Half an hour before I’m asked my conviction about the end of the world, two hours before I have a debate about globalization with the keynote speaker in front of the whole group and three and a half hours before about 20 people circle around and lay their hands on me while speaking in tongues, I’m walking into what I think is a lecture from a missionary who returned from the Middle East.

It’s Sunday night, and when my housemate David asks me what I’m doing tonight, I can’t lie because all the evidence around me (the laptop on Facebook, the sweatpants, etc.) confirms I have no plans. He tells me tonight is the second session of a three-week series on evangelism he helped organize, and if I have nothing to do, I should go. I figured I’d show some support.

I show up a few minutes late, and there are about 25 people in the room. The lights are dim and the first thing I notice is to my right – a yellow cloth hangs over the window so the outside light glows from behind. It says “Back to Jerusalem.” The first thing I think of is Marcus Garvey and the Gaza Strip.

Once the singing ends, the light turns on and the speaker shares a little bit about his life and his conviction. His life is the standard: He partied his way through depression at Rutgers, and eventually found God at the end of the tunnel. His conviction is God gave him a sign the world would end in five to 10 years.

He then asks us to go around the room and share our life story and conviction about the end times in two minutes or less. One of the girls stands up and shares a dream she had about the end of the world involving three planets, unequipped space travel and a giant clock that is rapidly approaching midnight.

She is not the only one as fervent about the cause, and what strikes me isn’t what they are saying, but how they say it with such raw intensity. And this is surprising, finding a group like this on a campus full of seniors who can’t even figure out what they want to do after graduation.

As the night continues, the speaker goes on for hours about how Jesus will return as a political leader, and the gospel must be spread to Jerusalem to hasten the end of the world. This reminds me of Cold War conspiracy theories and the myth globalization will usher world peace.

At one point, I raise my hand and challenge the speaker in a futile debate over whether or not the Bible should be interpreted literally. What happens in the end is everyone still believes in what they believed in two hours ago. I label myself as the unsaved agnostic who apparently cares more about going to Costco next weekend than spreading the gospel to Jerusalem.

The last 40 minutes is reserved for prayer. This is the strangest part of the night. When the lights dim again, the entire room is struck with instant and uncensored fervor. People begin yelling over each other at the top of their lungs with prayers in languages that have never been spoken before.

I ask David later that night what he thought about the night. He tells me he wasn’t expecting any of it, either.

“You know, I don’t buy what they said any more than you do,” David says. “That’s what I meant last week when I said I had mixed feelings about the group.

“It’s disturbing to think you could be completely wrong about something, and still have such strong convictions about it. But at the end of the day, they’re the ones going to Jerusalem. What are we doing?”

I think about the moment when I’m pressured to stand in the middle of the room during the prayer for UC Davis students. The rest of the room is around me, laying hands on me and praying for all the problems they think I have. At that instant, I’m wondering how I can stand in the middle of this and not feel a thing. I haven’t felt anything in a long time. And here everyone is, feeling everything at once: anger, sorrow, passion.

In a way, I think that passion is, in fact, another language. It’s one I used to speak, but forgot how. It’s like when I was a child and my mother spoke Chinese words I used to know. I stared at her not registering a single word.

GEOFF MAK wants to thank Mario Lugo for inspiring him to not be afraid to write about controversial subjects in his column. E-mail him at gemak@ucdavis.edu if you liked, hated or were indifferent about this week’s column.

So the other day I ran into this guy who may or may not have been in some class I’ve taken within the past two years. The following awkwardness ensues.

Random person I barely recognize: “Hey! How are you doing?”

Me: “Oh hey. What? Are you talking to me?” (Note: remove headphones on iPod.)

Random person: “Yeah, how are you? How’s life?”

Me (intense thinking): Oh great. That dreaded phrase. No, not the “hey” part, but the “how’s life?” part.

Me (after the awfully eternal silence): “Uhh … hmm … it’s been awesome. Great. Fun. Same old.” (The list of vague adjectives goes on …)

Random person (refusing to shut up and walk away): “Ohh … hmm … that’s nice to hear. How interesting. So what have you been up to? How’s life?”

Me (again, intense thinking, but this time with uncontrollable fidgeting): Oh great. No way. Now, really? You’re gonna ask me again? Like I already said, it’s awesome. Fun. Same old.

What am I supposed to say?

One, I can barely remember the person, let alone recall him to be a friend I had any background with. Two, are you really expecting me to give you my 30-second life story for the past however many months or years since I’ve seen you last?

And so the scene plays out with surface chatter as I attempt to remember what exactly he already knows since I can barely remember the last time we even met.

Of course, I can’t just say, “Dude, I can barely remember you. Who are you again?” That’s just plain depressing.

But I wish I could get myself to say that, or at least, “What’s your name again?” Because as the conversation progresses, the quality of my replies gradually deteriorate from bad to irretrievably dreadful.

The situation is one word: Awkward. Actually, no, it’s not even that. It’s awwkkwarddd.

I realize it may just all be in my head. Deep down in the depths of my soul I’m quite the awkward turtle at times – anything can be awkward to me, especially after numerous replays. I mean, sitting by my editor, listening to my attempts at being humorous be repeatedly read out loud and edited is super awkward. That’s cringe-worthy awkward in my head.

It’s like that saying about life. You know, the one that goes, “Life is just one damned thing after another.” (Well, you probably wouldn’t know, since I just Googled “Life is … quotes” and that was one of the millions that popped up.)

But instead of life being one damned thing after another, it’s more like, life being one awkward thing after another. Then again, some may equate awkward with damned.

