Super Tuesday

Oops, I said I was going to post more often, didn't I?

Originally I had four papers due today: one seven-pager, two three-pagers, one twenty-pager. But last week our professor gave us more time for the twenty-pager, so I'll take a couple days to polish that one off. The seven-pager I edited and finished on the way home for Thanksgiving, the one Spanish three-pager I wrote (mostly) at home, the other French one I typed up this morning. Not bad. I know some have a much heavier load than I do.

In other news, how interesting. I'm especially concerned about that 2% income reduction.

(Of course, they left out the most interesting part. The caption on the Health page reads, "Growth hormone levels' 'IQ link': Scientists suggest they have found a reason why some shorter children perform less well at school.")

An apology and a brief description

I apologize for the ridiculous subject line on the last past. I was just trying to express how cold I was.

Thanksgiving Break has been lovely.

Wednesday Tammy and Diana and I finally got away from campus after getting our stuff in Tammy's car and after I returned the library key that I accidentally stole. Good thing I checked my pockets. That's where I put it when I opened up the library that morning.

Holiday traffic was 1 mph for about half an hour, but the rest was reasonable, especially the extra hour we picked up on leaving Indiana.

Tammy dropped me off at Ardith's apartment in Cedar Rapids. This was super because it took 2 hours off my trip home and gave me an Evening with Ardith. We enjoyed potato soup and bills and eggnog and a pathetic excuse for a superhero movie called Daredevil, which I wouldn't recommend seeing unless you watch it with Ardith.

The next morning Ardith drove us up to home in her snazzy Jetta. Dinner was planned for 2:15 p.m. and was on the table by 2:30 p.m. Truly a record! All the kids had been starving to death for nearly two hours, then they were stuffed an hour later.

After dinner we dozed around a while. I made two pies and we watched Lord of the Beans, which is a real hoot to watch, especially with our family!

Thank the Lord for a Thanksgiving so different from last year!

On Friday Daddy and Jason changed our vehicles to snow tires and Ardith changed hers. I didn't do much besides lugging bricks and checking tire pressures.

We also took Family Pictures. One was supposed to be serious. As soon as the camera snapped, everyone burst out laughing. Try explaining that one.

Ardith finally got away after being detained all day for said Family Picture. After supper the rest of us kids watched a western and absolutely laughed our heads off!

Today I hurt my brain while trying to make my thesis paper behave. It finally straightened itself out after I stopped.

Tomorrow is departure time after church services. I expect I'll try to finish editing my thesis paper on the way back and write a 3-page French paper when I need a break from that. And we'll lose that hour back to the Daylight Savings wormhole, but that's all right - better at school than at home. And it's back to survival mode for about two-and-a-half weeks.

Please pardon all the missing commas and terrible style. It's just Break, that's all.

brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...........

I was about ready to complain about freezing to death. It's 65 degrees F. in our room and I have on a long-sleeved shirt and a turtleneck and a sweater (and I'm still cold).

But, I just learned that our suitemate's room is closer to 60 degrees, as is the room of our RA, who has, incidentally, put in a request to get the heat turned up.

It's all for a good cause. They may only raise our tuition by $500 instead of $1000 next year.

Who said Iowa is rural?

Student Universe (the service with which I purchased my ticket to France) just informed me of a great new deal. $560 for Des Moines - Frankfurt, roundtrip, direct.

Any takers?

Can it already be Sunday night?

I should post again before the weekend completely disappears. It has been a good week and a good weekend. Plenty of time to work on projects and relatively little sleep deprivation.

This week promises to be busier. Besides the usual round of work, classes, and meals, I have church directory pictures on Monday night, a French movie on Thursday night, a Spanish class to teach for Professor Navarro on Friday, and French Optimist Club Friday night.

Thanks to a well-chosen prize for a scavenger hunt and a lovely box from church family at home, my chocolate drawer is well-stashed. I should have enough to write two 9-page papers and a 20-page paper and a speech before Thanksgiving Break.

More important than all that, though - praise the Lord for His goodness!

To whom it may concern

I got my flu shot.

Milestone

Melinda's joining the teenage ranks today!

Happy 13th birthday, Melinda. :)

Sorry I'm late

I completely forgot to do this yesterday.

Happy 11th birthday, Carolyn! :)

Mommy has two photos and commentary.

The ceremony

Precisely a little after 2:00 p.m., all 17 of us filed into Ashman Chapel for the Alpha Chi induction ceremony. Dr. Dilling read our names, one by one. Each of us walked up the aisle, lighted our little candle at a larger one on the table, turned to face the audience and recited the following pledge: "I pledge myself to uphold the purposes of Alpha Chi, striving to make its ideals my ideals in scholarship and in service." The little cardboard candle holders could double as cheat sheets. I didn't write mine down and only suffered one six-second panic attack as I was waiting to walk up and couldn't recall the verb after "I... " Commit? Give? Dedicate? Thankfully, it hopped back into my mind just in time.

After reciting the pledge, each of us walked over to sign the register and shake several hands (including President Manahan's) while hearing our respective advisors say nice things about us. We lined up in the back, everyone recited the Alpha Chi motto You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free; then after applause we were allowed to sit down and hear the address. My wonderful Professor Schram was the speaker this year. Afterwards they had us all get on the podium for pictures. It was very odd to stand up there and see several cameras flashing at once.

!!

I just purchased my ticket to France!

