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!

A Cross-Cultural Experience of Sorts

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!