What's up with this weather?

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.

And we're back!

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.

First elicitation session!

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!