An American in Langley

This may be my last entry?

2010-04-27T12:10:00.000-07:00

So, I have graduated. I officially have a Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics and Exegesis - although I won't have the diploma until the university mails it out in a few weeks. And I have moved back home, which is producing the expected mixed emotions!

The grad ceremonies (I do like that Canadian use of the word "grad"; it's very useful) were both awesome, although quite different of course. CanIL had its own celebration on Friday night, and then the seminary had theirs Sunday afternoon. In fact, the weekend was absolutely packed with various celebratory occasions, since my parents and two friends also came up to join in the parties.

And now, the promised list:

Little things I will miss:

-green left-turn arrows that flash

-buses that say “Sorry – Out of Service”
-the Canadian version of the “Emergency Parking Only” signs on the highway

-Coffee Crisps

-pirogies (they are sold here, but they are not nearly as ubiquitous)

-Nanaimo bars

-Tim Hortons donuts, especially Timbits

-Boston Pizza

-Montana's

-the Colossus (spaceship!)

-the SkyTrain

-the pronunciation of sorry, tomorrow, south, about, house, and I'm sure I'm forgetting other examples

-the spellings of honour, Saviour, and cheque

-the words eh, keener, line-up (as a noun), and grad as an abbreviation for everything relating to graduation

-bilingual French-English signs and packaging

-the opportunity to listen to the French radio station

-switching from mph to kph, and back

-classmates and friends chatting about hockey

-the ELMO projectors in the CanIL building

-feeling the building shake when the trains go by

-free food in the CanIL Common Room

-ACTS chapel snacks

-free food in the Whitehouse kitchen

-black squirrels

-loonies and toonies

-my credit union

-RCMP patrol cars

-Super Store

-the Willowbrook produce stand

-the Canadian flag

-Remembrance Day ceremonies, and poppies

-Thanksgiving in October (and then another one in November!)

-poutine

-Global TV channel

-PRAISE 106.5 (I like it better than 105.3), and 100.5 The Peak

-Starfield, and other Canadian Christian music

-driving both north and south on I-5 on sunny days

-driving through Lynden

-the Lynden/Aldergrove border crossing

Little things I will not miss:

-the pronunciation of pasta, Mazda, and bilingual (“bi-LING-gyoo-ul” - gah!)

-the word keener (sort of a love-hate relationship)

-the smell of farmland when it's fertilizer application season

-the price of gas

-the price of dairy products

-so many medians!

-sweet ketchup

-classmates and friends chatting about hockey all. The. Time.

-long waits at the border, coming from either direction

-inexplicable traffic in Lynden and/or Bellingham

Not-so-little things I will not miss:

-researching and writing papers

-getting up – and staying awake! - for three-hour 8:30 classes

-reading theology textbooks

-walking to school in the pouring rain

-spending Sunday afternoons and nights desperately finishing homework

-having several gigantic papers all due on about the same day

-paying tuition – or attempting to do so

More important things I will miss:

-Golden Ears, these mountains, and the beauty of the Fraser Valley in general

-living in the land of “X-Files” and other sci-fi TV shows/movies

-the friendliness of Canadians (not just a stereotype!)

-Vancouver

-visiting Vancouver with friends

-Fort Langley

-TWU, ACTS, and CanIL

-registering for classes and being excited about almost every option

-being a TA

-the CanIL Common Room

-sitting around talking about nerdy linguistics things, and knowing everyone at the table gets it and will laugh along with you

-M-Files

-the CanIL computer lab

-ACTS chapel

-the grad collegium

-CanIL and ACTS friends and staff

-the Whitehouse, and Whitehouse friends

-watching “House”, “Glee”, “Doctor Who”, and “Bones” with housemates

-dinner club

-conversations around the table at the Whitehouse

-my church up here

-LifeGroup, and LifeGroup friends

In two weeks...

2010-04-10T21:13:00.000-07:00

...it will be one day until my official graduation day!

Time has absolutely flown by. It's still hard for me to believe that I'm actually almost done with all of my schoolwork, forever (or at least for a long time! I won't say "never", because I've already learned that God has a funny way of responding when you tell him "never" about things...). I only have a project and a short paper left for Principles of Literacy, a short paper for Theology, and a lesson plan to polish up for the Discourse Analysis class I'm teaching on Monday. And then glorious freedom from schoolwork - mixed with sadness at the end of it.

This month has been insanely busy, what with all the final papers and projects that were all due at almost the same time, and my brother's wedding with its associated preparations and relatives visiting. The wedding was yesterday, and it went very well! My brother and his new wife looked radiant during the ceremony. My sister and I were candle-lighters, and we also each read a section of 1 Corinthians 13. I'm glad we got to be a part of it.

I guess I should get back to a few more school-related things before bed! Look for another post soon... although "soon" could be before or after graduation, which is kind of crazy to think about!

Not a lot of time left up here!

2010-03-12T13:09:00.000-08:00

I'm making a list of little things I will miss and not miss about living up here, as well as big things in both category.

I'll publish it in April, after graduation. Writing it is making me both happy and sad.

Reading Week again

2010-02-24T16:10:00.000-08:00

We had gorgeous weather until today, when it went back to the usual clouds with intermittent rain. That's perfectly all right, since it is after all how it's "supposed" to be this time of year.

Went home for the first three days of Reading Week, to spend time with friends and family. Also, my parents are heading out of the country for a translation consultant conference, so it was good to be able to see them off.

Tomorrow, Mackenzie and I are planning to meet up with friends and go to Vancouver, to partake in the various free activities available for Olympics tourists. It should be a lot of fun! I only hope it isn't pouring all or most of the time, because even if that is the normal weather, it's not quite as fun to walk around the city while getting drenched. And it's also harder to see the beauty of the city in those conditions, as well! Even if the weather isn't all that cooperative, though, we have at least already been to Vancouver once, on one of the lovely springish days this past weekend. This trip had a different theme, though. Some pictures can be seen starting there, if you're interested.

School is beginning to get quite intense, with various papers and projects coming due in the next couple of weeks. Thus, it would also be good if we could do some actual reading this Reading Week, too! (I've already done a fair amount, in fact - or it might become a problem.)

This final semester still seems to be passing so quickly... only two more months!

What's up with this weather?

2010-02-09T13:07:00.000-08:00

As I write this blog entry, much of the eastern half of the US is being covered in an insanely huge amount of snow, much more than anyone is really used to dealing with. At the same time, here in the Vancouver area where people are preparing for the start of the Winter Olympics, the sun is shining, and daytime highs reach into the upper 40s to mid 50s (around 9 to 11 degrees Celsius, I think). I saw one tree nearby that is already in bloom, and there are enough birds that seem to believe it's already spring, too. Craziness! The Olympics people have said they're prepared to use snow-making machines for the events that require it, if necessary.

Meanwhile, classes are going well. I am close to on-schedule for all of my reading, which is nice, and I have so far avoided staying up past 12:30ish am to finish any assignments due the next day. I hesitate to say it, but it may be faintly possible that in my final semester of school, I have learned a little bit about not procrastinating. Maybe. (I don't want to jinx it.) The courses have continued to be quite enjoyable, too, although having three days of 8:30 class start time in a row hasn't gotten any easier.

TAing is still quite fun. Grading reading reports isn't quite as exciting the third time around, but it's still not boring. :) Also, I enjoy helping people figure out how to chart texts, as best I can. There will be quite a wide variety of languages represented for the texts they've all chosen for their final project/paper - Gullah, Spanish, French, several African languages, possibly Hebrew, etc. - so that will be fun and fascinating!

