My friend, Jamin Shevik, passed away on Friday. He was 31 years old.

I use the term “friend” perhaps a bit too loosely here; I haven’t actually spoken to him in over three years, and even then, we only spoke for about ten minutes.

Jamin and I first met in April 1990. We were both members of the newly created Apple Valley Congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses. At the time, I was 14 years old and he was 11. That’s a difference of only a little more than three years, but, when you’re 14 and 11, that’s a rather large gulf as far as friendships are concerned. For the first couple years after I met him, I knew him only as one of several young kids who would come up and talk to me and the ‘older’ boys before and after the meetings.

    In 1992, the elders in the congregation decided to pair up just about every young boy with a slightly older boy in the hopes that the older boys’ good examples would rub off onto the younger boys. My friend Rhett began studying with Jamin (I, incidentally, was paired up with a boy who would one day become my brother-in-law). Rhett often invited me to join him in going over to Jamin’s house to study the bible with him. I often did, and this pattern lasted for years. I looked forward to going to Jamin’s house, actually. For one thing, it was far more fun than knocking on doors. But also because (and more relevant here) Jamin was fun to talk with. He and Rhett often deviated from the bible-themed topic and Jamin was eager to talk about everything from the latest movies to astronomy.

    Rhett always invited Jamin to accompany us on our teenage escapades, too. In the morning, Jamin would join us in knocking on doors (where he and I would playfully discuss our hope that no one answer the door), then in the afternoon we’d head into the city to eat lunch at some groovy coffee shop and shop for CDs. He and I often attended concerts put on by our talented friends, and we – as the only non-musicians among our pals, sat on the side and worked the controls. He was always a willing (as opposed to all the reluctant people) participant in the short films I made (including, most recently, this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVwmeB-aiM8). Jamin, in fact, was with us so much, that when I got together with my friends and Jamin wasn’t there, I’d ask Rhett where Jamin was.

    Later, Jamin began attending the same high school I had attended. At the start of each trimester, he’d come over and talk to me after the meetings and we’d exchange notes on his newest set of teachers – “Oh, you have Mr. Smith for woods class? He’s crazy,” I’d say. “I have Mr. Brown for driver’s ed,” Jamin would say, “I don’t think he has a sense of humor.” “No, he doesn’t,” I’d assure Jamin.

    As young adults, this pattern continued. I could always count on him to be a friendly face at the meetings; he was one person that was always available and willing to talk. When I showed up at the meetings without my wife (and I frequently did), I’d often ask Jamin if I could sit next to him. At one meeting, we tried to ‘out-comment’ each other by seeing who could raise their hand more often. Another time, we stopped paying attention long enough to discuss some recent developments in cosmology we had both been reading about and, at the next meeting, Jamin helpfully showed up with a Discover magazine for me to borrow. It was the clearest explanation I’d ever read on string theory, and I returned the magazine to Jamin the following week, informing him I had torn out and mailed in the insert so that I could subscribe to Discover, too.

    In more recent years, we drifted apart. Once I moved out of Apple Valley, we no longer had the constant compulsory rendezvous at the meetings. Jamin was invited to my son’s baby shower but he did not attend. I asked his mother where he was, and she explained he had just gotten married. This was news to me, in the truest sense, as I was unaware he had even been dating anyone. I asked her to extend my congratulations to her son.

    Over a year went by before I heard from Jamin again. He called me in the summer of 2006 to request that I videotape his wife’s baptism, which was to take place at the upcoming District Convention. Though I wasn’t even sure if I would be attending, I agreed to it. That day, Jennifer and I met his wife for the first time, and Jamin seemed positively happy to be married and to introduce us to his wife. I taped the baptism, then stayed up late in the hotel room that night uploading the footage and burning it onto a DVD. The next day (July 30, 2006, the last day of the convention), I searched through the crowd to give Jamin and his wife the disk. I found them, we talked, and, as it turns out, that was the last time I ever spoke to him.

