Couches

I'm going to make the assumption, dear reader, that having read the title of this post, you're understandably skeptical of the the quality of the forthcoming article. “Couches?” I can hear you saying, “I came to this blog to read about 'The Redeemer Student Experience' and this guy is going to tell me about couches?” If you're asking that, you're asking the right questions. And the answer, my friend, is yes, I am going to tell you about couches.

Humber College doesn't have any couches. I have fond, positive memories about my time at that institution, and nothing I say here should be considered negative towards Humber, but they don't have any couches. Actually, I don't know for certain that this is still true, but when I went there in 2006, there were no couches. They have a pub and an arcade, but as far as I can remember, no couches. McMaster University, as far as I know, doesn't have any couches. I don't know this for a fact, but I used to work as a contractor there with relative frequency, and never did I see a single couch on that campus. (This was back in the days when I was an arborist. In retrospect it's entirely possible that Mac does have couches and concealed them from me so as to avoid having them dirtied up by some filthy tree worker.)

Redeemer has tons of couches. There's couches in the front commons, couches in the commuter lounge, outside the lecture halls, in the cafeteria, in the rec centre, in the lobby of the athletic centre, and the library. I'm probably forgetting a few. Suffice to say, Redeemer has a lot of couches.

I didn't really think about why there were couches when I first came here. They tend to be in otherwise empty areas, which I figured was probably why they were there: to fill space in otherwise empty sections of the school. I was probably wrong. As the weeks wore on, and I started going to class and studying and all that stuff you're supposed to do when you're a student, it kind of clicked. I found myself going to class early to hang out with my friends on the couches outside. Between classes I'd go to the commuter lounge and sit on the couch to study. I never actually end up studying, somebody always ends up joining me and we talk until it's time to go to class. If nobody I know comes, I usually end up meeting somebody new who's also sitting around pretending to try and study. That's one of the great things about Redeemer; it's small enough that nobody looks at you funny if you just sit down next to them and say hi. Redeemer's couches sometimes feature impromptu prayer meetings. Sometimes there's huge life advice discussions. Sometimes, usually in the minutes before a test, there's studying. With the possible exception of the Launch Olympics, I've probably met more people that I've ended up becoming friends with while sitting on Redeemer's couches than during any other situation in the school. Those couches provide a relaxed sense of socialization and community that's hard to duplicate.

So, to answer the previous question, yes, this is a post about couches. Yes, I'm comfortable with that. It's not that there's midterms this week and I've been busy studying, or that I simply just couldn't think of anything to write about. Those might be valid excuses if I felt like I needed to excuse spending 500 words talking about sitting on a couch, but I don't. I wanted to write about the couches because the interaction that happens on them is an important part of what makes the Redeemer experience different from other institutions. So, really, this post isn't about sitting on couches. It's about a rich, warm, welcoming community, one that materializes in places far from the dimly lit, sticky-floored pub of Humber College.