Now I suppose I should probably get back to work, on this bright sunny "winter" day.

Already at the second week!

2010-01-17T16:52:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow is the first day of week 2 already! I still don't really feel quite back into the routine of school. I mean, I am re-used to Canada, to CanIL and ACTS people, to Ft. Langley people... but the amount of reading & other work I have to do hasn't quite sunk in yet. Maybe that's a good thing - as long as I still do it!

So, my other courses:

-Redemption Accomplished and Consummated (what a mouthful!): only had one meeting of it so far, but if I can just stay awake, I know it will be cool to learn more theology from this prof. I also know that when I put it like that, it sounds like it must be boring or something, but it isn't! It's just that is apparently physically impossible for me to stay totally awake for an 8:30 course. I catch myself drifting off at least a few times per hour. *sigh* It does help that chapel happens in the middle of the course, so at least a long break is guaranteed. But I really do want to stay awake - in this course, and the other two that start at 8:30.

-Greek Exegesis II: actually, I think this course might be really awesome! It will be a lot of work, but it sounds like a semester-long, in-depth Bible study of the book of Galatians. I love in-depth Bible studies, and to do one that also involves reading the original Greek just seems like it might make it better. But again, plenty of work involved.

TAing continues to be fun. The real work hasn't started yet, since people haven't turned in their first assignments yet, but it seems like a very good group.

The sermon at our church in Ft. Langley was very enjoyable today - an especially good illumination of the parable of the new wineskins. Not only do I think it's been a long time since I've heard it explained and applied so well, but I realized it really is quite a foreign metaphor for the current Western church. A good reminder that the Bible was originally written for people that did have some important things in common with us, but were very different!

And we're back!

2010-01-11T19:56:00.001-08:00

A short version of my thoughts at the end of the first day of this, my final semester of grad school:

-Old Testament Theology should be pretty cool, if I can stay on top of the intense reading schedule. I am interested to look at the OT for itself, and not as mostly setting the stage for the NT, which is how it seems many Protestants look at it.

-Principles of Literacy should also be pretty cool. The first class was very introductory, so I don't have a lot of thoughts on it yet.

-TAing for Discourse Analysis should be pretty much the best thing ever! Even though the first day was (as I expected) mostly preparing the syllabi and handouts, and passing them out during class, it was still a lot of fun... and I do so love that course.

The end is near, once again!

2009-12-03T22:55:00.000-08:00

The end of the semester, that is. But this time, it's more significant.

Mackenzie and I are going home for Christmas break on either the 11th or the 12th - either of which are so very close! Despite the fact that I have a lot to do still especially in my online course, I can't help but not feel too anxious, because break is so very close! I'm really looking forward to it. And also, I have been granted an extension for that online course, which definitely helps with the not-stressing thing.

Also, the first tuition payment for next semester is due tomorrow. Thanks to loans and financial aid, that will not be a problem, but the main thing is, this is the last time I will be paying tuition. Very possibly forever!

It is a weird, weird thing to contemplate the fact that this time next year, I will not be in school. In fact, I will not have been in school for quite some time. Life without school will be quite a change.

Sometimes you learn things from the strangest of places

2009-11-06T14:53:00.000-08:00

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!

2009-10-23T11:07:00.001-07:00

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

2009-10-16T11:35:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-27T20:11:00.001-07:00

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

2009-09-20T14:19:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-16T22:45:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-14T17:10:00.000-07:00

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. :)

Looking forward to a new school year

2009-09-03T13:56:00.001-07:00

Well, it has been an eventful summer. I'll give a quick rundown of what I've been up to:

1. Mackenzie and I were able to play flute in our church's production of The Music Man in April. That was an absolute blast! We've been in the pit orchestra before, and I think each time we have more fun than the last.

2. I didn't end up getting a steady summer job, though I cannot count how many applications I sent out and I cannot tell you how tired I got of filling out my employment history, etc. ... but I did earn some money through house- and pet-sitting. I love animals, and so I had fun taking care of various dogs, cats, rats, and fish. Mackenzie was able to land a job at Regal Cinemas, so the family got to see a couple of free movies. It was pretty sweet!

3. I co-taught Sunday school with Mackenzie for 4s and 5s at our church for quite a bit of the summer. That ranged from being very fun to a little stressful, depending on how willing the kids were to calm down when it was time to stop playing!

4. I took Intro to Theology and Intro to Bible online. Both were fascinating and extremely useful (not only because they're required prerequisites for this upcoming year's seminary courses), but involved a LOT of writing. I've decided I'm not a huge fan of distance online courses. I need more structure and more in-person interaction overall. But I learned a lot, and feel more able to articulate what I believe - which is an important thing.

5. We're also both in the process of officially applying to Wycliffe. The application process is very detailed, but having taken those summer courses has already been helpful, since it involves plenty of writing about what I believe about various theological and biblical topics.

Mackenzie and I will be heading back up to CanIL this Monday. I'm really, really looking forward to seeing everyone up there again! There are still a few wrinkles we need to work out regarding financial aid and registration, which is the main damper on my enthusiasm at the moment. But I know that worrying about it won't be helpful. Instead, I'll try to just be excited about what we'll be learning this semester!

More later.

DONE!

2009-04-16T12:47:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I turned in my last final paper of the semester. So that means... I am DONE with school for the year!

(I guess I still have two summer courses to get through, but they're the online distance courses that I'll be doing from home. From looking at the syllabi, it shouldn't be too bad.)

It is such a huge relief to have no more assignments hanging over me right now. I'm excited to go home, though I'll miss many parts of living up here. I'm going to try to get pictures of all the beautiful scenery in the Langley area before Mackenzie and I head home on Saturday, and I'm glad there are still a few days to hang out and spend time with other CanIL folks.

So this may be my last blog entry for a while!

One more day?

2009-04-14T00:23:00.001-07:00

Well, the Greek final is done, and I got a pretty decent grade on the test and in the course (he asked us to wait around after we finished if we wanted our grade right away - other grades have not been posted and won't be for a while). That was a major relief.

Tonight (or early this morning, I guess), I have just about finished with my Discourse final paper. I only have to print out one part of it at school tomorrow. And I finished my Translation final project last week, and have my notes all ready for the open-notes final tomorrow.

The only thing I'm still worried about is finishing my Ethnography paper. It's supposed to be done by tomorrow if I want detailed comments on it. I don't think that's going to happen. Hopefully I'll be able to get it done by the next day, so I can still get some comments on it. I don't know, though... it's not going very easily.

But anyway! I think I'll make it. And then, done until the online summer courses start!

Speaking of which, it was an amazing blessing that those courses are now paid for, in full. CanIL gave Mackenzie and me very generous scholarships, even though they aren't linguistic courses (they're our theology prerequisites that we wouldn't have to take if we'd gone to Bible college) - so they had no reason to 'have' to give us financial aid for them at all. But they did! A real answer to prayer.

If I can just get past this coming Monday...

2009-04-04T13:18:00.000-07:00

...I think I'll be able to make it through the rest of what I need to get done in the semester just fine. I mean, with a few days of staying up really late, but that's normal.

The Greek final is on Monday. Your prayers would be appreciated. As of now, I am trying to get some good studying for it done.

After the Greek final, I have to finish my paper for Discourse. And then after that, I have the rest of my Translation final project, which should be pretty fun, a Translation final, and an Ethnography paper. And then I'll be done!

Once again, the end approaches

2009-03-21T12:15:00.000-07:00

It's crazy to think that the semester is almost over. Just a few more weeks! Of course, that means I have a lot of final papers, projects, and two exams to prepare for. Trying not to think about that too much, lest I panic.