Seriously, sometimes it feels like life consists of one awkward event after another stringed together by mundane daily life: awkward conversations (try talking about constipation and poop over lunch and getting blank stares in return), awkward confessions (and I’m not talking about the Catholic kind) and awkward silences (make me want to bolt out the door even if there is no door).

The awkward moments just stand out like annoyingly long coughs in the middle of a lecture. You want to either get rid of them ASAP or get the heck out of the place.

So assuming it’s not just all in my head (as likely that it is), then how exactly am I supposed to avoid these awkward situations?

I could totally announce “awkwarddd!” at the top of my lungs each and every time there is a long, uncomfortable silence, thereby either erasing any awkward tension or maybe simultaneously increasing it tenfold.

Of course, I could just sprint out of sight whenever I’m about to hear some odd truth I would rather not know, leaving the awkward-inducing person to ponder his existence. Or I could always just move to Antarctica and mingle with the polar bears before they become extinct from global warming. That all sounds quite reasonable, no?

I guess my final option is to actually deal with these awkward moments. I could reply calmly, thoughtfully and coherently all while maintaining a poised demeanor and steady tone of voice.

But oh, how difficult that would be. It’s way too much effort on my part. I’d rather just live in a cave – or maybe a nice, comfy turtle shell will do.

TIFFANY LEW is on the lookout for anyone who wants to move to Antarctica with her, although that would defeat the purpose of avoiding awkwardness. Contact her at tjlew@ucdavis.edu if you have any solutions.

Editor:

As a former California Aggie staff writer, I found Sarah Kohgadai’s column on Tuesday to be particularly haphazard, irrelevant and distasteful.

Kohgadai smugly writes that Sen. Robert Byrd was associated with the Klu Klux Klan and that “racism is part of our history.” It’s alive and well in her columns, too. Kohgaai probably should have mentioned that the sky is blue and that grass grows, because nothing she reported is new or novel.

Hardly anyone would disagree that Senator Byrd’s comments, made over half a century ago, were appalling. However, given Kohgadai’s propensity to advance her self-aggrandizing, thinly-veiled agenda against perceived white hegemony in her columns, her bizarre choice of topic is somewhat explainable.

But if Kohgadai insists on playing the race card in her every column, she should at least do so with a modicum of journalistic integrity. If she didn’t outright lie in the latest one, she certainly didn’t do a simple Internet search to verify her claims.

For example, she does not mention that Byrd has denounced his association with the Klan and has profusely apologized in his 2006 autobiography. She omits the fact that he officially endorsed Barack Obama in the presidential campaign. Nor does Kohgadai mention Byrd’s commitment to higher education: He is responsible for the federal scholarships that bear his name, which give over $40 million to high-achieving students annually. Finally, and most egregiously, Ms. Kohgadai writes that Byrd was the lone vote against Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas’ respective confirmations. That is completely false. Marshall was confirmed in a 69-11 vote, and Thomas was barely confirmed in a 52-48 vote.

If Kohgadai insists on tackling the supposedly pressing racial issues of our time, perhaps she could dissect the atrocity at Ft. Hood for us (and yes, some of the murderer’s victims were “minority and marginalized”). But since the perpetrator of that vicious, religiously and ethnically-motivated crime was neither white nor Christian, I suspect we won’t hear a peep from her.

Sincerely,

PATRICK MCCARTNEY

Senior, Managerial Economics & History

Dear Editor,

By agreeing to collect from U.S. Bank only what amounts to a “finders fee” for each new customer in the recent corporate sponsorship deal, UC Davis officials gave away far too much.

One component of the deal can be described simply as an ad buy: putting the U.S. Bank logo on all student and faculty identification cards. Typically, advertising space is expensive. For the sake of comparison, let’s look at prices for the Davis Enterprise, which has a daily circulation of 10,000 readers. Imagine U.S. Bank decided to place a full-page color ad of their logo in the paper specifically on page three every day of publication for one year. According to staff in the Enterprise’s ad sales department, this would cost $479,232 per year.

So what will UC Davis get by selling prime advertisement space on the personally identification cards of 31,160 students and all faculty? Only about $280,000 annually

In short, this is a bad deal, even if the only thing sold was ad space. U.S. Bank is getting much, much more than UC Davis is in this deal. The bank has been given premier access to a key target market-group, prime real estate for a branch office, and six ATMs. This is a gold mine for a bank, as students and faculty all have some money and a level of banking needs – like needing a convenient place to deposit their financial aid or pay checks.

It seems the national trend to bail out banks. Here at UC Davis, while student tuition fees continue to rise, corporate sponsors are given the farm.

ETHAN EVANS

Doctorate Level 1, Sociology

Dear Editor,

I would like to personally thank Jarrett Stepman, on behalf of my former comrades-in-arms and all military personnel, for his column in Tuesday’s edition of The California Aggie. It’s rare to see such focused statements of support for veterans from members of the college population, and especially those expressed with the conviction and clarity of Stepman’s column.

Veterans around the country are struggling with stress and trauma in ever-greater numbers as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan rage on with no clear end in sight. Additional strain, of course, is brought to bear on members of the military and all U.S. citizens with news of the tragedy at Ft. Hood on Nov. 5 and the murder of Staff Sergeant David Booher one day prior in Mexico.

I urge all UC Davis students, staff and faculty to join Senator Barbara Boxer in her efforts in promoting legislation to assist in securing care and support for veterans in America.

The following link directs to Boxer’s website and a petition to have a checkbox added to tax returns: boxer.enews.senate.gov/mail/util.cfm?gpiv=2100049620.584292.121&gen=1.

This would allow citizens to opt to donate $3 of income to Veterans Administration services. Please stand by our men and women in uniform.

Sincerely,

AARON J. SIKES

Veteran Operation Just Cause

Panama, 1989