Sharon's Exciting Life as a "Single"

Except that, between me, myself, and I, there are really three of us getting into adventures!

Well, it was Tuesday night. My apartment-mate was off watching a movie at a friend's house. Having been inspired by my Indian colleagues who always brought delicious dishes for lunch, I decided to try cooking up something interesting. So I pulled out the oil and all the spices I had, and started chopping onions and vegetables.

Before I even know the oil was heating up in the pan, the smoke alarm went off! That was startling. I used one of those handy barstools to take it down and tried heating up the pan without the oil in it the next time. This went better.

I was having a lot of fun frying up my spices, when it occurred to me that this would be a perfect time to put a music CD into the laptop in my bedroom, turn on the speakers and get beautiful sound by which to cook. It took a while to get the laptop booted up and password-ed, since I kept getting distracted by adding the vegetables and chickpeas to fry. I had checked and everything was plugged in. The laptop power, the speaker cord. I put in the CD and flicked the speaker and -

nothing happens! What? How can that be? Yes, everything's plugged in, both the battery and speakers into the the extension cord - oh, is that the lamp cord and not the speaker cord? No, the lamp's plugged into the wall. So what's the deal? Did I somehow leave everything plugged in that night when the power must have blinked since the microwave clock was unset again in the morning and that somehow zapped the speaker system completely? What?! How can this happen to my lovely speakers? Can I live without ever hearing music of beautiful sound quality again? Oh, this is so sad....

Oh wait, the extension cord isn't plugged into the wall!

I turned off the heat under the (hopefully) deliciously spiced and fried chickpeas and suddenly remembered that it was high time to check the oil in the car. True, it was about 9 o'clock, but there was still a little light, and even if it did turn out to be too dark, I could always pull out the flashlight. Off I ran through the long damp grass - after turning off the stove, surprise, surprise! I got the hood up and the oil stick out, just enough light to see - wiped to put it back in and double-check... except I couldn't quite see to put it back in. Time for the flashlight! Ran back in and started hunting it up, only to realize that I really had no idea where it was, since everything was still all misplaced and un-put-away from the move. Frantically hunting through all the boxes, bags, and closet shelves, with the hood still propped up and the oil stick still out on the engine cooling off in the gathering dusk... I couldn't find the flashlight and I couldn't go ask the neighbors - that would just be too bad - and I would have to leave the hood up and the oil open all night...

There it was!

My goodness, that was close. I almost had to resort to turning on my headlights to see if they shed any faint rays backward into the hood, which of course they didn't and was completely pointless.

By the time Stacey got home, the car hood was back down and the kitchen cleaned up and I just had to put the smoke alarm back and test it, which made it beep, which made me almost fall off the stool and break my neck and certainly made Stacey laugh!

Tuesday night was a very, very enjoyable night.

Labor Day Weekend

Happy Labor Day Weekend, everyone! I hope you are all with family or friends and relaxing and having fun.

This weekend is turning out to be a great treat, even just by Saturday. Everyone has gone camping. I have the whole apartment to myself, a borrowed car while mine waits to be fixed, and free reign in the house where I was living during the last semester and summer - just for feeding the cats!

That means real Internet access for the first time in two weeks, since moving into the apartment.

That means cable TV too! Except that, somehow, all those exciting movies and shows aren't so appealing. Just the Lawrence Welk Show and the Sound of Music.

That's enough because I can't wait to tell you a story! Next post.

Visiting the Internet

Hello. If it weren't for my job and an hour-long lunch break, I wouldn't be here. So you should thank DePuy!

(Actually, you're probably thankful to have a break from this blog.)

My sister Kendra is all moved into Grace and even has an ethernet connection in her dorm room, which is more than I can say for myself.

This is just to let the few readers know that all is well. Stacey has moved into our new apartment too, and we are having fun evenings of cleaning and organizing. I did almost burn the house down yesterday by turning on the iron, leaving it to warm up and forgetting that it was lying down on the ironing board, not standing up... God has been very gracious to let me grow up, I think sometimes!

This weekend's excitement

Too bad! I give up on not writing another personal blog post. Too much exciting stuff is happening.

First off, tomorrow Mommy and Kendra drive out here from Ioway! We have big plans for registration and the Big Dorm Move-In on Saturday.

Tomorrow the gas is finally coming on in the apartment. It will be a very fun Friday night of cleaning and cooking my very first meal and messing around with technology set-up, like rigging up the sound system for the bedroom.

It should be a very enjoyable weekend -- family, virtually no phone, and hopefully very little Internet.

Out in the middle of Everywhere!

When I went to put the first groceries in our new apartment, I met the couple that is moving in to the studio right next door. Guess where they're from. Waterloo, Iowa.

My "adopted" brother and sister just got back from a missions trip to Brazil. Hannah told me that they were going through an antique shop and saw a license plate selling for at least $50 or $60 bucks. It was an Iowa license plate.

Oh my goodness, life is just too funny sometimes, isn't it?!

August 13

Happy birthday to Daddy! the most wonderful man in the whole wide world.

My mom has a great picture of him on her birthday post today.

The big day

Yaaayy! Tonight we start moving in!!

Wedding photos

Long overdue, but here are some photos of the 3 June 2007 wedding, when my dear friend Rachel married Luke.

If you click on this link, you should find the photos on the second row, captions included!

If you prefer, here's the album homepage; click on the album "Tysons" and click to the second page.

That decides it

The first paycheck! I'm very thankful.

But the amount of taxes withdrawn is enough to make me a libertarian.

No More Screen, Please

I mean to post more, but real life keeps distracting me.

The new job is going well. It's quite fun to be on the inside of a big company. Someday, if anybody could be interested in anything so ridiculous, you may get some Perspective on the Corporate World from an insider-of-all-of-two-weeks.

And now, if you don't mind, that's really enough looking at a screen for one day!

Real independent adults

Oh boy, this is exciting! My friend and I signed a lease on an apartment today. The most exciting part is that we signed it without getting the keys, and now we get to see if they turn up tomorrow.

No sooner do we begin mentioning the plans to church friends than they offer us all kinds of furniture, dishes, even tea. Best of all is having to pick between TWO mattresses to borrow. Guess all we need to buy is food and a shower liner.

9:30 and feels like bedtime.

Just because I can

It's 12:22 and I'm sitting in my cubicle during lunch break. And I'm online because they finally came around and installed my computer! How exciting is that!

WOW Russia!

You will have fun exploring this site!


Wow, Russia is the biggest country in the world. Aloha!

Yes, guys, it is. So everybody knows that there are two cities in Russia - Moscow and St. Petersburg. That is also true. The rest of the country is called Siberia. That's it. Pretty simple geography.

So what else do we have in Russia? We have bears, of course. Lots of different bears. Some of them wear lapti and play balalayka all day long, some of them drink vodka all the time, some of them can fly, some live on the Internet, some went into politics and some are just hanging out in the streets.

--Elena Marus


Go find out more and just try to keep from laughing and learning.

Tomorrow

The first day of the first job after college!

Inherited sarcasm

Yeah, I enjoyed meeting your brother. Now I understand where you got that terrible personality.

So you really owe your success to your sister's failure.

Girls: If you have older brothers, feel sorry for yourselves. You smile at guys too much.

Guys: If you don't have older sisters, feel sorry for yourselves. Girls don't like you as much.

Nope, you actually aren't a good listener. You were just forced into pretending you were because you weren't an only child.


What? That wasn't me, that was just my older sister coming out in me. You would have known that if you'd read the article: "The New Science of Siblings".

BG Answers

Thanks to this round's participants, Ma Hoyt and Derek!

Here are the answers, with the participants' intelligent guesses in parentheses:

progeggrammenoi -- marked out (I am a programmer, I am commanding)

zophos -- darkness (from the planet Zophos, wisdom)

despotayn -- master (I wish to be a despot, tyrant - Bingo! Both basically right!)

asteres planaytai -- wandering stars ("something about" stars, heavenly bodies/beings)

It's hard to say who was closer. Probably Derek, since Ma Hoyt took some elaborative liberties at the expense of single-word translation.

Derek, that zophos was confusing, wasn't it? Sophos would be "a wise man".

I was racking my brain trying to come up with a prize, till it occurred to me that of course I couldn't think of a prize to give someone who hadn't really won.


Now, in case you'd like to see those words in their Jude context --

For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand programmed for this condemnation, ungodly persons who... deny our only Despot and Lord, Jesus Christ (4)...
these are the men who are... planets, for whom the black darkness has been reserved forever... (12, 13)

Balderdash Greek

Forget language classes. Learning another language is more like a game! I will prove it to you. Let's start with Greek!

Greek uses a different alphabet, which is very beautiful. But to make this simple, I will just use English letters.


Guess what these words mean:

progeggrammenoi

zophos

despotayn


And, just for kicks, a bonus easy one:

asteres planaytai


(Big Hint: These words are all taken directly from the book of Jude)

Forms never die

Today was another first: apartment hunting!