Winter finally seems to be fading. The huge piles of plowed snow in the TWU parking lots are almost gone - helped by the steady rain we've been getting for the past week. There are crocuses blooming in the yards of the houses in the neighborhood, and robins and Canada geese on the campus lawns. (I prefer the robins.) Today, it happens to be partly sunny outside.

Classes continue to go pretty well. I had to do interviews with three people from the library, which is where I have been doing my Ethnography observations. I had been nervous about them, but they were actually pretty fun. And we read through 1 John 1 and 2 in the original Greek as a class, which was really cool.

Anyway, on to Greek homework. When I finish this workbook assignment, I'll be working on memorizing the Lord's Prayer in Greek. I've got about half of it down so far.

Reading Week

2009-02-26T18:33:00.000-08:00

So, we're just about done with our Reading Week break. For those of you who have never heard that term before, it's a mid-semester break, kind of "Spring" break except you're definitely supposed to still be doing schoolwork. ;)

Mackenzie and I got to spend most of the week down south at our parents' house. We caught up with friends - including some we haven't seen in months! - and got to relax with family as well. I'm glad we were already planning to come back up before the end of the week, though, as it turns out, since the weather has turned iffy again! There was significant snowfall in especially northern Washington last night, and in the Langley area as well. Fortunately, today was mostly sunny and warm enough to melt all of what was on the roads - but there's still snow in the forecast, so we'll see.

Classes are still going very well. I think we ended up with a very good combination of courses this semester. We're translating a text in Principles of Translation, which means definite overlap between what we're learning there and in Discourse Analysis, since you mostly look at texts in that class as well. Ethnography has also been quite fun - and when we learn about observing another culture, that definitely applies to our other classes as well.

The second semester of Greek is quite a bit more difficult than the previous semester. After a rocky start, I think I'm doing pretty well. And the Canadian Bible Society gave all the students in the course a free Greek New Testament, which is cool! I can read some of it (mostly the Gospels), albeit slowly and haltingly.

It's kind of amazing to think that there are only two more months of classes for this year! I'm looking forward to spring - for many reasons.

A cool experience

2009-02-07T21:57:00.000-08:00

So tonight Mackenzie and I went to a dinner night for MKs (missionary kids) that we were invited to by a woman who works at CanIL (her husband is a professor and the director of the MA Linguistics program). We had delicious home-cooked food, lovely dessert, and a chance to just hang out and spend some time with some other MKs who go to CanIL/TWU - as well as two of the host and hostess' sons and their 14-month-old granddaughter. It was a lot of fun! We met some new people, chatted, laughed, and played Telephone Pictionary. And as Mackenzie and I had thought before, even though our family never lived overseas, we've still got plenty in common with other MKs.

This is going to be a monthly thing, and I'll definitely be looking forward to it!

Weekend

2009-01-30T22:15:00.000-08:00

This weekend is Missions Fest in Vancouver, and CanIL and Wycliffe Canada share a booth there. Mackenzie and I signed up to help out at the CanIL booth today - she teaching Language & Culture Acquisition, and me Syntax & Morphology. Student (and staff) volunteers all signed up to take on a short "class" at the booth, which had two "classrooms" where visitors could sit in on 7 minutes of LACA, syntax & morphology, phonetics, and a Wycliffe presentation. Everyone got a class-specific script to follow. Even with that, I had never taught any linguistics - or really taught anything other than Sunday school - before, so I was a little nervous about it before we got there. But more on that later.

Mackenzie and I took the Sky Train to Vancouver, right to the exhibition centre, with Daryn (a TA at CanIL who's very cool). The Sky Train is rather like the Metro in Paris, except of course totally aboveground. Not exactly exciting, but certainly convenient and not a bad price. It was nice to see Vancouver again, though - if only briefly on the way inside the centre. It seems kind of a shame that we've been up here for over a semester and still hadn't been to Vancouver since we first visited CanIL about a year ago.

So anyway, teaching? Was a lot of fun. Sure, there were a few small issues to deal with - such as magnets that were annoyingly hard to actually get off the whiteboard when I was switching between things to display, but I really enjoyed it. And that's cool because I have never really thought of myself as being likely to be a good teacher. I guess it really helps to be teaching something you love, for one thing. Maybe if I end up TAing at some point in the future (which would be good, I think), it wouldn't be too bad to have to teach the class once or twice.

You know what's cool?

2009-01-20T18:33:00.000-08:00

Watching a Canadian news channel's coverage of the US presidential inauguration and seeing shots of people all over the world - especially across Canada - standing to cheer and clap when your president is sworn in. They looked just as excited as the millions of people who were actually there at the Mall to see the event in person. How cool is that?

I listened to President Obama's first speech online at about 4 this afternoon, and found it very good. I got a little bit emotional, but felt a bit disconnected due to distance and not watching live. However, tonight during dinner, when I watched GlobalTV's coverage and saw Canadians joining many of their neighbors to the south in celebration, I definitely teared up.

Though I know Obama isn't going to solve all of the world's problems, it is a very cool and different feeling to have people around the world celebrating with us as the US looks to the future.

New classes

2009-01-07T18:29:00.000-08:00

So I have now had all of my classes (except for Greek, but that's just a continuation of last semester). My thoughts:

Ethnography is quite a full class, mostly with people I had in LACA last semester, so that's cool. One of my favorite teachers is teaching it. It sounds like it will be a fair amount of work, but also fun.

Principles of Translation seems like it will be as cool as I thought it would be. However, it is at exactly the time of day when it is hardest for me to stay awake and aware, so that will be a challenge.

Discourse Analysis also seems like it will be very cool. Just the intro stuff we looked at today was pretty fascinating. The professor also seems like a very friendly, intelligent, helpful person. Always a good thing.

I also had my first shift of my new job last night. Mackenzie and I are doing the evening shift of custodial work at the CanIL building, 5 evenings a week for two hours. May not be glamorous, but it will pay much better than last semester's job, and it's not too difficult, of course.

The snow has melted almost a foot due to the all-but-constant rain. It's getting a little easier each time to get out of our neighborhood. Maybe by the end of the week, our street will be a two-way street again!

The Great White North, indeed!

2009-01-05T22:30:00.000-08:00

So Mackenzie and I were a little nervous yesterday about the drive back up to Langley, since the last fairly heavy snowfall in Kent was very recent. But the drive up was fine: no snow other than on the grass beside the roads, and only a little bit of rain.

And then? We got to Langley. There were HUGE piles of (I assume) plowed snow beside the streets, and when we got off the main roads into our neighborhood... well, let's just say I'm very glad we have studded tires on our intrepid little Corolla. The street has clearly not been plowed, there's only one lane with cleared tracks for tires, there is no street parking (cars that were parked on the streets are half-buried), there is at least a foot of snow in everyone's yards, and the piles of snow from people's shoveled driveways are just immense. We were very grateful that our landlady's husband cleared a spot on the driveway for us. Otherwise, I have no idea what we would have done.

And of course, we have heard from many friends who live in the greater Vancouver area (including our landlady's husband) that this kind of weather is just as abnormal for the area as the less-severe but still quite heavy snow that has been hitting Seattle and most of western Washington for the past weeks. Central and eastern Canada are much more used to dealing with this. Everyone is just amazed!

