Zella

Yeah I think you're probably right about TLC being the mover behind this. Even if the place had open slots, if it's anything like my college, it isn't cheap. I really don't see the Duggars shelling out money.

I'm curious how much it costs to have a wedding there if you have no alumni ties. I didn't attend JBU, but I did go to another Christian college nearby. Their chapel was popular for weddings, but it was apparently very steep to rent if you were not a former student. Incidentally, I've lived in NWA for years and never realized you could do weddings at JBU. I could just be woefully ignorant because I've never had to plan a wedding around here, but I do know that a lot of locals--as well as tourists--go to one of the locations in Eureka Springs if they want a "fancy" wedding, though I have a hard time seeing the Duggars fitting in there. . . .

There's a dark side of me that wishes this was the premise of a web comic. . . .

I wish I could like this more than once. :)

I want a spin-off that just consists of George and Agatha being hostile to each other. I'm also pretty furious with Ross. I liked him in season 1, but he's such a dick this season that I'm actively rooting for George.

Yes, I had forgotten about that, but it cracked me up every time I saw it!

Yay! I was an English major too! :) I read The Scarlet Letter and The Crucible around the same time when I was in my teens, and both of them had a major impact on me. Just realized that in a continuance of the Hawthorne theme, Goodman Godman has potential, too, though I think Goody Godman is still my favorite.

Not necessarily. I gave up on the show 3 seasons ago and still check out and post in TWD forums, but I am much less of a fan than someone who never frequents forums but also never misses an episode. Nothing I've read about the show's direction has enticed me to start watching again, but morbid curiosity makes me want to know what's going on.

Goody Godman! (Yes, I know it's supposed to be a title for women, but it was always my favorite thing about Hawthorne stories about Puritans, so I've felt the need to apply it to all fundamentalists. :) )

I have an unhealthy love for pasta and sauce, but I can't fathom eating the sauce straight, let alone feeding it to a small child that way. As a general rule, I'm so used to the Duggars being batshit crazy that I tend not to be surprised by much they do, but that photo did leave me flabbergasted.

Thanks! Every photo I've ever seen of Sweden is so lovely. I've always found Scandinavia in general fascinating--it's a goal of mine to travel there one day. :) Yes, I love learning the little details too! I watch a lot of British and European television--though the latter is definitely harder to find here--and enjoy noticing the cultural differences, though I know a lot of it goes over my head completely. I do think he would have fit in well! He really did seem to think he was chivalrous and treated women well. We were in the same degree program but separated by a couple of years, so I only had one class with him. I remember he reacted badly anytime a woman disagreed with him, and he was very controlling of female classmates during group work, but he never acted that way toward men. He confronted me one time--this was long after the door incident--because he had heard I called him a misogynist. (That's not a label I use lightly, but he is one of two men I've met--both at that school--who fully earned it.) I guess he thought I was going to deny it (I didn't), and he seemed just completely bewildered that anyone would think that of him. I think I've mentioned before on here, but a lot of people I met at that school reminded me of the Duggars.

It can be, especially depending on age and location. I was raised in the South (in North Carolina and Arkansas), and it's not uncommon for men to still be expected to do this. Personally, as a twenty-something woman, I subscribe much more to how things are done in your country. (Where do you live, if you don't mind my asking? Not trying to be creepy! I just always like learning about other countries. :) ) I've always thought that whoever gets to the door first without their arms full of stuff should hold the door open for someone behind them, regardless of gender. But I've met my fair share of men my age who insisted on opening the door for women. I have sometimes surprised some of my fairly progressive male friends who were raised in the South by opening the door for them because I got there first. It doesn't make them mad, but a few have told me they really never understood the whole door thing but just do it because they were raised that way. But there was this ass I went to school with (on a conservative Christian college campus in the Ozarks) who would literally sprint ahead of women to open the door for them. That just infuriated me because it was so showy. The one time he tried to pull that with me, I actually ran ahead of him, beat him to the door, and then held the door open for him with a huge smile on my face. Probably didn't help that he was with a group of friends he was trying to impress, but he was furious. He honestly almost refused to go through, and when he finally did, he was glaring at me like he wanted to smack me in the face with the door. A real paragon of chivalry. Humiliating him in front of his friends is one of my fonder memories of college. :)

I thought his picture wasn't supposed to be posted on social media accounts? Not saying it's not him, just wondering if they're already breaking the rules about him.

LOL Hope they're enjoying the 28-10 score in favor of Alabama before halftime. . . . Seriously, though, I've lived in the state for years and went to the U of A, but there's no way I would have paid for tickets to that game because I had a feeling it would turn into a massacre. Oh who am I kidding? They're Duggars--of course, they didn't pay for the tickets!

I think it just means a lot of people liked your post. :)

I know what you mean. I also wasn't really sheltered, but I was in my late teens/early 20s before I finally learned what phone sex really meant. LOL My mental image for it before learning the truth was bizarre and didn't make much sense, now that I think about it. I remember just really hoping that the one who was getting married was going to get some sort of crash course in sex ed before her wedding.

I suspect this too. I went to college with some very sheltered fundies who didn't know what porn really was. In what may have been the most awkward group project ever about pop culture, some of these girls labeled some extremely tame pg-13 sex scene "porn, " and I had to explain to them what porn really was. They thought I was degenerate and were confused why I didn't agree that whatever we were talking about was porn. One of them was getting married in a month.

No joke! I was an English/history major and I have written more than enough research papers in my lifetime to ever do one for fun. And I say that as someone who actually likes doing research. I'm still always reading up on new topics, but the hell if I'm going to write a paper about it in my spare time!

Yeah that's what I started to suspect. As I said, I'm not in the Christian small group scene, but I have friends who are, and I don't remember hearing anything about research papers. But then again, they would know the difference between an actual research paper and a writing assignment.

I bet you're right! I was just on their website, looking at their Bible study groups, and it seems like they do have a lot of them. Edited to add: How common is it for churches to have research papers for their Bible study classes? I've never been to small group study session and wasn't sure if that was a standard operating procedure or not. Also wondering what Jill is defining as a research paper. . . .

Thanks! I was wondering about her "class" and had a hard time believing it was anything officially connected with a school.

Yeah I subbed exactly one time--and not even in high school. It was for a friend's class when we were both TAs, teaching Comp I. It wasn't an awful experience as far as subbing goes (I remember my own classes even as an elementary school student being meaner), but it was awkward just because I didn't know them and they didn't know me, and I was basically a glorified babysitter that they had no interest in listening to. After I graduated with my MA and was trying to find work, people kept telling me to sub for the local school districts, and that was just an absolute no from me. I can't even imagine dealing with highschoolers as a sub. Didn't he go to both a public high school and university? I don't see him handling the sub position all that well, but I don't think he'd be clutching his proverbial pearls as much as one of the actual Duggars would be if they heard someone drop an F bomb.

I just about died laughing at this. :D

Interesting! I didn't get out much when I lived there--I'm kind of an antisocial introverted hermit--so the other businesses aren't familiar to me, but I do know Sam's because they have some of the most insufferable local commercials I have ever seen. {Mainly just obnoxious spokesmen who have become even more obnoxious as time goes on.) I've lived in the NWA area most of my life, and I militantly refuse to shop there because I don't want to fund any of those damn commercials.