The reason I came to Morningside had nothing to do with the fact that it was a liberal arts school. The reason I came here was because it was relatively close to my home town of Sioux Center and it had the student to faculty ratio I was looking for in a school. That was the main reason but some other reasons were part of decision as well. I wanted to run cross country but there was no way I would be able to go to the University of Iowa or the University of Minnesota to do that so I had to look at a smaller school so I could have that opportunity. Another reason that I chose to come to Morningside was that I knew people who had come here and graduated and I only had heard good things about it and had heard very few negative things. I also had other classmates from my class that were looking at it and they partially influenced my decision into coming here. The biggest reason that I chose Moringside over the other small schools I was looking at though was the fact that it felt like the place I belonged on my visits here. When I came on Senior Visit day I immediately felt at home and that this was a place I could fit into to well. When I came back for my second visit, I knew right away that this was the place I was going to go to college. This was the only place I applied to, and the only place I sent my FAFSA to. So I had no doubts that coming here was the right decision for me.

Having a non personal ultimate reality is an interesting thought for me. To not really have a god, but be part of it confuses me. I am part of the tree which is part of the grass which is part of the person sitting next to me. I like the thought to about how if you “sin”, or whatever they call it, it stays with you for many life times, always being a part of you. It is not a forgive and forget kind of religion, what you do in this lifetime hurts you and everyone in the coming lifetimes. I also like that you don’t know what you will be created as in the next lifetimes. Because your all created as part of the same “stuff”, you can be created as anything when you are reborn. All this things are an interesting thought to consider for someone who believes that you only live one life, and after you die you go into the afterlife depending on what you do in life. If you sin, you go to hell, do good and you go to heaven. But I don’t believe everything you do in life stays with you forever, having a personal God allows us to have our sins removed, which is a fundemental difference between the two.

Tim Orwig, a graduate of Morningside College came and spoke on campus here on Tuesday night. He wrote a book on the history of Morningside but in his lecture he talked about how Morningside has become less discriminating towards blacks and gays over the years. He also talked about how Morningside was one of the first schools to allow women to come and get their bachelor degrees. The story that surprised me the most though was the story of Lillian Dimmit. She was offered the job here in the middle of the winter after another teacher had quit and they needed to find a teacher to replace her. She accepted the job without even knowing what courses she would be taking or knowing what Morningside College was even like. When her train arrived here at Morningside College and she was picked up  by the president, they had to wade through waist high snow drifts to make it to campus. Campus consisted of one building, which served as dorm, the caf, and classrooms. When she wrote home to her parents about it, her dad told her to quit and come home immediatly, but her mom told her to stay. She decided to stay and she spent the next 70 some years teaching at Morningside, and thats why the Dimmit Dormitory has here name on it to this day.

I always thought i understood islam pretty well but i found out this week that i didn’t know it as well as i thought i did. We touched on it in high school in world cultures class and world history, and again when we learned about 9/11 in U.S. history, but all those times we learned about the radical muslims. This was the first time i learned about their religion without jihad being taught first. To hear that not all muslims are the same as the radicals are is a comforting thought. Before hand when the only thing i knew about them was that they wanted everyone to convert the islam or be killed, it made me think this world was not a very safe place to live. It made me hate the islam faith like i have never hated anything before. Its nice to know now that the world’s religions do have some sanity in them. It is interesting to think about to that when a christian terrorist does something, the consequences are not nearly as high as when a radical muslim does something. I find it funny in a 9/11 world, we can be that shallow minded that a christian terrorist shouldn’t be as feared as much as a muslim terrorist should be. But that is what the world is coming to, thanks to being taught is school that 9/11 was because of the muslim faith, not  by radicals.