On a different subject, tomorrow is the first day of the semester (assuming we do actually have class. We'll be watching that closely). I think I'm ready to tackle a new set of classes. On my schedule is Ethnography and then Principles of Translation. While both sound quite interesting, I'm most excited about the latter. I have always enjoyed translating, whether in French class or when learning a little bit of other languages, and also in Greek. It's like the best game or puzzle to me. Though I know it will be challenging, I hope the class exceeds my expectations!

At last!

2008-12-08T23:41:00.000-08:00

So today was the last day I needed to be on campus for the semester. (I still have one more final, for Field Methods, but it is a take-home paper that can be turned in online.) The Greek final was... well, not that great, but I think I will manage a decent grade. I wish I had studied that last tense a bit more, though - *sigh*.

We gave a friend from CanIL a ride south with us after the final, since she needed to get to SeaTac to fly home to Vermont. It was quite fun to have another person in the car with us - made the trip go faster.

And now we're home! It feels very, very good - although being pretty much done with the semester still hasn't quite sunk in for me.

Very close!

2008-12-04T16:33:00.000-08:00

I turned in my last assignment today! It was a backup DVD of all the data I've gathered on Ilocano over the past three months. I even decorated it with a picture from one of our elicitation sessions. It's quite cool.

Now, all I have left is to study for two finals: syntax tomorrow at 9 AM (ugh, too early), and Greek on Monday afternoon. Both will certainly require plenty of studying, but I'm not too worried. And mostly, I'm so very relieved to be so close to done! It's been a wonderful and very challenging semester. I'm ready for a break.

Edited to add: By the way, the end of the semester LACA party was yesterday, and it was a blast! So much delicious Arabic, Karen, and Ilocano food, hilarious in-joke-ful skits and songs, and of course fun with friends.

Further adventures

2008-11-25T23:00:00.000-08:00

Today was our last Language & Culture Acquisition elicitation session. We made chicken adobo under Esther's guidance (oh my goodness, extremely delicious!), and then were evaluated on our ability to have an actual conversation in Ilocano. That was... fun, though I felt like I stumbled on almost every word, and I don't know how good of a grade I'm going to get. But Esther was pleased with our ability to speak, which is encouraging, even if she's just being polite. ;)

About halfway done with the 10-page culture paper that's due tomorrow at midnight. I think I'll finish it, if I can just make myself focus for long enough. (Writing this is only a small diversion, really!) Then there are a few more Field Methods assignments, a revision of my Syntax Language Data Project, two finals, and... am I forgetting anything?

Then a much-needed break!

Oh, and this weekend will help in that department. American Thanksgiving! And a real celebration of Mackenzie's and my birthday!

Music

2008-11-18T17:19:00.000-08:00

Today in our elicitation session, Mackenzie and I asked our LRP to teach us an Ilocano song. Esther had looked for a Christmas carol, but she said the ones she found were really, really long, so she went with a simple little praise song. The English title is "The Lord our God is Good," which is Ti Dios Tay Ket Naimbag in Ilocano.

Esther played the guitar and we sang it through several times, once in English and the rest in Ilocano. It's a beautiful song, and it was just plain amazing to sing it with her.

God knows Ilocano, too.

The end is drawing near

2008-11-16T17:06:00.000-08:00

The last weeks of the semester are going to be crazy busy. I have a group presentation tomorrow, several final papers to write, several more that I have to edit and put together, a Greek test and the final to study for, the last few weeks of elicitation sessions that have to be prepared for somewhere in there, and a final in Syntax.

In order to stay sane, I will have to use my time well (obvious, I know, but not easy), but also leave room for important non-school things like Mackenzie's and my birthday, and (American) Thanksgiving.

*deep breath* Back to work, so that I don't fall behind...

Psst...

2008-11-05T23:40:00.001-08:00

...we have a long weekend this weekend (Remembrance Day on Tuesday, and only one class on Monday). Due to scheduling conflicts, we can't go down south. We also have very few classes for the rest of the week!

So... anyone want to come visit?

Tourist activities

2008-11-02T13:45:00.003-08:00

After church today, Mackenzie and I finally made a trip into Fort Langley, the picturesque historical part of Langley. Even though the weather wasn't great (it's November now, so that means gray, rainy, blustery days!), it was a lot of fun. I can tell it would be a cool place to spend quite a bit of time.

We went into the Ruby Slipper, a fun little candy shop that specializes in crafting specialty chocolates, and also sells a decent variety of British chocolate and confections as well! That, as you may have guessed, was the main reason we wanted to check it out. Unfortunately, they don't have jelly babies, but they do have Turkish delight, Cadbury's dark chocolate, an Australian candy bar called Violet Crumble, and a lot of other things that didn't appeal to us as much (like nougat, licorice candies, etc.). Mackenzie and I now have some tasty-sounding treats to try out later.

Then we took a short walk down to the river (the Fraser River), just to take a look. Again, even in the gray and the rain, it was beautiful! There's still plenty of fall foliage on the trees, as well. I was touristy and took a few pictures, which are at the end of the album in that link. On the way to and from the river, we also window-shopped a bit and decided which restaurants we'd like to check out sometime.

So, next time friends or family visit, if we can find a good place to park in case of weather that prevents much walking, Fort Langley is definitely a place we'd like to take you!

Another cultural observation

2008-11-01T12:45:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty sure Canadians (or at least British Columbians) care a lot more about Halloween in general than do most Americans with whom I am familiar. I'm used to elementary school-aged kids dressing up and going trick-or-treating or going to a harvest festival, and I'm used to carving jack-o-lanterns and all that. But up here, it seems like a whole lot more: store clerks were almost all dressed up, and people in our neighborhood went all-out decorating their houses for Halloween - some more tackily than others! And all the radio announcers (except maybe on the Christian station) were wishing their listeners happy Halloween, and playing appropriate music - such as the theme from "Ghostbusters", and Michael Jackson's "Thriller". Back in Washington, radio stations might mention the holiday once or twice on the actual day (not several days leading up to it), and might play a few Halloween-ish songs.

Also, on the news on Halloween night, the news anchors mentioned that police would be out in force to make sure that fireworks/firecrackers (?!) didn't get out of hand, and that there had already been an incident. I mean, I guess sometimes teenagers go overboard on the whole "trick" side of "trick-or-treat" back home - and probably moreso in other cities than my home city - but not so much that it's generally mentioned on the news as a state-wide thing.

And of course, since Canadians have already had their Thanksgiving, they start thinking about Christmas early on in November to an even greater extent than most Americans, I think. I know that stores start putting out their Christmas decorations quite early in the States, too, but since there is still a holiday for us between Halloween and Christmas, we might still be slightly more delayed on switching to the Christmas season than our neighbors to the north.

A first time

2008-10-28T21:58:00.000-07:00

I am voting in my first presidential election today. In Canada. (By absentee ballot, of course.)

I feel patriotic. That's not sarcastic, though of course it is slightly odd to have this first while I am a resident in another country!

Checking in

2008-10-25T11:29:00.001-07:00

I figured it's been a while since I've posted an entry, so I'll do a brief update.

School's going pretty well. I had a Greek test that I think went decently - I actually did some significant studying beforehand, which is generally helpful. Heh. Language elicitation sessions have been going well, too. Ilocano has some really interesting grammatical things going on that will be challenging to tease apart, but it's a fun puzzle.

The weather has been alternating between gorgeous, clear, crisp days and cloudy, drizzly days, which is normal fall weather as far as I'm concerned. The autumn leaves are simply amazing around here, and it's always uplifting to drive to and from school with so much beauty all around.