Guess what? Many landlords want you to fill out an application. You probably knew this already, but I didn't. So much for ever escaping applications. I suppose you have to fill one out to retire, too?

Speak up

Imagine you grew up in a place where everyone valued social harmony, not individual expression. Silence is much better than speaking. Asking a question of someone in authority is nearly unthinkable.

Then, one sunny day, along come reformers who tell you it's time to modernize and democratize. They put you in a courtroom to serve on a special kind of jury that questions the defendant and deliberates with the judge over the sentence to hand down. Suddenly you have to speak up, express your opinion (were you supposed to have one?) and perhaps argue with the judge.

How would you feel? Terrified, maybe?

According to the polls, 80% of Japanese are "dreading" (quote) this odd variation on the jury system, slated to take effect in 2009.

[Note: Unfortunately, the New York Times online is now only providing abstracts of archives, even for online subscribers. Hopefully this link will let you read the abstract.]

Maybe this will be a good thing, and everyone will quickly overcome their very natural fear. But it doesn't seem right to force a society to change cultural behaviors that have served them well for millennia, right into the age of technology and globalization. At the very least, it seems odd to jump into a jury system even more oriented toward public individual expression than, say, the American system.

Good news!

[This post has been specially adapted to make more sense and be less weird. Sorry for any lost comments.]

I have a job!

It is a temporary position, doing data entry. But it is a good start. This temporary agency works with DePuy Orthopaedics, a division of Johnson & Johnson. The project should run 6-8 weeks and perhaps a good bit longer.

Of course, definite employment does depend on passing the drug screening.

Overseen

Seen on the way down to Texas with Ardith (17 June):


Got Ego? Stroke It!

The Nice Law Firm

Marked Tree (name of a city - ask Ardith for the story)

Mid-South Community College

"Buckel Up. Drive Safely." (seen twice)

Tanya's Hair Affair

Back!, Part 2

[Read previous post first.]

And so the three of us went looking for a train that would take us in to the Chicago Loop. Just missing the Blue Line train gave us the chance to take the Pink Line, a new one even for the Chicago veteran with us. It seems to function fine, if you ever want to try it. We spent at least an hour walking through town, along the Chicago River, under the John Hancock building, up the nifty fountain in the Water Tower Place, past the Hershey's and Ghirardelli shops, and lingering over the exotic cars to get our fill of Lamberguinis, Ferraris and Bentleys. Now, I didn't learn to pick out anything besides a Lamberguini, but I did learn the names!

At this point in the story, it's important to understand that there were three parties: Zach and his family, the three of us, and the two others (the cement fetchers). Each party had at least one cellphone and all were aware of the plan to meet at Lou Malnotti's for pizza. Zach and his family arrived first and went ahead and ordered the pizza, since it could take up to an hour. Our threesome understood that we were to meet the twosome at Moody. They still were not showing up after several calls. Finally we discovered that they had parked some blocks away, much closer to the pizza place than to Moody, and it was up to us to meet them. Not that this hurt us any -- it just goes to prove that as far as cellphone technology has come, it has not yet removed the human factor.

(Sidenote: I plan on not acquiring a cellphone for as long as possible.)

After all that good visiting, accompanied by deep-dish pizza and a little dessert pizza to top it off, the five of us squished ourselves into a VW Bug that Loren had borrowed from someone and went back home. We considered renting a movie, but just couldn't work up the energy. We ended up sitting around Loren's apartment, occasionally talking about wedding pranks or other fun topics, before finally falling into bad.

Friday morning it was back up on our feet - not quite so early - to meet for breakfast, this time down in Zach's end of town, at the Valois. We didn't run into any of their previous notorieties, like Barack Obama or Jesse Jackson, but it was still good, quick, inexpensive food.

Having saved a church the day before, we headed back to the Apartment Rescue Mission to switch from OCD to OCC (from Operation Concrete Destruction to Operation Cement Creation).
An cement-experienced man from church drove out to join us that morning, and after plenty of planning and prep, everyone switched into full gear. Two operated the cement mixer, one directed the wheelbarrow up and down the narrow plank path, Clif shoveled and smoothed the cement, and I helped everywhere and took pictures (everyone seems to want pictures these days.) The cement mixing team soon called me up to train me in the water spraying department. Later I got sidetracked with helping pull the 2x4 floater and patch holes. I landed this particular job by proving I could execute it while balancing on the far edge of the form, a couple inches from the wall. Loren kept busy buying more cement. We polished off the first 40 60-lb bags before he got back, but fortunately he had been forced to buy stone instead of gravel. Stone went a lot farther.

And so the first quarter of the basement was successfully laid. We cleaned up, packed up, and took the scenic Lakeshore route out of town. One of our number kept us entertained with stories of how he had been kicked out of college for going to Wendy's and many other exciting stories of student life at his conservative Christian school.


Oh my goodness, look at the hour. It's 10:00 p.m. High time all little girls were in bed!

Back!

Come to think of it, three nights ago!

Perhaps once or five times a year, everyone should have a complete change of pace. Change of location, schedule, energy output, diet, company, access to technology, and overall lifestyle.

Wednesday through Friday, some of the church College & Career group (try not to feel intimidated) went up to Chicago as a "workteam". To work on what? Zach, a Grace grad who had attended our church, is starting an inner-city school and needs money. How do you get money? Fix up old apartments and rent them out.

We did work, mostly as planned. Accidentally arriving an hour early should have tipped us off. But you see, driving up to Chicago feels like driving up, not driving west, so that extra hour was left somewhere. For our Chicago friends, anyway!

That first morning we went to the apartment. It was a dump in relatively good condition, despite the termites. We tore out a lot of old stuff, such as the only toilet that worked, and plenty of cement, and well-aged fiberglass. If you think new fiberglass is fun to work with, try the old stuff. Fortunately, the guy in charge of the project (Loren - not my dad - from a different church but teaming up with Zach for this project) had stocked all the essentials: gloves, safety glasses, and face masks, which we used liberally. Someone even forgot the face mask which he had flipped up on his head and went looking for another, till we caught him and finally agreed not to lock him up for old age.

That night Loren showed us around his part of town. He lives right on the street separating two worlds: African-American to the north, Hispanic to the south. I got to use my first Spanish in weeks. His church is just across the street from his apartment, four-story, so we climbed up to the roof and took in the Chicago skyline at dusk and the far-off Navy Pier fireworks.

Thursday we all got up at 5:30 a.m. to have prayer with Loren's friends at 6:00 before heading off for breakfast with Zach. Some of the party had beans for breakfast for the first time ever. We didn't go back to the apartment, though, because an inspector had come by Loren's church the day before and informed them that those columns on either side of two doorways had to come down, since they were ready to fall at any moment and scared him just to look at them. Besides his feelings, there was the matter of the $4,000-per-day fine till they were down. Since Loren's pastor couldn't get workers in that fast, a few guys and ourselves took on the project Thursday. They went at the pillars with jackhammers and we went at them with sledgehammers. They had me take lots of photos of their superb prowess, which included spraying down hundreds of bees from that nest they accidentally found. Finally those eight solid columns that were on the verge of falling were pounded and smashed and torn down, mostly anyway, to reveal a delicate structure of brick cores with thick cement surrounding. The three of us who didn't have to go buy cement (for the apartment) spent an hour and a half tossing, pitching, finally heaving bricks and cement pieces into the dumpster. We filled it! Flushed with that success and having no more dumpsters at hand, we had no choice but to clean up and head off to Chicago early on the L (the train), to get in some sights before meeting up with the others for deep-dish pizza.

I really hadn't intended to drag on like this and here it is already 10:30, so you get to save some yawns for tomorrow night's exciting conclusion!

Analyzometrics

The porteños (descendants of the original European inhabitants of Buenos Aires) love to analyze and debate everything. Snow is no exception, though it is just a little harder to argue a topic once every century. I thought you might like to read part of this article, dated 10 July.


"When it floats, it's snow," said someone, as if, when happening upon the topic, to open a debate in which the majority of the porteños had never thought to participate... until yesterday. And once having set themselves to analyze whether this matter falling from the sky were actually snow, sleet (a more humid subtype), or ashes from some chimney, they pulled out all kinds of reasoning.

"It doesn't stay on the ground: it's sleet", fenced the doorman of a building in the street Santiago del Estero, in the heart of the Monserrat quarter. The man is from the province of Entre Ríos and had never, not even from a distance, seen this phenomenon which surprised the incredulous inhabitants of the city. Even so, he stated his opinion with an authority of expertise before the neighbors, who also tried to contribute something scientific. "The temperature didn't fall to zero [Celsius], so it isn't snow yet," offered a woman who had come down from the third floor to observe the still falling snow.

...[Brief scientific explanation]...

"The forecasts from Thursday and Friday were giving snowfalls in the Capital, but we hesitated to say this in advance, because a phenomenon that happens every hundred years is very difficult to announce...." said an inspector from the National Meteorological Service.