In a world of busyness and frustrations, where I am repeatedly let down that friends do not respond to emails or phone calls, or are too busy to get together, or forget to follow through on plans we made, I will always remember Jamin as someone who was willing to spend time with his friends and who put forth all diligence to follow through on plans he did make.

    While spending time with Jamin’s brother Luke back in March of this year, I asked Luke how his older brother was doing, and he said, “Jamin is Jamin, you know,” and we laughed, but he added that Jamin seemed to be doing fine. I hope that in death Jamin finds the peace that eluded him in life.

With both my wife and me enrolled in college classes right now, I thought I would discuss what we (okay, mostly ME) have learned so far…

Here’s a weird thing: My wife has not taken a single test in any of her classes yet, and, apart from a “take-home final exam” (I call that kind of exam an “assignment”), she’s not gonna have any tests. I, meanwhile, have had nothing but tests. In fact, my grade for the class will be based on two things: the five exams given in class, and my participation in class.

When my wife came home with her first assignment handed back to her a few weeks ago, she was glowing with excitement that she had scored an “A”. She said something about really knowing the material, but then I pointed out that getting an A does not necessarily mean you know the material, but only that you know exactly what the professor expected.  I will concede that these two ideas may overlap considerably, but still, I am confident the latter trumps the former.

My wife has been spending a lot of time on a group project, which I think is intended to teach her how stupid some of her classmates are. She pretty much hates doing group work, and I fully empathize and sympathize (is it possible to do both?) with this opinion. I completely despised having to work closely with other students on projects, particularly since and my grade was partially in their hands. I am always concerned that the grades of all in the group will average out. What I mean is, if I am paired with a student who has recieved all C’s in the class, and I have gotten all A’s, then I have to put forth that much more effort to ensure I am not saddled with a B on the project. It’s as if I have to give 110% so that their 80% effort will result in a 90% for both of us.

Maybe this sort of group work helps you learn how to work with others, but here’s my blanket statement: I don’t need to know this. I mean, in my day-to-day life, if I can’t depend on or trust someone, I excuse them from my life. At my job, if a co-worker is grossly incompetant, they don’t last long. And, even if I am forced to work alongside them, it’s not as if their incompetance results in a decrease in my wages. 

I don’t mind working with someone if it’s an in-class assignment (for example, I had to do a lot of lab work last time I was in college, and it made sense to team up with someone to split the work & to collaborate on the observations), and I didn’t even mind the old ‘pick a partner and work with that person’ task, but I really hated being assigned to work with specific people and having to meet with them after class and draw up work for a forth-coming single assignment that would be graded one combined grade for me and the slackers.

Now onto my class: the three tests I’ve taken (and the two still to come) are essay tests. The professor writes a question on the board, and then I have one hour to write out an answer.  This is not my favorite kind of test. Actually, I think it’s my least favorite. The whole time, I am writing as fast as I can while attempting to maintain legible penmanship. I begin thinking things like “Oh, I’ll have to forego writing about such-and-such because otherwise I’ll run out of time” and “Shoot, half the class has already finished, how were they able to write so succinctly and I’m not even half done yet?” Despite the frenetic pace, I am forced to stop writing every ten minutes just to flex my fingers & wave my hand around to crack all the joints, simultaneously cursing my other hand for being useless.

I understand that a written essay is probably the best way to determine if the student has grasped the material presented, but – especially since we can use our notes during the test – I’d rather write an essay at home and bring in to class a perfectly formulated, legible (as it would be printed via computer), coherent essay. This would avoid the professor having to ask students to come into her office and read their illegible essays to her (yep, that’s happened, but not to me) and it would prevent me from having to tack on ideas all willy-nilly in my essay as they randomly come to mind and as I come to see that I do, in fact, have 30 extra seconds to fit in certain points. As it is, on one of my tests, the professor wrote something like “Should’ve mentioned such-and-such”. My response to that is: I would have, but I didn’t have enough time.

Anyway, I’ve gotten an A on every test so far, so maybe I should stop griping.