Had a few more days of work, and the job is still okay. Today I'll be working four hours, which will hopefully not be either too exhausting or too dull. I'm slightly irritated that my longest shift so far is on a Saturday - severely cutting into the weekend downtime that I really do need - but oh, well. I have scheduled in some non-schoolwork time this weekend, so that will maybe balance it out.

Though I'm still enjoying classes and my classmates quite a bit, I'm also getting increasingly ready for the semester break. It's not too far away! And there is still American Thanksgiving to look forward to, even though we (of course) don't get days off from school for it. And a birthday!

Language learning awesomeness

2008-10-14T18:47:00.000-07:00

Today in elicitation session, Mackenzie and I decided to elicit numbers and colors. We had been given broad hints that colors in Ilocano are quite different from colors in English - and so it is! Ilocano only has four colors: black, white, red, and yellow. Things like blue, purple, and green are all called "not very black," and things like orange and pink are called "not very red." Whoa! Our LRP said that they now have borrowed words for "brown" and "green"... but it's just mind-bending to think that to an Ilocano speaker who has never learned English or another language with more color terms, the sky and the grass are both "not very black."

The different ways speakers of different languages look at the world are just plain fascinating.

(Numbers, by the way, are fairly straightforward. You count to ten, and eleven is "ten plus one," etc., and twenty is "two tens.")

Mmmm...

2008-10-08T17:35:00.000-07:00

In today's elicitation session, our LRP brought us a special Filipino dessert, made with sticky rice mixed with coconut milk and condensed milk, then brown sugar, then coconut strings and more condensed milk on top, before it's baked in the oven. It was delicious, though very rich. Then we recorded her telling us how to make a dish called chicken adobo, in both Ilocano and English (our task was to record a 2 to 3 minute text). That sounds delicious, as well. I'm looking forward to a future group cultural elicitation session where we'll all make Filipino food together.

And as a last food-related note, Mackenzie and I are going to try to make a pumpkin pie to take to our friend's house on Friday for her Thanksgiving celebration. It's the first time we've made one by ourselves, so we'll see how it works. If it ends up looking not fit to take to a friend's house, maybe we'll bring it home. ;)

A Cross-Cultural Experience of Sorts

2008-10-07T17:45:00.000-07:00

Today's chapel speaker was a woman who helped found Healing the Culture. She spoke extremely well and extremely passionately, but I'll get back to more on that in a bit. When Mackenzie and I heard last week that the speaker was going to be someone from a pro-life organization, we experienced some culture shock. See, even though we've been raised in a family and church environment that are definitely pro-life, we've also only gone to public schools. And especially at UW, the state school in the middle of ultra-liberal Seattle, that meant constant exposure to pro-choice sentiment... so to have a pro-life speaker at school - even though it's a Christian school - took us a while to get used to. Also, unfortunately, most of our prior exposure to pro-life activists/activism has come in the form of people ranting about it or holding signs with pictures of dead babies, which doesn't inspire confidence in a movement dedicated to "promote a culture of life," as the Healing the Culture website says.

However, as I mentioned, Camille Pauley - who is actually based in Seattle! - spoke very well, simply, and with a great deal of passion (but not ranting, by any stretch). I found myself agreeing with just about everything she said - except a very small section where her Catholic beliefs diverge from my Protestant beliefs. All in all, it was a very valuable thing to hear. I wish she'd had more time to speak, and I think this organization is definitely going about it in the right way. As a plus, when I looked at the website, none of their endorsements are from ultra-right wing fundamentalists (or at least not the one in particular I was fearing).

On another topic, some more cultural observations about Canada:
1) Canadians often celebrate their Thanksgiving earlier in the weekend, and then leave the actual Monday that is a holiday as a time to relax. Interesting!
2) I am still not used to this construction, which not all Canadians use but is obviously acceptable grammar here: "When you're done the workbook, we'll move on to... etc." It's just so strange to me that they don't think it's necessary to have a "with" in there! I think this also possibly occurs in some areas of the States, but I could be wrong.

Anyway, things are still going well. It's getting to the point in the semester that all of my classmates and I do really want a break, though - good thing it's almost (Canadian) Thanksgiving!

Perspective

2008-09-30T22:56:00.000-07:00

Every now and then, while I'm doing homework or between classes at school, I remind myself to step back and think about what this is all for. Why am I doing all these classes? Why am I learning how to learn Ilocano (in addition to actually learning it), why am I learning Greek declensions - especially the really hard third declension? Why am I learning how to accurately transcribe and enter data into a lexicon?

It's not just because it's really amazingly fun - most of the time - or because it's helping me understand more about language in general... though those things are true.

It's because someday soon, I will be using this information and these skills as part of a team of people working to bring the Word of God into a language that has never had it before.

9After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. 10And they cried out in a loud voice:
"Salvation belongs to our God,
who sits on the throne,
and to the Lamb."

The end of the first month approaches...

2008-09-28T13:31:00.000-07:00

Wow, that went quite fast!

Things are really starting to get busy here. I have a 10-page paper due tomorrow at 10pm (why am I not writing it right now, you ask? Well, because... I... oh, look over there!), which I'd like to finish before classes start for the day, so I can then move to concentrating on my Greek homework. Thankfully, there's not as much of that this week. Then of course I have my usual elicitation sessions to prepare for, and Ilocano data to listen to, enter into the dictionary program, and use to begin to figure out a phonology of the language. Also, I'm sure there are some course readings I need to do... ahem.

I have had two shifts of work. It's quite physically demanding: I set up dividers in the cafeteria for a private event on Saturday morning, and put them away yesterday while Mackenzie moved the tables and chairs back to their normal positions. Those dividers are quite heavy, and sometimes they really don't want to go back into storage. But I think the job will be okay. I'm just a little worried that since it's so taxing, it wouldn't be a great idea to have many hours of it per week, in addition to all my coursework. In turn, that would mean I'm not earning as much money as I'd like to, for things like rent and gas money. Hmm. By next semester, it'd be nice if I could be a TA instead.

Mackenzie and I have pretty much decided that we'll be going to the E Free church that's quite near Trinity (and thus not far from us). We went again today on this surprisingly beautiful Sunday morning, this time to the service with more students. It was very good: good music, a good sermon, and fellowship afterward. It would be nice to join a small group there, though we're both a bit disappointed that no CanIL students seem to go there.

Lunch time! And then I should really get back to that paper.

Another brief cookie-related post

2008-09-25T21:46:00.000-07:00

Tonight's experiment was chocolate HobNobs, which we got from the local IGA (a grocery store that seems to be rather like a bigger, fancier Safeway). The verdict? Quite delicious! Not nearly as sweet as Tim Tams, but that's what I expected based on their description. They were good both by themselves and dipped in milk, and I imagine they would also be tasty with tea or coffee. I love oatmeal cookies, and these are like a drier, crispier version of those. I bet I would also like the plain ones, though I would definitely need a beverage to go along with them.

Time for a school update

2008-09-24T19:05:00.000-07:00

Mackenzie and I have now had our first LACA (Lang. & Culture Acquisition) elicitation session. Those are quite different than the Field Methods sessions - you have to have a concrete lesson plan with an overall topic relating to more than just generating vocab. Our topic for our first session was actions and describing pictures. It went pretty well, though Mackenzie and I were quite tired from staying up late doing homework (and the session is already in the mid-afternoon), so it wasn't quite as energetic of a session as others have been.

Before that, we also had our first group elicitation session (for Field Methods), with the married couple who is also learning Ilocano. It was a lot of fun! Our FM teacher helped us out, since it was the first group session. He did a kind of monolingual demonstration, holding up a rock or a flower or a bigger rock and saying the name of the object in a language that no one else in the room knew, and then our LRP said the word in Ilocano. Then we all started combining the words with simple actions like "give", and trying to figure out how to say "bigger rock" or "two rocks", etc. Our LRP also enjoyed watching us all act out words or actions. Hee!