... For now, this experience of snow in the city... has turned into a challenge for the ever-ready "analyzometer" of the porteños, more accustomed to other kinds of debates.

Bastille Day

What happened 218 years ago? The Paris prison la Bastille fell, and thereafter the French have commemorated 14 July as the national day of independence.

Here is a short video of the day. If you'd rather not listen to the French, don't turn the sound up. President Sarkozy renovated the parade a little by inviting soldiers from European Union countries to march.

Gone

Vacation to do hard manual labor.

Breaking news from B.A.

Look! It snowed in Buenos Aires! For the first time in 89 years.

Some of the people I lived with had never seen snow, and others had only encountered it after traveling hours to the south and further inland. For the first time ever, the porteños have built snowmen and have had to clear off their cars in the morning.

Here's a brief rundown in English. If you visit this article of La Nación, and look at the links below, you'll see some entitled "Fotogalería" - visit these for pictures. A good one is the palm tree dusted with snow.

Of course, even one day's experience with snow is enough to start a heated porteño debate. I'll tell you about that if I find a little time later (or someone else can).

Your turn to do the math

Try this one: 8 articles of clothing with savings of $227.36. How much did she spend?

You'll never guess!!

Two

Two of the many simple joys in life, lately discovered:

Throwing wood blocks. That is, yanking or hauling little logs out of a trailer and throwing or heaving them into a stack. The best size is the size just too big to toss carelessly but not big enough to struggle over.

Ironing clothes. It is so much fun! This gives me a great idea for self-employment -- performing over-the-phone interpretations while ironing clothes for the highest bidder (and probably the customers willing to pay shipping).

$82 billion

Amazing, isn't it? Not the money, but the plans people come up with in order to use it, just because they want to and they can. People like Sheikh Ahmed Bin Saeed Al-Maktoum, who's deciding to make Dubai the new hub of world aviation.

Of course, if I were one of the royal family of a very little country and had $82 billion sitting in my pocket, I'd probably do something to make my family and country extremely important and famous, too.

Showdown

Le Monde seems to be the only site having a current article on the latest news in Turkey: the Constitutional Court has ruled in favor of universal suffrage for presidential elections. However, this old BBC article (from when the reform passed the Turkish parliament) covers most of the same ground in English.

Basically, this is the story: the Islamic party AKP (Party of Justice and Development) and 'their' prime minister Erdogan failed to get their candidate elected as president, so they decided they wanted universal suffrage for future presidential elections, instead of seven people in Parliament making the call. But no, said the secular Turkish president, speaking for the supposedly secular Turkish nation, and vetoed it. When it passed Parliament again, President Sezer had a problem, since reforms can only be vetoed once. He had to request that the Constitutional Court get rid of it. Just today, six of the eleven judges on the Court denied this request (a surprise decision), which means the reform must go to a referendum. Now everyone waits to find out what happens in the referendum... well, that is, they wait to find out first of all when this referendum will take place, as the president has not yet set a date. We do at least know when it will not be. It will not be at the same time as the legislative elections scheduled for the 22 July, since he said this to the AKP back in the middle of June.

And now, on a much lighter and less politically tense note, it seems there is a particular trend in the style of sunglasses sported by the Turkish military (as seen in the above link to the Le Monde article) and the prime minister himself.

By the way, did anyone else notice that Le Monde catalogued that article under "Pacific Asia"? Is it just me, or is that halfway around the world?

4/7/07

From the Library of Congress online, here is the Declaration of Independence. You can get even higher resolution views by clicking on links above the document image.

And here is a History of the Fourth over the years. Did you know that 2:00 p.m. Eastern Time (14h00) is the hour that the Declaration of Independence was originally approved?

One of the last entries in this second source informs that in 2001, "From the International Space Station, astronauts proclaim 'We give thanks to our ancestors ... to all Americans, Happy Independence Day.' " I would like to close by saying, "I give thanks to God for this country, and to all my fellow Americans, Happy Independence Day!"

2 X Happy Birthday!!

Just ignore how completely remiss someone is regarding our two June birthdays.

Time for tributes to Nolan and to Kendra!

Nolan, now 8 (can that BE?) is a great kid. He pops out with the greatest comments. For example, when cousin Erica and Kendra and myself had begun a game of Dutch Blitz during the reunion, he came up to watch us and after a particularly rapid sequence, observed to Erica, "You're a fast woman." I really don't think he could have said it to any female cousin who would have appreciated it more!

Ten years farther along, Kendra is the Dutch Blitz champion and hair styling expert of our family; she organized and catalogued our entire VHS and DVD collection, meaning we're aware of our entire selection and can have even more stimulating family discussions over what to watch. Most especially, everyone should know that she and Jason were senior partners of the Keep-The-Family-Running home business that experienced extreme growth in the fall of 2004. And I have the honor to pass her the Grace torch this August!

What happened in Michigan

Last Friday evening I drove up to spend the weekend with my dad's cousin Ivan and his wife Kim and get in another first (besides Macs and Michigan) -- meeting my second cousins!

On Saturday, a friend of theirs from church had a high school graduation ceremony in the morning and an open house all afternoon and evening. The theme for the open house was "Tea from around the world", so they had some five or six tea stations, including Indian Chai, Southern Tea, and (of course!) Argentine maté. I helped Uncle Ivan with this last station... even though he did have some 20 more years of experience living in Argentina (he and Aunt Kim are heading there next February as church-planting missionaries, Lord willing). He explained the tradition of maté - slowing down and spending time together - and many people did indeed sit down to pass the maté around and talk. It was quite a good way to meet and chat with a lot of people, not to mention get your stimulants in for the day. Uncle Ivan and I must have had a least fifteen or sixteen rounds of maté each. We also had the opportunity to try some roasted maté, a new experience for us both. It is certainly milder. I also had a mango tea and a bubble tea (tapioca, ice cream and Earl Grey). However, I did try to stop drinking around 6 p.m., which must have worked, since falling asleep at 11 p.m. was no trouble.

Sunday it was time to get up and start making the cucumber sandwiches and other goodies for the bridal shower for Natalie, the girl marrying my second cousin John. At the same time, Natalie and John were busy finishing up mini muffins and fruit kabobs for Sunday School breakfast. It was enjoyable to share in the Sunday services at Countryside Bible Church, though Aunt Kim and I did have to wander around a while during offertory to find three seats left together. All the seats that looked open from afar were actually reserved with Bibles once we got up to them.

After church, it was back to the kitchen to melt the chocolate for fondue and attend to other (less important) preparations for the shower. It was a nice little shower. The fondue did start curdling, but some intelligent person put a spoon in near the end, so we could scoop plenty out on our plates. Then several people had the bright idea of having me write the gift list (since I knew everyone, of course).

We went home and crashed on the sofa for about an hour before heading off to the local park for a picnic and concert the church was holding there, through which they hoped to meet more of the community. They had homemade ice cream - yum yum.

Here's a link to a few photos. The last is a short video of one of the quartet's numbers.

Unfortunately it never occurred to me to take pictures till those last few hours, and then none especially of the Ivan Hoyts... but I'm sure I can obtain some soon.

After that it was off for home, with the last of the dark chocolate fondue to keep me company and alert, which it did tremendously well.

What's better to do on a weekend than take a road trip to visit family?

For my brother

In defense of his allergies to cats. Next they should study the idea that exposure to cats might create allergies.

The Macs got me!

Can you believe it? I'm posting from a MAC!

That's because I'm at Uncle Ivan's house and it seems the Michigan Hoyts all use Macs. (That's the other first -- being in Michigan.) Typically, it was new-generation influence from the son.

At first the mouse was driving me nuts because all the pushing in the world wouldn't move the cursor... until I figured out the feather-light touch approach. Wow, you can practically move it with your finger's brain!

You know, even the browsers have different names. Skimming over the icons brought up "Safari", and, well, I'm not that dumb. But I just realized there is no Backspace and that Delete took over Backspace. This means using the mouse to get to the end of whatever I want to delete and backspacing it with Delete.

Doubtless this was just infuriating for some and hilarious for others (and pointless for everyone not in the feud). I hope my esteemed Master cousin reads this and notes my cultural open-mindedness.

(Please don't kick me out of the will, darling mother.)

C'est pas juste

Oh dear, is this fair? It reminds me of that time I was helping Mommy bring in the groceries and slipped on the ice and broke my arm. Well, guess what I destroyed today while sweeping the house. (Don't worry, it was mine -- again.) Is the moral of the story "Stop trying to do nice things"?

Have more, smarter children

At least that's one implication you could draw from this interesting sibling IQ study. This two-page article is especially interesting, and Dr. Sulloway's comments are worth reading as well.

I would have to agree that the IQ point difference has held true in our family, at least from objective data and semi-objective observations. But don't be discouraged, all younger siblings: Ardith may always top us in the scores and the Nobel Prizes, but you could discover the next planet or determine whether empty space is truly empty. Anyway, who's easier to remember - Copernicus or the latest Nobel Prize winner?

