Sometimes you learn things from the strangest of places

Last night after dinner, the Americans in the house who are part of our dinner club were treated to a Canadian specialty that we'd never had before: Laura Secord chocolates. They're apparently quite famous in Canada, but can't be found (or at least not commonly) in the US. Though the chocolate I had was delicious - some kind of tasty raspberry liqueur-type thing - it seems somewhat obvious why you don't get them in the States.

See, Laura Secord was a Canadian hero during the War of 1812. (As my sister and I were reflecting last night, we hardly learned anything about that war in our history classes! Maybe because it wasn't all glorious for the US.) She's particularly remembered for a Paul Revere-like journey to warn the British about a planned American attack. Her actions, as you can read in the above link, led directly to a decisive defeat of the Americans by the British forces at the Battle of Beaver Dams. (Incidentally, is there a more Canadian-sounding name than that? Heh.) This, in turn, helped lead to the end of the war itself.

It just seemed very odd to be eating chocolates from a company named after a famous Canadian who was anti-American. Now, I still don't know much about the War of 1812 - though I think I'll read up a bit on it now - but even so, it was an interesting experience. A reminder that though we are quite similar, Canada and the US are in fact separate countries with quite distinct histories.

ETA: Interestingly, Wikipedia makes no mention of Laura Secord or that battle in its entire article on the War of 1812.

Yay, linguistics!

Over the past couple of weeks, Mackenzie and I have noticed yet another interesting difference between American and Canadian English. This difference has only occurred with a few Canadians we've heard speaking. It might have taken longer for us to pinpoint if we hadn't both taken that seminar on intonation in our last year of undergrad.

So as background: perhaps you have noticed (perhaps faintly) that in many dialects of British English, question intonation is quite different from most dialects of American English. It would be easier to get this with graphic representation, but I'm not skilled in that area, so I'll try to describe it as clearly and as non-wordily as possible.

American yes/no questions normally have rising intonation at the very end of the sentence. Imagine (if you are American or probably if you are Canadian, as well) saying a sentence like, "Do you have a cell phone?"
The rising intonation at the end is one way we signal that it's a question rather than a statement.

For many dialects of British English, yes/no question intonation has a rise earlier in the sentence, and then it falls again, and then rises a little bit at the very end. If you can imagine a British person saying, "Do you have a mobile?" (since they wouldn't say "cell phone"), you might be able to imagine this different intonation.

The whole point is, a few people at the house where we're living - including the lady who owns the house and who actually lives in northern BC - often say yes/no questions with this same British intonation! I wonder if it is a holdover from the days of British colonization... and yet the US was a British colony in the past, and I've never heard that intonation from a native-born US citizen.

Anyway. I thought it was pretty interesting!

The rainy season has arrived

Which is to say, we have now reached that part of fall where one doesn't expect to see much more of the clear, crisp blue sky, and one does expect to see a lot of rain and wind. I bet we will still have a few more sunny days, since the leaves haven't completely turned yet, but 'tis also the season for raincoats and umbrellas.

A lot has happened since my last post. Most importantly, my grandmother has gone to be with her Lord after several days of failing health. I'm very grateful that Mackenzie and I had the chance to go home and spend some time with her and with family. I'm also going to miss her.

We also had the chance to decompress a little bit by going to see Snow Patrol in concert this past Wednesday night in Seattle. That was awesome and beyond my expectations.

Now, I should probably get down to some of the homework I haven't been doing because of all these things. Thankfully, my professors are very understanding and have given us some extra time, along with their sympathy.

I seem to like posting on Sundays

I've got my first Greek test of the semester tomorrow. It's not a major thing, I don't think - all four of the quizzes together make up 20% of the grade in the class - but still, Greek tests are stressful. I have done a somewhat decent amount of studying, but more must be done.

The service at Ft. Langley today was very good. I'm still very much enjoying the Ephesians sermon series. The pastor has recommended we all read through the entire book at least a few times every week; I can already tell that will be really cool to do, if I can just remember to do it. (Heh.)

During the worship time today, there were a few people in the row behind me who were Korean, and didn't speak or read much English. There was one guy who was very enthusiastic about trying to sing along to the worship songs, even though he didn't know them. He could get the tune reasonably well (most of the time), but he couldn't read the words on the projection screen. I thought it was pretty cool, though, that when we got to songs that said "Hallelujah" or "Hosanna," he could sing along there just fine. I wonder if those words (and others like them, such as "Amen") are transliterated and adopted into the worship lexicon of every language.