There was also the first relatively big test in Greek. Despite studying a fair amount I hadn't quite memorized all the forms of the definite article - Biblical Greek has a different form of "the" for feminine, masculine, singular/plural, and four different cases! - so I knew I wasn't going to get a perfect score. But I did manage to remember more than I thought I would, especially when I got to the translation part of the test. At the end of the class period (it's long enough that the TA has enough time to grade everything during class, which is kind of nice), it turned out that I got a pretty good grade. And I am getting all the cases and paradigms memorized, so that's good!

Today's regular Field Method elicitation session went very well. Not only did we have a good time acting out simple words like "push," "pull," "eat," and "drink" (and I think our LRP enjoyed guessing what word we were acting out, too!), we had a fun conversation - in English, not Ilocano yet - about snakes and spiders, and whether or not we found those particular animals scary.

Unfortunately, after the session, Mackenzie and I found out that not all of the words we tried to record ended up actually being recorded. Sigh. The little MP3 recorder that we used is apparently quite tricky, even though we really tried to make sure it was working correctly. Oh, well - at least we have transcriptions for all of the words.

Sorry for the somewhat jargon-y post! Hope it wasn't too boring.

The Commonwealth...

2008-09-21T20:41:00.000-07:00

...is a good thing. Why, you ask? Because it means that Canadian grocery stores carry food items that you most likely wouldn't be able to find in North America if it weren't for Canada's ties to the UK.

Mackenzie and I have heard from our online friends who live in the UK and Australia that we must try certain biscuits/cookies. The main ones are Pims, Tim Tams, and HobNobs. Safeway in Seattle carried Pims, so we tried them and found them pretty tasty. Today, Mackenzie and I bought Tim Tams. They are delicious. They're like a Twix bar, only no caramel, much more cookie-ish, smoother, and just really light and pleasant. It has been recommended that we try them with tea or another hot beverage, which I think would work very nicely.

Next shopping trip, we'll try HobNobs.

Edited: Apparently they are available in the US, but not nearly as readily so - in world trade stores and the like. I bet they're more expensive there. ;)
Edit 2: Weird... this was supposed to be posted yesterday.

First elicitation session!

2008-09-17T17:16:00.000-07:00

Today was the first session with the LRP (Language Resource Person) for Mackenzie and me. We had been feeling relatively okay about the whole thing before LACA this morning (man, I feel like I should have a key with all the acronyms I'll be using - that's Language & Culture Acquisition), in which we delved into what was expected in each session more deeply. That was, ironically, what made Mackenzie and me start to feel like panicking. I felt so unprepared and like I was going to freeze up and not be able to gather the data we need - and Mackenzie felt the same way. Fortunately, we had several hours between the class and the elicitation session. So we spent almost all that time preparing, and could feel much less nervous when the time actually came.

And it was fantastic! Our LRP is extremely nice, friendly, and very sharp. She also has experience doing this, which is always helpful. :) We got a lot more data than we'd thought, and although the recorder ended up having some issues such that we didn't record one of the short lists of vocab, that shouldn't be too much of a problem. Also, I think my first data notebook entry is quite messy, but that will get better with time and experience. Ilocano seems like a really cool language (but aren't they all??), and I'm really excited to keep learning it and learning about the culture - as well as getting to know our LRP better! We did get a chance to chat a bit while we were taking a break from our actual data gathering, and I look forward to that kind of thing for next time, too.

Oh, and by the way... Mackenzie and I have jobs now! We both will be working on campus, helping set up & take down for conferences & meetings as needed. All I have to do is get a Social Insurance Number card (sort of like a Social Security card) and turn in some paperwork, and it's official. Yay!

"Life Tastes Different in Canada"

2008-09-15T20:10:00.001-07:00

Elise came up to visit this weekend, which was a lot of fun. We caught up, chatted, laughed, went swimming, ate Canadian Oreos (excitement!), and watched The Princess Bride for the millionth time. We also caught a bit of Mythbusters on the Discovery Channel, which none of us had ever seen before. Seems like a fun show! It's clear that the guys on it take any excuse possible to blow stuff up - naturally. ;)

The title of the blog entry (very deep, isn't it?) is in reference to the fact that Mackenzie and I have tried two different varieties of Life cereal while we've been here, and even the one that looks the most like the normal version in the States doesn't taste the same. It sounded like a good title to us all this weekend, so I said I'd use it on my blog. Hee.

It was a very, very good way to start off the week, all in all... though of course too short.

The second week of Greek was much, much less draining than the first. I'm sure it helped hugely that Mackenzie and I were fully prepared for class this time. This time, it ended up more like the feeling after you finish exercising: tired, but only an appropriate amount for how much effort you just expended on a fun activity. I know it might sound crazy, but I love learning languages in a classroom environment. While things like paradigms and declensions, and how they tie into case, seemed more than slightly confusing when I just read about them in the textbook, the way it was laid out in class was very clear. (Now I just need to memorize it all!) And it is just so cool whenever one of the exercises in the workbook or that we work on in class is translating a verse directly from Greek.

Yep, I love Bible translation.

Superstore!

2008-09-12T16:50:00.000-07:00

Mackenzie and I went to the nearest Superstore today, to try it out and to stock up on more than just a usual shopping trip's worth of groceries. The verdict? It's awesome - almost everything is vastly cheaper, and it's Costco-like in its selection (and the niceness of the store). You don't have to be a member, though you do have to bag your own groceries. But that's fine; we had to do that in Paris, too. Things like cheese and cereal aren't really any cheaper, but overall, we both think it's worth the extra distance if we plan well so that we don't have to go out there too often. (It's not too far away, but much more so than the other grocery store.) And it's very nice to have stocked up on fresh vegetables, more variety of pasta, and other good stuff. I also bought a 2-liter bottle of lychee-flavored pop, because it was only 98 cents and was very intriguing.

Now, to make dinner, and try the exotic pop. ;)

One week down

2008-09-11T15:34:00.000-07:00

So today marks the end of my first complete week of grad school. Right now, I still feel excited and energetic, in general (that last part might be because I took a nap yesterday), and I think I can do well if I can just keep on top of all the various things I have to do. Another lingering worry is that I haven't heard back about any of the jobs I applied for, even though I have kept in contact with the job offer-ers as best as I can. I bet there are still positions open in food services, but I more than kind of wanted to move away from that. I guess we'll see.

Anyway, things to do: begin the first Syntax language data project, finish Greek assignment for Monday (memorize vocab, do workbook, read chapters), read the rest of the LACA (Lang. & Culture Acquisition) readings, mentally prepare for the first meeting with Language Resource Person(!!!!), physically prepare by doing tutorials for the sound editing programs we'll be using.

Oh, by the way, I ended up choosing to do Ilocano, which is the Philippines language that I mentioned before. It helped that some second-year students said that they really enjoyed doing it, and that the LRP is really nice. I think she actually works at CanIL.

Still been really awesome to eat lunch in the CanIL common room. We met a bunch of our Norwegian classmates today, and chatted with them. They seem to be a friendly and intelligent lot.