But let's not start competing. Long live the sibship!

Ahh, the life of the unemployed

What a bum rap... I had to go to the library today to find books to read. Two books, just enough to entertain and stimulate the mind.

Finally, finally, I will get to finish reading The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. That's nobody's fault in particular, though we could indirectly blame Ardith, since her library has been offering me the piecemeal chance to work on it every couple months. I think it started when she picked me up from France - not that night of course, the next day, while we were recovering from our dead tiredness of coming in at 2 a.m. The next opportunity must have been when I visited her that summer. The last time must have been when she took us three next-oldest-ones to her place for a post-Christmas bash. So they have only been six-month lags.

The Teach Yourself books have a jazzy new makeover (or at least the Arabic one does) complete with pictures on the cover and semi-modern type inside. Looks like the book has 18 units. Looks like I have a week minimum left in Indiana. Aren't challenges exciting?

-- Oh, look, someone thoughtfully left a bookmark inside for me! Right at the exercise for correct verb suffixes. It has a pretty picture of Stoli Blueberi and recipes (on the back) for those very refreshing drinks displayed alongside the bottle. Why, what do you know, Stoli Blueberi is Blueberry Flavored Russian Vodka. What a good idea for summer!

In very small type at the bottom: "Please Drink Responsibly. Stolichnaya Blueberry Flavored Vodka, 35% Alc/Vol. Vodka distilled from grain." Goodness, that's a lot of alcohol for a blueberry drink. And that type is so small it makes my eyes hurt to read it. Time for bed.

Enough traveling!

At least enough traveling by car for a while. But it was very much worth all that sitting to be at the stupendous Hoyt reunion once again!

I guess I still owe photos and some reports for two weddings, maybe graduation, and the family reunion. Well, sorry... participating didn't leave a lot of time for photos, but let's see what I can dredge up. In the meantime, it's time for a


Better-Late-Than-Never-Father's-Day-Mention

This is in honor of wonderful Daddy.

Last Sunday was Father's Day. I celebrated by forgetting to pack the printer about which Daddy had reminded me twice. Then I didn't see him or talk to him all day, since Ardith and I spent the entire day driving down to Texas and almost getting lost in Tyler.

After the reunion and post-reunion travels, which deposited us back in Iowa, Daddy drove me out to Indiana on Monday. We arrived to find that [my] blue Toyota, left here for the week, wouldn't start. He spent some time that evening messing with it, and the next morning, while I disappeared for an interview, he dug out spark plugs, got new parts and had it all fixed up and ready to go by the time I got back. Then he spent another long afternoon and evening driving back home.

(By the way, Daddy, step #1 of the project has been successfully accomplished.)

Oh boy!

The family excitement has already started. Yesterday some of us Bakers congregated in Uncle Doug and Aunt Cindy's church's kitchen to start cooking for their son's Gabe's wedding, which is today. Uncle Solly and I nearly froze our fingers slicing 40-some pounds of frozen chicken for doro wat, a spicy Ethiopian chicken stew. (Then, of course, all we non-immediate-family-relations went off for dinner to the traditional Baker restaurant, Old Country Buffet)

Today I have been shopping, packing and cleaning, waiting for Ardith to arrive so we can attend Gabe's and Bethany's wedding together. It is almost 3:30 and we need to leave in an hour. I do hope Ardith shows up sometime! Especially since we were planning to drive down in Ardith's car. As no one is answering her cellphone number, I am living by faith and reckoning up how much she will owe me for whatever won't go according to plan.

Next week is the Hoyt Family Reunion! Better than Disneyland.

Colonialism is not dead

(Pardon the late mention.)

Here is the location of the Islands mentioned below.

It was interesting, back on the first of June, to see on the front page of LaNacion that the British nation - specifically, former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher - was introducing a coin collection commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Falklands War. In this brief war, British troops fought off the Argentine invaders and freed the islands.

2 April is a national Argentine holiday, officially named Día del Veterano de Guerra y los Caídos en las Islas Malvinas -- Day of the War Veterans and the Fallen in the Malvinas Islands.

On the Islands themselves, the day to celebrate is 14 June - "Liberation Day".

It is very kind of the British to commemorate this special event, especially for the sake of the Argentines. They'll want to remember that cruel military dictatorship of the '70's and '80's, during which going to war to defend the Malvinas Islands gave them something to live for, even if it was just the old political ploy distract the people from difficulties at home with wars elsewhere.

In my German class at Grace, a girl whose parents were missionaries to Argentina devoted one of her German speeches to explaining this part of South Atlantic history. She refused to call them the Falkland Islands. They had been and always would be the Malvinas.

Time and blood

Why does time seem to pass so much faster as we get older? That moment that happened last week is so vivid that it seems just like yesterday. Someone will have to give up and admit that memory improves with age.

Speaking of vividness, if you want a movie of people vividly and seriously wounding each other, my recommendation is The Patriot. Maybe that would fall under my brother Jason's category of "grisly stories with high morals".

By the way, is it just me, or does it seem sorrowfully stupid that lines of soldiers would advance and fire on each other?

Goodnight and pleasant dreams! Try to remember them. It's good exercise for your brain.

Look! It's back

Hah. I bet you thought I was slacking, didn't you? Wrong - it was the Internet connection slacking, or my computer recognizing that the connection was there, or something like that. Or maybe my computer just likes this particular room and this particular outlet for its power.

Anyway, that was a pleasant vacation from being online. Too bad it wasn't a vacation from sleep deficit. It took two nights after the wedding to get back to the 9 p.m to 5 a.m. schedule, and then suddenly school was done. Friday morning I went back to clean up and get graded on my job performance. Then we spent all afternoon getting ready for Hannah's open house, which was from 4 - 9 p.m. After two days of standing and walking to help with exams and a day of standing and walking to fix food and greet guests, the poor feet were ready to retire (although not so desperately as after that three-day weekend in Paris of 10+ hours per day footwork - museums, sight-seeing and walking everywhere between).

Saturday morning, we spiritual ones got up to help clear land for a church out west of town. After that was the open house next door, which of course it was only neighbourly to attend. At 3 p.m. it was time to go babysit. Once Elijah was in bed for the night, around 7:30 p.m., I curled up on the living room floor and went into a state of semi-dozing. I think that went on till at least 11 p.m. It was a lot of fun. It's not bad at all to not sleep if 1) you have time to lay around and nowhere to go the next day except church and 2) the only thing making you tired is falling in and out of sleep.

All that not to get sympathy, but rather to extol the joys of sociability and no school!

Now time to turn the job-hunting position from part-time to full-time.

Okay

Yeah, I know, haven't been responsibly keeping this up.

Tonight I guess I do have an excuse... the Internet and cable went down for a while, so I was stuck with boring work like making paper lists of email addresses to avoid another Intergate (somebody really picked an unlucky name, didn't they?) and practicing right-to-left script. Now it's 10:00 and high time for bed, since tomorrow are two big exams for 2nd and 3rd periods. In the first exam I have one student, in the second exam around twenty-five. That's a great number to help all at once on five different exams and to keep relatively not noisy in a library. I can't mind because I'm going to miss the kids so much in two days.

Please take note

Taking a break from wedding preparations to remind you that this next Sunday is the Argentina election.

Look down [edited]

Umm, sorry for the inconvenience, but if you want to read the post for this date, you'll have to skip down to Friday, 11 May 2007. Apparently Blogger uses the first save date for a draft as the official publishing date for a post.

[Edit: Never mind, just look down below this post.]

A little story of four unorthodox years

In honor of the long weekend, here are some college career memories of a recent graduate.

It was great, although it didn't go quite she like planned.

She went into the Fall 2003 semester knowing her roommate... she had met her at a VIP day event, another homeschooler with a similar background. So that was a pleasant start. Within the first two weeks she had a job of 20-some hours weekly in the cafeteria. It was a normal year, except for the spring '04 blip where her father went on the transplant list in February.

The second year started out normally with an upgrade in jobs - working in the library and the Language Department. By the time she went home for fall break, her Daddy was in the hospital with his heart failing. Before going back to school, she offered to come home, and so she withdrew from Grace for the spring '05 semester to relieve her Grandpa and Grandma from Iowa homestead duty.

The semester home and summer were absolutely wonderful. One month was just herself and eight of her siblings taking care of themselves. The rest was being all together, finishing up the year-long Spanish and German textbooks and working on the house. She was particularly proud of the hundreds of nails and screws that finally secured the garage roof beams. Her older sister graduated and landed a posh job, which made her even prouder.

Fall '05 was back to school and back to both jobs. Spring '05 was off to the great study abroad adventure which she'd never actually believed would happen. She had started the triple language major knowing that she wanted to study languages, not study abroad. Those semesters abroad proved one thing - if a home schooled country girl homebody could go study in France and Argentina, anyone could do almost anything. (After most of the year abroad, she contemplated finding a way to require every U.S. college student to spend a minimum of three months overseas in order to graduate.)

