"The Seven Woes of the Don" #1: Woe to the Undergrad Stalkers

So you say you're one of the many unmarried graduate students at TEDS. You say you're not that good looking or you take yourself too seriously or you kind of smell like a horse. Maybe you don't meet women well or you forget to brush your teeth or you find yourself talking about Halo a lot when you get in social situations.

That's okay.  Not everyone can get a girl as beautiful as Robin Meade.  I have a website for you to check out, a church singles group you can get plugged into, and a woman you can write to for advice.

However, do not, and I repeat, DO NOT, under ANY circumstances, use your pitiful excuse for a love life to help justify stalking the undergraduates of Trinity International University.

I know, I know: they're young, they're pretty, and they're just right across the street.  It's a matter of convenience and I understand it.  That still gives you no excuse to turn into a TEDophile.  Just don't do it.  

Don't.

When I was working on my M. Div. at Cambridge I couldn't get a date to save my life.  That's right, the Don was one lonely dude.  When you're as brilliant as I am, it's just hard to find women who are willing to listen to you talk about Greek verbs, aspect theory, how bad the Emerging Church is, and how right you are about pretty much everything you say.

But then Joy came into my life.  Thankfully, she had a slight hearing problem and was able to tone me out most of the time.  But that's beside the point: she saw how pitiful I was and had mercy on my lonely heart and my brilliant mind.

Gentlemen, you can learn a lesson here: don't become the creepy seminary student.  Become the pitiful one; the one with a heart of gold, a brain of wonder, and a love life of crap.  Then maybe, just maybe, some hot undergrad with a slight hearing problem will take mercy on you, too.

But if you must date an undergrad student, let HER pursue YOU.  When it's the other way around, you just look pathetic.

And a little creepy.

The Seven Woes of the Don

Starting tomorrow we'll be taking a look at a miniseries that I like to call "The Seven Woes of the Don" (I like mini-series that have my name in them).

"What's that about?" you may ask. Well, I'll tell you.

I've been teaching in seminary for a long time. In fact, even when I was a student I was frequently teaching my professors. They loved it.

So I've been around long enough to know a few things about seminary and the students who attend.

As of tomorrow there will be one week until classes reconvene at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and "The Seven Woes of the Don" is a series geared toward helping incoming students be successful. As a bonus, it should also help students who have been at TEDS for a while but tend to suck it up on a regular basis.

Each day I'll present a new "Woe": something for you to look out for as you enter seminary. Follow the Don's advice and with a little luck you won't make yourself look like the animal pictured above...

I'm Back and I'm Not Happy

Once our flight got underway, it was actually quite lovely.  I worked on my laptop for a few hours and then got a little sleep.

And then I returned to my home in Libertyville only to find the above picture posted all over the internets.  Seriously folks, is this what it's come to?  Posting a picture on your Flickr account of Dear Old Don that says he wants to kill you?

I realize my quizzes and tests are brutal, but I rarely shoot people with frickin' laser beams from my frickin' eyeballs.  

I leave that stuff to the professionals.  Do you see?

Stuck in the Airport Answering Questions

I'm exhausted.  After teaching all weekend at the Cheltenham Bible Festival in the good ol' UK, I'm stuck in an airport in Birmingham and my 7:00 am flight has been delayed.  Thankfully they have free WiFi so life is good again.

I checked my email and saw that I had a few questions from some readers of the blog and thought I might take some time to answer them.  Thanks for writing in, by the way, because the Don loves to answer questions

1.  "Don: You're 60 years old and you've never had a website before.  Why start blogging now?"

Great question.  I knew if I wanted to blog I'd have to do it in the morning and post it later in the day or evening.  However, my morning, from start to finish, is very tightly scheduled.  

I wake up at 5:00 am sharp; I shower, shave and dress by 5:03 am; by 5:05 I've had breakfast and read the morning paper; at 5:06 I watch Robin & Company on CNN for 4 minutes(more because Robin is cute than because she's a good reporter); by 5:11 I've locked myself in my study where I remain writing and reading until I leave for TEDS at 6:00.

Now this is the tricky part: I only have 49 minutes to read my first book of the day and write three chapters of whatever book I'm composing at the time.  Because that schedule is so tight I never thought I would have time to do anything else but those things.  However, last week I began calculating and realized that if I took 3 less sips of coffee during that time, I could also write a blog entry.

So I did.