Homecoming ain't nothin' like home

Tonight was Homecoming at Grace. Six of us girls dressed up and walked to the cafeteria to eat by candlelight... I mean, by lighthouses and Chinese lanterns (that would make more sense if you knew that this year's theme was nautical and last year's theme was Oriental). We enjoyed our conversation over a two-course dinner, then trekked down the hill to Rody Auditorium for the variety show, which was, as usual, low in talent but high (relative to person observing, anyway) in comedy. Hmm, I just realized that they never announced a winner! They did show off the Homecoming Court of popular-people-on-campus and crown a king and queen. What do you know, the Student Body President was the king. Afterward we finally got out of the auditorium and went back to the cafeteria and stood in line to get our dessert. After two experiments, I've discovered that chocolate and chai are an especially effective combination for my stomach.

My absolutely favorite part of the whole evening? Coming back to our quiet little dorm room. The others went off to go rollerskating till around curfew (1 a.m.), so I have the room all to myself. Whew. I was starting to feel the effects of people shock.

Why look forward to these 'social events', only to rejoice in getting away from them?

Posting will be more frequent after this. That's a promise.

Time in

It's now pretty evident that little public demand exists to keep this blog going. Good thing, because then I can take an unannounced two-week break whenever I feel like it.

Not much has happened in the last sixteen days. That first weekend was a very relaxing Fall Break and little homework. The next two weeks were full of insomnia and little more homework.

Today I slept in till 7 a.m. and have all day free for homework.

Everyone enjoy the last three days of October!

Stem cell research just hit home

BBC:

The [study's] aim will be to determine whether adult stem cells taken from bone marrow can repair damaged heart muscle.

. . .

A second arm [of the study] will involve 200 patients whose hearts are failing specifically because of dilated cardiomyopathy - a heart muscle disorder.

Read more.

Midterms week

Hopefully, with that subject line, I can skip the introductory apology!

I only had two tests this week. Tuesday evening I spent an hour and a half writing answers to essay questions and putting a dent in my thumb. Then I worked on calculus with some others till about 11:30 P.M. Today I enjoyed an open-notes test on three hours of sleep. Let me tell you, three hours is extremely substantial compared to zero!

Fall Break is this weekend. Two lovely days off, two lovely days of work.

I'm going to bed.

Guess what!

I was studying the literary paradigm of Biblical interpretation and came across the word ontological. Aside from instantly recognizing it as one of those vague philosophical terms, I also instantly knew the definition had something to do with "being", but I didn't know how... except that Greek had something to do with it. Having none of my Greek books at hand, I used Dictionary.com to verify the definition ("of or relating to essence or the nature of being"), then with Etymonline to verify the etymology. Yes, the onto- part comes from Greek ontos, genitive masculine singular of on, present participle of einai, "to be".

That just made my day!


This is also my first post from the laptop Daddy fixed up for me. It's so much fun to use. I have much still to figure out, including how to select words to link. So I'll refer you to the sidebar if you want to double-check my sources.

Four days

It's been a good weekend.

Thursday was Language Table over lunchtime. A faithful few of us who showed up at 11 a.m. stayed, as usual, till about 2 p.m., when our professor had a faculty meeting. The Spanish speakers have a table all to themselves, and the French and German speakers share another one... for those of us who know both, it can be an exciting table.

Thursday night was French Movie Night. We watched Bon Voyage. I don't think I've ever muttered "Tu es stupide" to the characters so many times during a movie. Good movie.

Friday night I went down the hill for some free cobbler and ice cream and saw the Cotton Patch Gospel production. This link doesn't have the right actors, but it should give you an idea.

Saturday afternoon I walked over to (Great-) Uncle Solon and Aunt Kathryn's house. Aunt Kathryn got up a little tea-party for us: cake and ice cream and sandwiches and chips, and tea of course... and they even convinced me to put some creamer in it. Afterwards we played a game of Scrabble. I think I only won by virtue of having ibex on a triple word score. They kept me thinking hard. Aunt Kathryn tells me that she and Uncle Solon play a game almost every night, and he usually wins.

After church today, I finished most of the week's homework in about five hours, then did some more.

Now it's off to bed and a new week!

I Didn't Do It

No, it was someone over at Computer Services (GCCS). Fall cleaning time came around and I got wiped from the system. Now, according to the campus network, I no longer exist.

I discovered this astonishing fact at 3:30 P.M. This is the time I start work in the language lab on Wednesday afternoon. This is also the time the GCCS helpdesk (and phone) closes. Fortunately, my professor placed a call that cheated the system and went through to someone in the mysterious rooms behind the helpdesk, where no student save the selectively inducted ITer has ever entered.

My existence should be re-established sometime today. In the meantime, my wonderful roommate is letting me use her identity to access the Internet.

Darker

Today I had a square of this, courtesy of Prof. Schram.

Daddy and Mommy, maybe it's time to upgrade from Dove's. Lindt 85% cocoa is incredibly intense. Mmmmm.....

After the Sunday night homework

Today I figured out why we have pencils. Pencils are for non-math majors taking math classes. That, or a pen + lots of scratch paper.

I sincerely wanted to type out for you some of the ridiculous algebraic contortions a few problems sent me through today, but it just wouldn't work, at least not on Blogger. Fortunately I'm not a math major and I don't have to now regret not selecting a blogging service that has such capabilities.

Hopefully you don't get the impression that I don't enjoy Calculus I. Believe it or not, I do... mostly. It's just that math class, for me, is more of a foreign language class than the foreign languages classes I've taken. Let's hope this means I'm fulfilling my culture shock requirement before going overseas.

Hopefully, as well, I will soon have the time to sit down and write a long, substantial post. Just don't count on it.

Multilingualism

Not very surprising that 50% of Europeans speak at least two languages. Europe nearly has to be multilingual, especially tiny countries such as Luxembourg, squeezed in between countries of greater geographic and economic power.

I do feel sorry for all those Americans who only have access to the English-speaking world!