In 2007 she returned for one more semester at school, ending up with three nice positions - the sole assistant at the Language Department, an ESL instructional assistant at the high school, and a babysitter. She was especially proud of that last one. However, the number of lines filled in her day planner convinced her that humans were not meant to live on full schedules.

There were several exciting times in that memorable last semester, such as when they declared her four credits short of graduating, or informed her after graduation that her loan repayment grace period had been used up during the semester off. But a little help quickly cleared these details away.

So there it went. A B.A. in seven semesters, five of them on campus. Only 2 Bs in her entire college career.

Now there are a couple of ways to list college career accomplishments. Some people would write up all the honors, awards, and participations.

But, when asked, she provided the following two:

-The semester home - an opportunity to help her family and get her student mothering/household-running experience
-The two semesters abroad - opportunities to study in France and Argentina, meet new people, and add more dimensions to life

She did say that if she could do it over again in an ideal world, she would concentrate solely on studies, thinking, and discussions, with absolutely no work or participations of any kind.

[The author, somewhat tired of talking about herself, begs you to excuse her for writing this up in the third person.]

What does it mean?

Congratulations to Hannah, who just graduated from high school! (the younger sister of the family I live with)

She was very excited, which reminded me of my own excitement two weeks ago. Looking back and thinking about both ceremonies, I'm not really sure what's so exciting... about dressing up and walking around in solemn lines and hugging people. You could almost laugh at it all. But then, what fun or accomplishment would it be if they handed us our diplomas as we walked out the door on the last day of class?

One week later

This is just to say that although there are many important and interesting things to discuss, unfortunately, it's already bedtime. And I'll hereafter try to avoid resorting to either silence or this kind of post.

Speaking of today's rapid lifestyle -

One week after graduating, I received an email with the following subject line:

"Children in college? Apply for a Federal PLUS Loan now!"

Monday's bulletin

The author never rants. This is an informational blog post announcing the author's astonishment over how her primary email program rendered her account inaccessible for two days and then brought it back, all tidily cleaned out.

It was about enough to make her cry, till she realized three lovely things:

1) It was one more exciting event in the great adventure of life!

2) She wouldn't want to get too attached to anything temporal anyway.

3) Now she wouldn't have to go through and organize all that stuff.

Happy Birthday, extra late

Oh goodness, how did I miss May 3rd?

Happy 16th birthday to Derek!

Derek, that extraordinary brother whose interests and undertakings include everything from studying Mongols to designing mini rocketships to learning Greek to taking computer programming lessons to growing jalapeño peppers to composing music. One of these days you are going to be hearing his name from someone who doesn't know him. If you don't believe me, just go look at the meaning of his name.

But apart from all that, he's a great brother, even if he is a little uppity sometimes and says things like "Be polite and let me go first."

(This is a dangerous family. A mother who takes pictures, a sister who wins arguments and a sister who writes down quotes... to name a few.)

This is the good life

Ah, it's so nice to be done with school. This evening I could do whatever I wanted. So I started studying my next language.

Done!

That's it! Graduated and done with school.

It's funny how having graduated came make one feel like a whole new person, and much more an adult than any of those milestone birthdays (such as 18 or 20 or even 22). Did anyone else have that experience? From here, life seems like a calm clear river on out into the ocean of eternity (I can see the ocean but I can't see where the river joins it yet). Not to make too big a deal of it - it just seems that way!

(Hopefully nobody noticed those three succeeding prepositions.)

I thank God for His love and care during these four years. In the next day or two there may some reminiscing over specific examples of His presence in this college endeavor.

Closer [updated]

Today was my last final and last time in class ever.

2 days till graduation!

I hope that last professor remembers to submit senior grades by Saturday. Till then I am a 123-credit-hour senior. Maybe the Vice President of Academic Affairs won't notice.

The loveliest time of all will be Friday afternoon and evening, when a-l-l-l my wonderful family arrives!


[Update: that last credit has been safely awarded]

The Great April 28

Happy 24th birthday to my sister Ardith!

Let's see, what nice thing should I say about her?

Sometime back there... before we had even started thinking about college... despite the fact that she had already read through Lord of the Rings at least twice, she agreed to read it out loud to me, just because I preferred to experience it by having it read to me rather than reading it. I don't know that we finished, but I do remember hearing about the Company approaching the mountains. The point is her generosity.

And that is just one small example of how great she is.

What makes an adult

Yesterday I reached a real milestone. I finally locked my keys in the car!

The police officer had a great time trying to get into the car. First he tried the right front door with a rubber pad to allow his metal hooker in to try to grab the lock. Then he tried the long rubber-tipped rod. Then I suggested he try the right front door, which usually isn't quite as persnickety. When that didn't work, he tried the right rear door. Then he came back to the right front door, which suddenly popped open -- of course, at the exact moment I had turned away to talk to his colleague. Bummer.

Oh well, I guess we know the little blue Toyota will make it through another six weeks of this crime-ridden town, as long as the police are still more adept than thieves!

What's wrong with this picture?

Look -- how can it be that a younger sister, who works full-time and even overtime hours, and goes to school part-time, and organizes a friend's bridal shower, and researches post-graduation job possibilities, not to mention just lives -- how can this girl have more time to post than her older sister who merely works 8 hours a day? Someone must be busy reconfiguring her L. Kernel.

By the way, family influence can have serious consequences. Outsiders have almost mistaken this same younger sister for a computer geek just because she was the first to mention Linux by name in a conversation.

That was fast

Night class done in under 45 minutes! How can you beat that? Apart from the extra time and the beautiful evening, it's kind of sad. Education is getting so casual these days.

Graduation can't possibly be here in two weeks. Where did college life go? Apart from no more homework and real living, it's kind of sad. People are getting so spread out these days.

But that's not quite enough kind-of-sadness to get me enrolled in graduate school!!

If walking down the commencement aisle is anything like walking down the Buenos Aires street Villanueva away from the university for the last time, I'm afraid I may positively burst from sheer, sheer delight!

But it's still kind of sad.

And so the adventure continues!

Driving home

While we were cheerfully working in the Language Department this afternoon, Profesor N. let out a whistle and informed us that there were "veintidos matados". Prof. B. suddenly was surprised - the last she had heard was 2 dead. I hadn't heard anything, probably due to work and class. It was a shock. But not so much as driving home and having the music station interrupted by a Fox special news report informing that 33 were now dead on the southern college campus.

I just don't understand how anyone could do that.

A few minutes later, on the last road to home, a commercial came on.

Music: "Raindrops keep falling on my head..."
Announcer: "Do you need to replace your wiper belts?"

That was hilarious! Just imagine what a pathetic car would let you know you need your wiper belts replaced by the raindrops hitting you. What kind of reasoning process did that script writer have? Sorry for laughing at him, but it was really funny.

Frankly, I don't understand that either - how sadness and joy in life get so curiously juxtaposed. It must be the goodness of God to keep us sane.

A very Good Friday

Grandpa Hoyt died on April 6th. Today was the funeral. I found this obituary to share.

I thank God for my wonderful Grandpa - for his good and faithful life, for the heritage he leaves in his family, and most of all for his presence with our Lord right at this moment.

I miss you, Grandpa, but I know it won't be for long.

Even downhill can be funny

Grading quizzes is amusing, especially when one comes across spelling such as "technoligy" and "boardered" -- and I cite mild examples.

22

Okay, I have to admit that I did have a birthday, but this is more to celebrate wonderful people than the birthday.

Saturday before last, some friends surprised me - along with the other friend I thought we were surprising - and Sue Ann gave us roses (my first flowers ever!). Monday was the day, and I came home to find that Aunt Vici was making homemade pizza and Rachel had frosted that cake -- that cake that she was baking the night before and she said that no, it wasn't exactly for work; what was it for? it was for some devotional -- a dark chocolate cake with cut-up dark Dove's and even dark frosting. What a good liar she is! We all devotedly devoured it. They even had presents, many of them to stock up my chocolate stash. Two friends left cards in the mailbox, another friend mailed a package, and then I finally got to open what that Mommy sent out - an Irish Tenors CD and all of Milton's poetry! How lovely!

This afternoon at work in the Language Department, they told me they needed me to take notes for their departmental meeting. When I came in the meeting room, they had a cake and started singing. My four language and culture profs are just wonderful!

The best part of these 22 years has been sharing them with you all.

At the end of the week

Did you know that if you don't put away your pajamas in the morning, you don't have to pull them out of the drawer at night?
Here's the one I really like: coming home to find the bed unmade and all ready to crawl into.

See, the secret of efficiency is doing less by doing less. It's great to find out how working hard and being a lazy slob just melt together.

Next week is spring break at the highschool. YIPPEE!! What luxury to sleep in till 6:30!

This is Friday night. I got home and enjoyed several good and amusing articles from the school newspaper over supper, then found Independence Day playing. I was hoping to see it all through, but somehow, watching TV became too boring after an hour. So maybe it's time for an unorthodox Friday night of going to bed before midnight.

