April 2004

James Ehrmann • Assorted Musings

One of my fraternity brothers, Darren, was at the house last night. He’s on a week’s leave from Iraq. To be frank, it was really weird talking to someone who, just a couple weeks ago, was fighting a war for our country. He still is—his medical unit ships back to Iraq and then he has a couple more months overseas.

When I was introduced to Darren, I was called "James, Butch’s pledge kid." That’s been happening a lot lately and I really don’t mind, as everybody in the house likes Butch (my pledge dad), but it definitely gives me new perspective about how my younger sibling must have felt constantly being referred to as “James’s brother.”

Last week, I was hired as a campus tour guide, which was rather exhilarating considering I’m only a freshman. This past week, we had to shadow two walking tours of the campus and one information meeting with prospective students. I really think I’m going to enjoy this job—pleasing and swaying a crowd is my calling card. Throughout training, I did hear one interesting fact about the university: Calvin Hall, the current admissions center, used to be where the Pentacrest currently is located. They wanted to make the buildings around the capital similar in structure and, as the bricks of Calvin Hall apparently just weren’t cutting it, it needed to be moved. So, the building was put on logs and rolled across the street. Classes remained in session as it was being rolled daily across the street.

Final thought of the day is this: how awful must those overweight people who are used for news clips on obesity feel? How would you like to be the fat woman walking down the street with an ice cream cone when Aaron Brown on CNN says, "Studies show that Americans are five times more overweight than Europeans?"

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