Well, I think I'm gonna go make oatmeal cookies, and then do some more studying.

Oh! I almost forgot: today I finally finished my Wycliffe application and sent it in. It's hard to describe how excited this makes me!

Sunday

The sermon series at our church up here is going to be on Ephesians. I'm excited - I've loved Ephesians especially since Urbana, and delving into it again at the same time that I'm taking theology and exegesis courses seems like it can only open up more new lessons for me to receive from God.

An interesting note/question: is it a Canada-wide thing to refer to people who get involved in a youth group, perhaps as small group leaders, as "youth sponsors"? Because Mackenzie and I have heard that term several times now, from both our church here and from people at Trinity, and it wasn't until today that I actually learned what it meant. When we asked our friends at church about it, they agreed that the name is misleading - it sounds like you give the youth money and support them so they can go to school or something. In case anyone is curious, at my home church in the States we'd call them "youth workers" or just "small group leaders."

Oh, and Mackenzie and I have joined the house dinner club at the place we're living. It's going to be fun! Everyone cooks dinner for the other club members once every two weeks (and those for whom you cook do the cleanup). There are eleven people involved. So that means free dinner every week night - well, every week night that neither Mackenzie nor I are scheduled! ;) I'm scheduled for this Thursday, and I'm pretty sure I'll be making my version of Thai peanut curry. I've never cooked for more than four people before, so that part will be an adventure.

First day of classes, part 2

So Tuesday was the first day of Hermeneutics. The professor seems pretty cool, and although it's going to be faintly annoying to have to stop class partway through every time to set up for chapel, at least it means we won't be skipping any Tuesday chapels! I've missed chapel, and it was good to be back. Another good thing about the interruption of the class is that it means it will be harder to fall asleep afterward. Even when the material is interesting and the prof isn't a really dull presenter, two days in a row of classes that start at 8:30 and go for almost three hours make it a bit hard for me to stay awake.

Today, some of the people who are in the online version of Language Program Design and Management met up for lunch on campus. It was good to meet a few more new people and chat with the prof about the course's setup. I'm looking forward to getting started with the course itself, as well.

On a linguistic note, I also got my chequebook in the mail today - for my Canadian chequing account. That "q" really makes me happy. :) I think it makes total sense for the spelling of that kind of cheque to be different from meanings involving a check mark, or checking to be sure of something - and besides, it sure makes it easy to distinguish between my American and Canadian accounts!

First day of classes, part 1

First off: all tuition-related issues are dealt with! Hooray! At least until the second payment, but still.

All right. Today was the first day of actual class meetings, starting with Believers Church Theology at 8:30am. I had no idea what to expect, really, except that the prof is the guy who taught my least favorite of my online courses this year. However, in person, he seems like he's going to be awesome - not afraid to point out the problems and failings of the evangelical church of today, and yet very enthusiastic about teaching theology and history. After only one introductory class meeting, I think this course might end up being one of my favorites.

Before I move on, in case you're wondering what "Believers Church Theology" is (and I certainly was before today), here's the working definition the prof has developed over the process of teaching this course for several years:

The Believers Church Tradition is that group of Protestant Christians who give absolute priority to the inspiration and authority of Scripture, the need for personal faith in the saving work of Christ, the call to be committed to personal maturity and the community of faith in terms of teaching, fellowship, and worship with the mandate to be engaged in mission, evangelism, and ministry, for the sake of the kingdom of God.

Pretty good stuff, I think.

Next course to meet was NT Greek Exegesis, which frankly I was not looking forward to at all. I was mostly happy to be done with Greek last year, and working on the workbook assignment for Exegesis before today's class was... not terrible, but not exactly a barrel of fun, either. After today's introductory lecture/going over the workbook, though, I think it'll be a good course. I can definitely see the value of knowing more about doing exegesis for translation purposes, for one thing. Also, the prof knows what he's talking about (and has a bit more linguistic knowledge than our Greek teacher did), and is flexible about the workbook answers.

Tomorrow, I have my first Hermeneutics class. I'll post my thoughts afterward. The fourth course I'm taking is the online version of Language Program Design and Management, which is (I think) about how to set up and complete a language project. I haven't started doing much for it yet, but I expect it will be interesting and valuable. It's taught by my Principles of Translation teacher, so that's a plus!

So far, I'm excited to be back in school and very much looking forward to the rest of the semester. And I'm also looking forward to collecting more examples of the differences between Canadian and American English, and our cultures. :)