A matter of life and 4

Saturday morning I slept in. While sipping hot chocolate and checking emails, I ran across one from the Registrar's office. Oh boy, I wondered, is this an all-students email or just for a few?

Hi Sharon:

Oh boy! Just for me!

Per my voicemail message, it is imperative that you come to our office to meet

with Mrs. ----- and myself to discuss your graduation credit requirements.

Currently we are showing that the credits you have completed/currently enrolled in

will not meet the 124 total credit hours required to graduate.

Whaaaaaat....

This matter must be attended to immediately, in order to determine if you are to remain a May 2007 graduate.

What!?!

Oh my goodness! What did I miss?

But I have 120 credit hours as of this semester. Do I really need 124?

Goodness, it's Saturday, I can't get back to her till Monday. (What does she mean about my voicemail, anyway - I don't have Grace voicemail... did she call here at home?)

But why didn't we cover this in the Senior Audit?

When am I supposed to go in there and discuss this? Oh, maybe she said in the email...

Please call or email me what time below you can meet:

Monday, March 26^th at 9am, 9:30am, 3pm.

Thank you.

No, thank you! What a great birthday present! March 26th!

The first two minutes were slight shock. Then I thought, "Awww, come on, they have to let me graduate. I didn't know anything about this." The few people I told were instantly concerned. But what was there to worry about? I was graduating. There was either a mistake or something we could easily work out. I had given up worrying about things (well, mostly) somewhere back in Argentina.

This feeling prevailed throughout Saturday, Sunday, and into Monday morning, when, during a few moments' free time, I happened to run across that number 124 on the Grace site under Academic Policy and then in the Student Handbook - which all students are to read, memorize, and quote with loving accent. I began experiencing hallucinations of summer classes, extremely rapid independent studies, and even a 4-credit fall semester.

After 5 minutes in the Registrar's office, after laying the groundwork of my innocence and preparing to do intense battle for my graduation date, we - the Registrar and I - discovered that those last four tricky credits had been found. I just can't tell you where or I'd have to shoot you.

Now how did this happen? Well, my major is pretty small -- only 70 credit hours, plus liberal arts requirements. I skipped a semester back in Spring '05 to be home with my siblings. Then after study abroad, I petitioned and got 9 hours worth of overseas classes counted toward liberal arts. Between this, my ignorance, and several perfectly timed faculty and staff responsibility shifts, nothing showed up till just last weekend.

So a note of warning to all people in college or thinking about it: you may have all your required classes in, but make sure you know if your school has a minimum credit requirement for graduation. And try to beat my time of 6 weeks prior to graduation for finding out about it.

Finally

That was close. Almost two weeks without a post!

Last weekend Daddy and my sister Kendra drove out from Iowa. Daddy went on down to Tennessee to visit Grandpa Hoyt while Kendra stayed to visit Grace (and us too, a little!). She did a really good job of it too - spent two nights in the dorm and ate at least five times in the cafeteria, visited five classes, two chapel sessions, talked to professors, and even went to the weekly Chorus rehearsal. Not to mention put up with her sister's busy work schedule and took care of herself and explored various parts of campus. A lot better than I managed for my college visits! Wednesday evening was so beautiful that Hannah and Kendra and I went out to the lake and swung on the swings and walked around Grace Village and the Island for a while. The next morning Daddy and Kendra took off, but not before stopping by the school and changing my snow tires in the parking lot. Try telling me I don't have a wonderful Daddy! It was very nice to see my family for a little while.

Less than 6 weeks till I see them again and graduate! Yippee!

On Saturday I received a wonderful surprise birthday present, which I'll have to explain to you as soon as seems prudent.

In the meantime, you can all pray for the May 5th graduation. Thank you.

Why?

Anybody know the real reason "they" decided to move DST up four weeks?

Question

Is 6:15 p.m. too early to go to bed?

Spring Break!

Well, I said I'd post, even though I never wrote it into the schedule.

By the way, if Memomail has to keep contributing to my Yahoo inbox, I think it could come up with something more interesting than just "Come see Oprah live for free". Especially since that's all they've had for the last week.

Back to the post. Guess what? Life is busy! That's why Little Miss Language Lover hasn't been around for a while. Here's a typical day, to give you an idea:

5:30 - get up
7:30 - 12:30 - work as ESL assistant at highschool
12:30 - drive over to Grace while eating half a sandwich; Tuesdays and Thursdays only a quarter sandwich, hastily park and change clothes for Aerobics

1:00 - class
2:00 - 5:00 - usually work at the Language Department
6ish - either exercise for Aerobics at the gym or head home and do it; Thursday is class
9ish - fix breakfast and lunch for next day, pack, head toward bed; perhaps study if necessary

Weekend evenings: occasionally babysitting

Fortunately, studying hasn't been much necessary. I did have to write a paper two weeks ago and then had TWO midterms last week. Our Aerobics midterm was to be Thursday. On Tuesday, Coach Butler finished his lecture for the day and said he'd decided to give us 5 minutes to study and then give us the test. This was 10 true-or-false statements, the last of which he couldn't read, so he accepted a student suggestion. That worked out really well. We got out of class early and I didn't have to rush to get to my next class for a presentation.

This next class, by the way, was a great milestone. I had to prepare a PowerPoint presentation for the first time. It was kind of fun, but not so much that I'm regretting not being an Ed major.
Actually, it's too distracting. Not only does it keep the audience eyes off you, but it keeps your eyes and brain off your notes and the main points you want to make.

Today was lovely. After getting home from the early service, I drove up to Goshen to have Sunday dinner with Uncle Doug and Aunt Cindy, Gabe and his fiancée Bethany, Joshua, and Grandma. A nice long two-hour dinner with lots of chatting. The trip was therapeutic too - I got to drive 55 mph for the first time in months! And I found gas 10 cents cheaper than Warsaw but managed to miss getting it 9 cents cheaper yet. Oh well, in about two weeks I think it will be a good time to visit family again.

Yesterday I wrote a check for the first time since last July.

I think that's all the interesting news for now.

Oh, as the title mentioned, this week is Spring Break. Ahhh, how relaxing! Now I can finally work full days at the school - 7:30 - 3:30 - we'll be busy with language level testing. And I may even get in an afternoon or two at the Language Department. That leaves lots of time for recreational activities like taxes.

Isn't life just great?!

(Please take that as I said it, that is, without cynicism)

Wow!

Finally getting as good as Ardith and Jason at not posting!

Sunday afternoon

It's Sunday afternoon. This morning we went to church and worshiped God together with other believers, then afterwards had dinner with a couple who invited us over. After a nice relaxing meal, dessert and coffee, and plenty of chatting, it seems right to come back and write a post!

Mommy requested a job report. So far there is not much to report on. Snow days have not piled up the work for us in the ESL resource room. The three other girls and I work with students in various areas: one with the math students, one with the science, one with the language art courses, and I'm to help with social studies: history, government, geography. At least it has been fun getting to know my ESL colleagues and getting acquainted with some of the students... not to mention starting the assimilation process. Aunt Vici's right - the public school system is a different culture!

Tomorrow is President's Day. From what I hear, this retains its off-school status for Warsaw, since it was not set aside as a possible snow-day-make-up-day. I think I'll get up at 5:30 anyway - to stay in shape, and to work on my first real homework of the semester, a Psalm analysis paper.

Tonight, beginning around 9 p.m., we're having our first Kaffeeklatsch - an informal get-together to chat in German and (hopefully) drink coffee (except people whom caffeine affects and who are smart enough to know it). Since I was the one who volunteered to get the room use approval, guess I'd better show up with the approval slip. At least it won't be punishment to step outside tonight into these balmy 20- and 30-degree temperatures.

It snowed some more yesterday and today
+ rain predicted for this week
= we may be drowning soon!

Let's see, what else. I'm sure I'll think of something extremely interesting as soon as I publish this. Too bad!

School and Snow

Well, I guess I should finally get this post to the press...

First the news:

They hired me!

Warsaw Community Schools.

Well, here's the story. I took an application home to fill out and worked on that over the weekend. Then the next week came, the Super Bowl, and snow and cold. First the schools put up announcements of two-hour delays, then they canceled school for Monday. Same thing happened Tuesday. Wednesday was just a two-hour delay, so I finally got the application in.

The lady glanced over it and said, "Oh good, you speak Spanish! And French! Wendy was just down here asking if we had anybody..."

I got back home around 6 p.m. to find a note informing me there was a position. It was too late to call, so I called back at 8:11 the next morning (Thursday). Went in for an interview and the next thing I knew, I was signing lots of papers and being handed a tag with my picture and Miss Hoyt.

Miss Hoyt is going to be an ESL Instructional Assistant at the Warsaw Community Highschool!

However, we had to wait till Monday to meet a high school staff person who was out of town. So on Monday I went back to meet her and the ESL team with whom I'll be working. I got a parking sticker that says I'm WCHS staff, and lets me park on the other side of the building, so I shouldn't have to trek through the whole building to find the Resource Room next time. It's important to not get lost on your first day of work, especially in a high school of 2,000.