2.  "Hey, D. A.!  Your blog makes me laugh!"

Thanks, but that's not a question.

3.  "Dr. Carson my friend and I have been wondering if you could explain the deontological ethical implications of the phenomenalogical realm and the ontological being.  Thanks."

Two problems here:

1. You misspelled "phenomenalogical" (it's "phenomenological")
2. This is a pithy blog post, not the Gagging of God.

Sorry folks, but I only have three sips to write these things in the morning.  I'm not saying I'll never wax theology on this blog, but I can't be dolling out free theological lectures and answering every convoluted question you guys think up.  

That's what you pay TEDS $22,000 a year for.

Why RateMyProfessors.com is Garbage

So a few years ago some genius got a great idea to start a website where students could freely exchange information about which professors they should or should not take.  Students could rate a professor based on clarity, easiness, helpfulness, and even hotness.  It made the academic community sick.

You see, us professors basically excel at dominating our students based on three things:

1. Fear
2. The Unknown
3. Fear of the Unknown

So when some smarty-pants college kid thinks he can put a dent in our timeless system by starting up a website that allows students to know what they're in for before they're in the middle of it, us educators aren't going to stand for it.  What did we do about it?

Well, for starters we regularly got on RateMyProfessors.com to leave fake ratings about ourselves and our colleagues.  It's hilarious for us all to leave feedback on one professor that says he's easy only to see a ton of students take his class and fail it.

How else do you explain my ratings on the website?  D. A. Carson, the Don, one of the greatest criminal masterminds professors of our time is only rated a paltry 3.2 out of 5?  That alone should let you know the scores are fake.

I found the comments to be riotous as well.  One "student" wrote:

"His oral quizzes are worded for ambiguity, although he does not recognize the ambiguous nature of his questions, which can be a source of frustration."

That quote can't be real!  Of course I recognize the ambiguous nature of my quiz questions!  Can't you guys hear me chuckling under my breath as I read them to you!  Seriously, the looks on your faces are hysterical.  

As a matter of fact, sometimes I even ask you guys questions that I didn't actually lecture on.  The funny thing?  Whenever you ask if we covered it in class, I'm adamant that we did and I'll even tell you the exact date we "covered it."  Then I watch you act like you suddenly remember us going over it now.  Priceless!

Anyway, I'm getting carried away with myself.  There's a lot of proof that these ratings are fixed, but the greatest proof is easily this:

Out of two people who rated the Don, I got zero hotness points.

I'm very hot.

Smite Alert: Fred Phelps

I don't want to brag, but being as close to God as I am sometimes has its advantages.  For instance, sometimes I get a certain...sense about things.  That's right: the Don can tell when someone's on the verge of having a good old fashioned, Old Testament, Ten Plagues kind of smiting.

So I'm chilling this week at the Cheltenham Bible Festival and I get an email from my buddy N. T. Wright.  We've disagreed on some theological points in the past, but we're both big fans of using initials for our first and middle names so it's all good.

So Tom tells me I need to check out this article about Fred Phelps.  In case you've been living in a cave or you don't love God enough to remember who that is, he's the guy who pickets funerals with his little inbred church and holds up signs that say "God hates Fags" so that the glory of the Lord can shine for all to see (sarcasm).

Turns out old Fred is planning on picketing the funerals of the folks who died in the Minnesota bridge collapse.  Not because they were homosexuals, mind you, but Fred seems to feel that homosexuality in the States is the reason the Good Lord caused the bridge to collapse.

You see folks, Fred is the very definition of fire kindling.  I don't want to say it's definitely gonna happen, but I get this...sense.  If God took out Ananias and Sapphira for lying about an offering...well...it ain't looking good, huh Fred?

Taming the Internets

Frankly, I've been meaning to do this for quite some time.  I could make a lot of excuses about how busy I am: chairing a plethora of committees, writing stacks of books, nurturing the minds of seminarians, and single-handedly keeping Evangelicalism afloat both in the U.S. and abroad--I don't know how I do it all.

But I've finally decided to write my own blog.  I've got a lot to say (see here) and sometimes I just need to spit it out without seeking a book deal first.  That's right: D. A. Carson is taking on the internets.

Check back throughout the semester as I offer you my no holds barred insights on life, TEDS (for the grossly ignorant--the Carsuninformed, if you will--that's where I teach), and the scholarly world that so many of you desire to have the inside scoop on.