Notes about Canada, and where Mackenzie & I are living in particular:
1. When we go back to Washington to visit and for the semester break, it's going to seem like speed limits are insanely fast. Our neighborhood and all the roads in the Walnut Grove area (at least the parts we frequent so far, and of course not including Highway 1) never have higher speed limits than 60 kph, which is less than 45 mph. Most are under 50 kph, which is around 35 mph. So slow!
2. Macaroni & cheese (the kind that comes in a box) is mostly known as Kraft Dinner here. Even the non-Kraft brand has to have the word "dinner" in the name. But apparently that's how Kraft originally marketed it in the US, too - according to Wikipedia. Weird!

First Monday of class

2008-09-08T19:00:00.000-07:00

I had to wait until I'd eaten dinner and taken some time to decompress before I started composing this. Whoa. That was a long, brain-draining school day... in the best possible way! Mostly just the last class of the day, since it's three hours long. More on that later.

Today was the first day of Language & Culture Acquisition. This is Mackenzie's and my only class that meets with the ling undergrads, so it's also the biggest: around 35 students and three TAs. The teacher seems really cool and has a great sense of humor - to illustrate what language learning is not going to be like, he played the "I would like to buy a hamburger" scene from the new Pink Panther movie. Hee!

This is the second class for which we'll be learning a language (either Ilokano - a Filipino language, Arabic, or Karen) from a Language Resource Person (sort of conversation partner). In this class, we're not analyzing the grammar of the language as much - that's Field Methods. But it's nice that the classes fit together so much and so well. And I'm really glad they want us to pick just one option to use in both classes; it'd be insane to try to do both Arabic and Karen, for example!

We started out the class by writing down four questions that we thought we could easily ask someone, other than "What's your name?" Then we were told to pick a partner who we didn't know very well, and attempt to ask them those questions without the use of language - only gestures or simple drawings. It was quite fun, and amusing to watch and listen to. :) But as is becoming usual, the courseload sounds like it's going to require a lot of effort, as well as time management. I guess grad school is a good time to learn that skill... heh.

Lunch was had in the CanIL common room again. I hope that stays a tradition! It's so fun to talk to classmates and program-mates about linguistics, and whatever other random topics we come up with. Mackenzie and I tried the instant kimchee noodle bowls that are for sale there (along with a lot of other food options, don't worry), and found them pretty good. It mostly just tasted like spicy instant noodles. I have no idea if real kimchee would taste similar!

While waiting for the next class to start (a few hours), we spent more time in the computer lab, making sure to mix in some homework with the general surfing the internet. ;) Greek started at 2:30, in the building right next to the CanIL building. It only meets once a week, for three hours in the afternoon, theoretically for people in the surrounding community who want to get seminary type degrees and may not have time to go to a course meeting more than that often. This particular class is pretty small, but there is one other girl in it other than Mackenzie and I who is pursuing an MLE, which is nice. She has an advantage over us, though, since she took classical Greek one year in undergrad, and M and I have not taken any before today.

The class was extremely fascinating and cool, though M and I both wished we'd read the syllabus online to see that we were supposed to have read chapters 1-4 of the textbook before today. It might have been nice to have been slightly more familiar with the Greek alphabet and whatnot before actually starting right in, but oh well. It worked out. And I can already tell how awesome it would be to be able to read the New Testament in its original language... and how useful that would be in translating it. However, we were both severely brain-drained after the class got out, so much so that I couldn't even bear to listen to the French language radio station on the way back because I couldn't deal with hearing another non-English language!

So I still don't know whether I'll be sticking with it. I'd love to - it's fascinating, like I said, and I don't think feeling that mentally exercised and tired one day a week would be too bad. But the thing is, I don't know that it would end up being just one day a week, once the other courses really reach their busy points. Can I memorize 50 vocab words and prepare for various quizzes each week, as well as doing the language projects for Field Methods & Lang. & Culture Acquisition, and the slightly smaller language projects for Syntax & Semantics? I think it's possible, and it has been done before. Need to think about it more.

Shopping

2008-09-06T15:40:00.000-07:00

So my change when I paid for groceries today was $8 something. I was briefly quite confused as to why the only bill I got was a 5.

Pictures from San Juan trip

2008-09-05T13:11:00.000-07:00

Here is a link to the pictures I took on our trip.

First day of class

2008-09-04T16:01:00.001-07:00

... And incidentally, due to somewhat wacky scheduling, also the last day of class for the week, since I don't have any Friday classes!

Anyway. This grad school thing? Is going to be awesome. Hard work, for sure, but awesome. I can't express how cool it is to be in a building full of people who all have the same passions as I do, including the teachers.

First class was Field Methods, taught by one of Dad's former students. This sounds like it's going to be a lot of work - gathering data from a native speaker of one of three non Indo-European languages (in other words, not closely related to English), figuring out what sounds they have in that language, doing a rudimentary phonology (figure out which sounds are important to native speakers), and composing a theory about one aspect of the language, as well. The three language choices are a language from the Philippines with a really long name that I've forgotten (not Tagolog), Karen, and Arabic. I'm a little hesitant to choose Karen, despite some family connections, because it's tonal. But we'll see.

After that class, we chatted a bit with the teacher, who is extremely nice. Then, since we had plenty of time before our next class, we checked out the collegium - basically a really nice student lounge - that's available for ACTS students, and then got our student IDs. My picture is at least a bit better than the one I had for my UW ID, so that's good. ;) Next, we decided to check out the CanIL lounge. It's also very nice, and full of awesome people. We met a lot of new friends, both further on in their degrees and our same year. We also shared in a lot of awesomely nerdy linguistics jokes. Yay! :)

After a quick stop at the library to get the ID card activated, we spent some time in the CanIL computer lab before our next class. We did a lot of ice breakers in Syntax & Semantics, so I feel like I know all of my classmates at least a little bit. They all seem cool, and as usual, come from a very wide variety of places, from other areas of Canada & the US, to South Korea, Romania, and Norway. The professor is from the UK, so I especially enjoy hearing her accent. :) And she is also very nice, with a great sense of humor.

The only question brought up by class today was whether or not Mackenzie and I should drop Greek. We'll already be doing a lot of language learning in Field Methods and Language & Culture Acquisition, so adding another whole language on top of it was not recommended to us. But the teacher for Field Methods suggested we try one day of Greek (first class meeting is on Monday) and see what we think. If we drop it, we might add Ethnography to our schedules, which would also be cool.

So yeah - I think this whole thing will be really, really fun, if I just keep on top of all the work I have to do. I guess it's a good thing that the on-campus jobs I applied for mostly only offer less than 10 hours a week!

Back again, and much more ready to start school

2008-09-03T19:37:00.001-07:00

So, the trip to the San Juan islands was lovely, if far too short. Got to spend good time with family, see a wide variety of wildlife and spectacular views, and travel on ferries (pictures to come later). That's the short version.

Longer version? Mackenzie and I drove down to Anacortes from Langley on Tuesday afternoon. No trouble at the border, no trouble following the directions from Dad and from the WA State Ferries website. Mom & Dad met us at the terminal. It was too dark to see much scenery on the ferry ride over to San Juan, but it was still a fun trip. Then it was absolutely pitch black when we arrived on the island, so much so that driving on the long, windy road to the vacation house was a bit scary. We did see a fox and a deer on the way there, though!

Inside the house, we were greeted with a much less awesome type of wildlife, in the form of two gigantic spiders. Thankfully, Dad killed them both. ;) We were all rather tired by this point, so it didn't take long for us to all head off to bed.

The next morning, we all realized exactly how beautiful the views from the house were! There are lots and lots of windows, all over the house, so that each bedroom has excellent views. Even though the day started off a bit cloudy, it was still gorgeous.

