graduates got done listening to me prattle on about Calvin for five minutes and wandered over to her table, she simply pulled out her line graph and showed them the winter-time temperature in Grand Rapids, Michigan versus Thousand Oaks, California.

She had twice as many kids sign up to receive follow-up emails as I did.

Devious and maniacal in its simplicity.

Man, I really hate being bested.

-Jack