Today was to be my first day, provided school wasn't canceled. I got up at 5:30. Then school was canceled. The snow wasn't to come till afternoon, but the 40-mph gusts had started in the morning and were already making nice drifts with the snow we had. Of course all the schools canceled classes, and of course Grace didn't (except for night classes, which of course I don't have on Tuesdays).

It wasn't hard to get to school. It was more fun coming back, partially swimming through one intersection and plowing into the driveway. Fortunately, Uncle Rene and Aunt Vici snowblew the driveway once everyone arrived home. It'll probably be ready for more tomorrow.

By that time, school had been well canceled for the next day. Oh good, now at least two of us will be free to clear the driveway tomorrow morning!

Well, till I do get to start work, I can keep practicing the 5:30 wake-up.

In the meantime, we're all surviving the snow fine, getting high and happy on Valentine's Day chocolate.

5 weeks and 5 days later....

Mee-e-e-e-rrry Christmas!!

Weren't you all promised a bunch of presents?

The Argentina photos are now up!

(Actually they've been up for a couple weeks. Someone just forgot about them. Oops and sorry.)

The link below is my entire Photobucket album. The main page has a few pictures, and there should be a list of sub-albums at the top. You'll want to click on the sub-albums with Spanish titles for the Argentina photos. Please note that these albums provide bilingual captions! - you'll need to click on the photo to read the entire caption.

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v603/SharonLHoyt/

You can go ahead and look at anything in my album. It's all safe!
I'll link it on the sidebar as well.

Have fun and stay out of trouble this weekend.

Little fun things

Some of the best moments lately?

On Monday I got to take out and HOLD my first piece of computer hardware! - my memory card. Well, maybe I should add that I didn't take it out to hold it... I took it out to erase all the memory with a pencil eraser.

On Monday I also got to park the little blue Toyota in the GARAGE!! And there's even a little remote control garage door opener! Imagine not stepping outside when you go somewhere, or when you come back. That's just about too much luxury to take! Don't worry, it won't make me too Athenian... it's just a temporary graduation till Rachel's car gets fixed.

Yesterday when I went to have supper at the cafeteria with Rachel B. and Sue Ann, my 'old' roomies, there was chocolate cheesecake... just for us.

One afternoon on the treadmill I saw half an original Star Trek episode. The best part was the vibrate-y sound effect for people being zapped to another location (see, I'm not Trekky enough to even remember what it's called... zapping from one place to another... hmmm, what is that called....)

One evening I was babysitting and getting paid to sit in a comfy living room, work on homework and watch TV - and it was then that I finally saw my first ever episode of The Next Generation!

In our latest Aerobics class, our professor - also director of the Rec Center - had to see about fixing a broken basket. So he told us to go exercise for 30 minutes. I got to jog around the track right behind where the men's baseball team was doing pitching practice and then have time to cool down and actually make it to my next class before it started.

Last night Rachel had to run something over to her aunt's, and came back bearing Dove's Darks. :)

Goodness, better stop before this gets overwhelmingly happy!


(P.S. If you analyze this post even more than you're supposed to, you'll easily come up with a list of Sharon's priorities: her computer, 'her' car, chocolate, Star Trek, adrenaline, and chocolate. Too bad that's the wrong list.)

Classes

Here is the Spring '06 schedule:
[Edit: please Change Term to Spring '07]

Global Perspectives -- MW, 13:00 - 13:50
Aerobics -- TR, 13:00 -13:50
Study Abroad Debriefing -- T, 14:00 - 14:50
Poetry & Wisdom Literature -- R, 18:00 - 20:40


Why do we get 10 minutes off our 3-hour Poetry class? Because our professor asked us where and how we wanted our 20-minute break, and some bright person suggested a 10-minute break and getting out 10 minutes early.


Global Perspectives: The idea of this course is to help students develop a biblical lens for living in a multicultural world. It probably sounds like another "diversity appreciation" class. Some people don't appreciate learning to appreciate. However, I think it is good and useful, especially since most of us don't realize how very differently other people think, much less tried thinking that way.

Taking this class seemed kind of redundant after two semesters abroad, but it's a requirement for graduation. However, my advisor, Prof. Schram, encouraged me to take the option of being a TA. So instead of taking quizzes, I grade them. That's a lot more fun, especially with three of us four TAs and Prof. Schram working together and coming across some very interesting answers!

Aerobics: This is a fun class. Coach Butler (the track coach) teaches it. He's a nice down-to-earth guy who's nuts about moving and, as the director of Grace's Gordon Rec Center, says he gets to "play all day". His goal is to teach us the principles of aerobic training so that we can train ourselves for life. Class is about fifteen minutes of relaxed, simply stated "aerobic theory" notes, then about thirty minutes of practicing them out on the track. Basically, he gives us minimum requirements to meet - at least 4 training sessions a week of getting the heartrate over 140 - and then it's up to us to do it, to do more and harder, and to keep incrementing to keep improving. Now, I really dislike being made to exercise, but I like the idea of learning how to aerobically train myself so that I always get to be in charge of my own exercise after this.

Study Abroad Debriefing: This is what study abroad students take the semester after returning. It's just one hour a week with very little homework. True, we do have to give at least half-hour presentations on our experiences to the other two debriefers and the professor. We also each have to teach a class to the whole briefing group (perhaps 10 students). We also have to pick various projects to work on during the semester. Somehow, Amy and Zach and I agreed to plan and set up the Study Abroad Chapel on February 22nd. Some of us may even be getting up there to talk. This is the kind of thing my brain simply didn't consider by default before. Before what? I don't know.

Poetry: This is by far my heaviest class. Requires reading at least 30 pages a week, reviewing for a potential weekly pop quiz, and writing two whole 5ish page papers during the semester; that's not even including the in-class group work and class discussion. We also have to read huge chunks of Scripture, something to the tune of 40+ Psalms per week. One of the poetic terms 'we' learned was hyperbole, which I have made good use of in this paragraph for your especial health benefit (that is, make you laugh and improve your heart).

And that's the whole whopping 7-credit-hour story!

Back to Tuesday night

It was interesting to watch the State of the Union Address. I was expecting President Bush to begin with the State of the Union internationally, i.e. Iraq. Instead he did a sandwich style: first domestic matters (health care, education, etc.), then the war on terror and Iraq, and finally moving back home with immigration policy. Maybe that was to emphasize the importance of these domestic matters (to him as well!) and remind that the war on terror and the war in Iraq relate directly to our domestic well-being. Rachel thought that it may have been a strategy to keep people listening... those who were willing to start watching would keep watching till he brought up the Iraq war, and then afterwards they'd be curious to hear the end topic. Either or both ways, the Middle East situation was nearly the best-detailed of the speech.

I do have a few questions. Is American productivity actually the highest in the world? Who are these civilian who don't have to pass through boot camp?

In any case, there was certainly a theme. There were 2 announcers for the presidential entry. The president made 2 tributes to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, followed (of course) by 2 long applauses. There were lots of hero stories, about 4, I think. Someone could easily find more 2's if they wanted to keep looking.

... and when is the next post? ...

Hang on. I'm getting there. I just haven't gotten there yet.

Not complaining, just wondering

It doesn't seem right that we should have to wait along with the Easterners way up till 9:00 PM to watch the State of the Union Address. Who ever decided to take Indiana out of the Midwest and Central Time, anyway?

Pretend A is upside-down

Q: What do these two have in common?

1) Changing a kicking baby's diaper

2) Typing out a résumé


A: They are both a little fun; they are both somewhat frustrating; they are both pretty tiring; and they both give a happy rush once just accomplished.

Sunday's Adventure, Part II

I guess I should finish telling this before we pass the two-week anniversary!

When we were last in the story, Jason had just disappeared into the terminal with his papers, his two bags, and without his gate number information or his Warcraft CD. First thing on my list was parking the car. This shouldn't have been hard, except I kept passing a million Economy Parking signs, finally caught a glimpse of the words Short-Term Parking, only to realize it applied to that exit I had just passed. However, I'd seen that short-term was in Lot D. So I kept on passing economy lots labeled B and C. But E and F were clearly too far, so I pulled into E and discovered the only turn-around option was a U-turn right in front of the gate. Oops. Oh well, that bus was plenty far behind me.

Only thing to try was going back round to the O'Hare entrance and through the terminal drop-offs in the hope of snagging that obscure sign. Since this time I wasn't looking for Terminal 1 and Gate B, the right signs did show up and so did the parking garage. Only had to back up once from starting down a row the wrong way. Got the car parked. Whew. Challenge number 1 was overcome.