When Isaac & Andrea arrived, we all just chatted for a while, which was good. :) Then we went into town - all six of us in Mom & Dad's Golf, which was a tight fit! - and windowshopped. Friday Harbor is a fun town. Mackenzie and I each got a little square of fancy French dark chocolate Grand Noir 85% cacao for 40 cents each, and also some curry paste so we can learn to make curry (and also just add some spice to our cooking in general). We all also spent a good while looking at Native American and First Nation art in one shop. Really cool stuff.

We tried to look at a lighthouse on the way back, but we couldn't find the turnoff/parking lot with a path that actually led to it. There was a nice little view point that we stopped at, though, to take pictures.

Oh! I almost forgot - Isaac found an old Atari system in the game room/closet at the house. After some trouble setting it up, we played some classic, classic games - older than us! - such as Pacman, Asteroids, Missile Command, and Space Invaders. Good times! I'd never actually used a joystick before. Hee.

Another highlight of the day was taking pictures as the sun set behind the house. Not only did we all get some beautiful views of the surrounding water and islands, but we also saw a large purple jellyfish that had gotten caught near shore. None of us could tell whether it was still alive, since it was moving but that might just have been with the tide, but it was very pretty. Isaac tried to steer it back out to sea, but it just drifted back in a few feet further down the shore. Oh, well...

Unfortunately, Mackenzie and I had to leave relatively early the next morning so that we could get back to Langley in time to do important school-related things on campus. So we said our goodbyes at the ferry terminal the next morning and walked on. This time, of course, it was daytime, so we could watch the scenery as we made our way back to Anacortes. It was beautiful, even if we didn't see any whales. :) And it wasn't hard to get back to I-5 once we arrived there, which was nice! In fact, we only worried that we'd gotten lost once we were back in Langley, since we ended up taking a different road than usual to get back to our neighborhood. But it all worked out.

At campus, we managed to catch the last half of the CanIL orientation, and then we met a classmate afterwards who also needed to do things like get her ID, set up insurance, etc., so we went together. She's actually also from Washington, though much further south than I've ever really been. But we did get textbooks, insurance, and I got my parking pass, which eased our minds about actually starting school tomorrow! Also, we met the wife of one of our teachers, who knows Dad from way back.

All in all, a very satisfying couple of days. Class starts tomorrow, bright and early - 8:20 AM! Sigh. ;)

Day 3: Labour Day

2008-09-01T15:30:00.000-07:00

Man, hopefully this blog will get more interesting once school starts. ;) I'm sure it will.

So in honor of Labor Day, Mackenzie and I have just completed our day's strenuous task: to call the library guy at TWU and leave a message so we can set up a time to be interviewed for the circulation desk assistant position for which we're both applying. Of course, since it is Labor Day, there was no one there, or we could have actually maybe talked to him instead of leaving a message. But oh well.

Now, the next item of business is getting ready to drive back down to Washington, to spend a few days with our family in the San Juans. Should be quite fun, though there won't be any internet. So this may be my last entry... for a few days.

Day 2 continued

2008-08-31T18:02:00.001-07:00

So the shower actually was tricky. Good, I'm glad we weren't just blind - and I'm also glad it's not broken, since I'm sure it wouldn't have been repaired for a while, what with it being Sunday and tomorrow being Labo(u)r Day.

We also met our landlady's daughter, who heard we were trying out churches in the area and invited us to go with her and her husband to the Evangelical Free church in Ft. Langley next Sunday. Apparently, it's going to be a big outdoor service to kick off the year! Should be cool.

Day 2 so far

2008-08-31T12:25:00.000-07:00

I slept pretty well on my shiny new (satin, so they are literally shiny) sheets, and woke up at 8:30 to have plenty of time to get ready in time to walk to the local Lutheran church, which has a 10:30 service.

The only wrinkle so far with the basement suite is that Mackenzie and I can't figure out how to work the shower head. (It may actually be broken, or we may just be clueless. Either way, we'll talk to our landlady after lunch.) So we ended up taking sort of baths this morning, for the first time in a really long time. But hey, at least it worked all right.

Oh - while eating breakfast this morning, we noticed that not only do they translate all the nutrition facts and stuff on the cereal box into French, they also translate Rice Krispies' "Snap! Crackle! Pop!" into French! The version a la francais is "Cric! Crac! Croc!" Hee.

We were both slightly nervous to see if the Lutheran church was more conservative than we're used to - as in, would we be the only women who weren't wearing a dress? - but we decided on the walk over that if so, we would just take the attitude that this is after all a "foreign" country, so we could just use differences in local custom as our excuse. ;) The walk is not far at all, and the weather was absolutely beautiful.

As soon as we arrived in the parking lot (which was nicely full), we saw that we wouldn't be the only women wearing pants, which was a relief. :) The church has recently gotten a new facility built, and it's very pleasant. A cool surprise upon entering the sanctuary: our friend from KCC, Kristina, was there! So we sat next to her and her friends.

The service was very good. It's clearly meant to be inter-generational, since we sang both hymns and more current worship songs, including my absolute favorite Michael W. Smith song (Agnus Dei). The sermon was good, as well, and it only took Mackenzie and me a little while to get used to how the pastor said "about" and "been." I think it'll take longer to get used to "again" and "against", for some reason. Maybe because that's not as big a part of the stereotype Americans have for Canadian accents. We also noticed that his accent got a little stronger when he started talking about where he's from - Saskatchewan.

Another plus about the sermon was that he showed a clip from The Fellowship of the Ring to illustrate how when one person takes on a big goal - like Frodo accepting the responsibility of taking the Ring to Mordor - other people might just join in to help. And even though there were some minor technical difficulties in showing the clip (just like home!), it made Mackenzie and me quite happy... and also made us want to watch the movies again. Hee. But more importantly, we decided that we certainly wouldn't mind coming back to that church again, though we do want to try other ones that were either recommended to us or looked good when we looked around for churches near this house.

Now, time for lunch. More later.

Random discovery

2008-08-30T23:16:00.001-07:00

From change that I received from various American businesses by mistake in the past couple of weeks, I have now discovered 36 cents in Canadian money! I should invest this...

Move-in day

2008-08-30T21:49:00.000-07:00

So Mackenzie and I made it up to Langley today, and we're all moved in! Well, we forgot a few things, but they weren't too essential, thankfully. I think. Ahem.

Anyway! We drove up in two cars today - Mackenzie and I with our parents and our brother. We got a later start than we'd planned, but that's pretty much business as usual with our family, and we didn't have a defined appointment with our landlady either, so no big deal. The trip up was smooth, and the border wait wasn't too bad. And even the process of getting student visas was surprisingly smooth! They just wanted to see our passports and the documents that Trinity had told us they'd need. They didn't even charge us a fee, and had them ready in about 10-15 minutes. Nice!

Then we moved in all our boxes at our new place, and the landlady went over a few more things with us. We also met her granddaughter, who is about one year old and is adorable. Her son-in-law showed us how to use all the numerous remotes we're going to need for the entertainment system (!!) and made sure our internet connection was working all right - both very important things. Hee. Then the whole family went out for dinner at A&W - darn good root beer! Interestingly, this was the first time Mackenzie and I had eaten at an A&W. Kind of reminds me of how we had our first ever Big Macs at a McDonald's in Thailand. We just have to be non-traditional, I guess!

The last stop of the day was picking up some groceries at a nearby store, which will hold us over for a while though they were much more expensive than we'd been expecting. It will be a while before the novelty of seeing all the writing on packages, signs, etc. in both English and French will wear off for me, I think. Good for keeping me literate in French, too!