Challenge number 2 was finding out if Jason was on his flight, but this was soon moved back to #3 as the problem of finding and getting to his terminal emerged. First I had to take an elevator down to the main floor. Then I took a moving belt and an escalator, only to find that the new floor didn't look right. Went back down and found that the O'Hare airport was sorry for the inconvenience, but the escalator was out of order and the elevator the only means of getting up to Terminal 1, and the elevator took two minutes to get there. And there I was again, back on the floor that didn't look right (what a waste of time). This time I got smart and took the escalator up to Checkin. Jason's flight had already disappeared from the listings. So I had a great time trying to rasp enough voice out to talk to three different people, finally getting to a flight agent, who finally got some help to look up the right page and tell me that YES! Jason was on his flight! and why was I so worried about him?! he was just fine! etc. Well, I was glad to hear that, almost didn't quite believe it.

I called back home to tell Daddy that Jason was on his way and find out what to do with the tire. Somehow I got the address noted despite all the terminal noise, and found the Sears Auto Repair despite somehow numerically skipping some 20 exits. They couldn't fix the first tire. The leak was so big you could hear air hissing out of it from a distance. So we lugged the extra tire out to put on the old rim, once again out of that well-buried under-trunk compartment.

At last I was back on the road, anticipating the exit for I-90/94 only once. The traffic was exciting but not excessive, and the Chicago Skyway was a fun drive. The only problem is that the signmakers keep changing terms on you. First they talk about I-90/94, then about the Expressway, then Local 94, then the Skyway, forgetting to mention what happened to 90. Not that I made any stupid exit calls, but it's nicer to positively know you're on the right interstate before you're halfway to the next one.

I hadn't thought too much about toll money, but came up with enough cash and coins without making anybody wait too long while I dug around for it.

The rest of the trip was just a breeze... 65 South, 30 East, 15 South. When it started misting I discovered I'd forgotten where the windshield wipers were, but it only took me trying the lights, the brights, the cruise control and a couple other things before - bingo! there they were!

By the way, snack mix is a great thing for the driver to have along on car trips. Drains very little brainpower and muscle coordination from the main task to reach into a Ziploc bag for a handful of peanuts, raisins, and chocolate chips (no little seedy bits to decorate the car), not to mention has a good energy yield. That was most of my lunch and supper.

Oh yes, I did spend an extra quarter-hour getting lost within five miles of Tysons' house.

All in all, it was a great trip. I even coasted through two days on the gas left. A day or two after I filled the tank back up, the gas price dropped about twenty cents.


The End


(I love happy endings!)

Lately

"Is there a connection between you talking and his getting confused?"

(From page 36, Culture From the Inside Out, by Alan Cornes)


"Pain is weakness leaving the body."

(Some student in Aerobic Fitness class)


How can you not laugh after reading those?

Warning that isn't on the label

If you get up in the middle of the night to put some cream on cracking hands and reach carefully in the dark to pump the tall bottle of lotion on the dresser, please, please make sure it really is that extra tall one of cream lotion and not just the middlingly tall one of alcohol-containing sanitizer lotion. Because if you don't, this is what you feel:

OWWWWW!!

That really hurts.

But who knows - maybe you'd enjoy laughing over it once the stinging subsides! (especially at an unknown hour of the night)

On third thought, that would be a great way to get your hands up in the morning.

Transcript

If you missed the President's speech last night, the New York Times has it here.

Sunday's Adventure, Part I

[Isn't it odd how blood relatives can have such a different take on events?... you can read Jason's account here.]

Well, we made it! Actually we made it two nights ago... someone just didn't have Internet or get around to posting. Sunday morning at 7 a.m. Jason and I left Iowa, and Sunday night he was safely in Texas and I was safely in Indiana.

This story actually begins Saturday evening, when Jason and Kendra were helping me pack up the trunk and I mentioned - as we stuffed boxes and bags onto the spare tire with wheel, the extra tire, salt bags and shovel - that we'd better not need that stuff the next day.

Sunday we left right on time, only to discover about three minutes down the road that I had forgotten to grab the lunch (after remembering to put in the refrigerated food and the freezer pack just before walking out the door). So we went back and got it. Lucky Jason, with his Iowa-restricted permit, got to drive the first shift into the morning sun. He was a good sport about it and got us to the border in good time.

When I started driving, I thought that Jason had done a pretty good job of making driving with the new snow tires seem easy. Daddy had said it might feel a little loose up around 65 and 70, but I couldn't seem to keep the thing going straight at all; every little correction snowballed into a right-left-right mini rollercoaster. After about fifteen miles I was getting resigned to having the drunk-driving look all the way to Chicago. Jason was starting to look out his window. Then he told me we should probably check on it. "You mean pull over on the highway?" "Yeah." He hit the flashers as I pulled over (what a good brother to not even give me time) and hopped out. It wasn't very comforting half-seeing and half-hearing his reactions and pauses. He came back and told me there were 8 pounds in the right rear tire. That didn't sound too good. I pulled out the cellphone to call Daddy while Jason checked the others. Daddy told me that no, it wasn't too good, not even good enough to get us to the next place. I was just hanging up when Jason informed me that the police had arrived.

Well, the policeman was just there to keep people from hitting us, despite the fact that I had pulled well off the road. Anyway, nothing for it but go dig the spare tire out of the under-trunk compartment. Isn't it funny how the things that shouldn't happen happen?

Jason calmly and capably got the spare on, then the policeman gave us some lefts and rights for an auto service place. The spare was a donut (mini), fifty pounds needing an extra ten, so we went to a gas station first and Jason pumped it up while I got clearer directions from the cashier. Then we went, found the Farm and Fleet, hunted around for mechanics who sent us back to Tire Repair to get a work order, discovered it would be another half-hour, and decided we'd better hit the road.

We kept to the same planned itinerary, 80 East to 55 North to 294 North, and kept the speed up too. Poor Jason was feeling kind of nervous, had been since the very start, just did a good job of not showing it. He did manage to get down a little lunch, even as we approached Chicago. Kind of hate to admit it, but aside from hoping we didn't miss his plane, I was enjoying zipping along in increasingly Chicago-like traffic at Chicago-style speed. Managed to scramble up the change or cash needed for several tolls. There were plenty of signs to get us to the O'Hare exit, plus one or two jets taking off slowly and mightily overhead. "Just think, Jason, pretty soon you'll be on one of those things!" Jason didn't seem quite so enthusaistic about his first plane ride as I was for him.

As we would be arriving about the time Jason's plane was to start boarding, Daddy had suggested in the last phone call that I drop Jason off. So we coasted along and found Terminal 1, arriving at the end of the drop-off area to decide that they didn't have the gates marked and he would just have to find it. First, maybe he should just find his pre-printed boarding pass. We got out and started going through the whole backseat, then Jason stumbled across his papers, grabbed his bags, and headed for the doors. I have to admit I'm impressed with his cool-headedness (even despite stomach turbulence). Let's face it, if that were me plunging into O'Hare for my first plane trip, good chance of a confused and soon-lost little girl.

Apparently he had no trouble. But I didn't know that yet. The rest of the story is coming soon to an Internet-connected computer near you...

[And we'll let you be the judge of who's giving more facts.]

Bye!

We're leaving at 7:00 a.m. tomorrow!

Pray that I wouldn't feel sick (who cares how horribly the virus is ravaging my body as long as I'm not aware of it). Thank the Lord that the second day of the cold feels like the end; and that my brother Jason is along to drive to the Iowa border, to keep me awake through Illinois, and to help me hunt down O'Hare. After that, getting to Warsaw, Indiana will be a piece of cake... that is, a bar of chocolate, provided I remember to buy more when we stop for gas.

Let's keep this short and sweet so the laptop battery can get charged up before bed.

Sending you all love and wishes for a joyful, restful Sunday!

Super Menards

Yes, that's right, sounds like Menards is following the way of WalMart and all good superstores. Friends from church who do general contract work were telling about a current project at one Menards. The store is putting in freezers and hauling in carts of Wrangler's jeans. Now the mom can ask the dad to pick up some milk when he goes to get lumber!

I haven't had time to find a link yet, but someone else can!

The rest of Vacation from vacation [edited]

I never did finish telling about our stay at Ardith's. Jason already posted about that, but of course he left out a few things.

First, you know that the real reason we went down was to help Ardith test out her new TV. Sister #2 just has to show it off, since sister #1 probably won't. It's a nice improvement over what she had, as you can see here. My, that thing is big. Actually, that "old" TV was the best one we had before Daddy found us [a used] widescreen. So guess where the best "old" one went, now that Ardith's done with it? Daddy put it out in the garage. After all, people who work out in garages like to stay informed too.

As I mentioned, we went to see Eragon Thursday night. It was a powerful movie, considering how we reacted to it. That is, Jason was not impressed, Kendra was not thrilled, I never cried, and Ardith got all riled up. To get the real lowdown on how the movie plays copycat with various science fiction and fantasy works, you will have to ask Ardith... but even those of us with limited experience - that is, LOTR, Narnia, and Star Trek - could pick out clear rips: a spoken intro, sweeping-vista shots, an Aragorn figure, a group of slightly dangerous Ranger-types, etc. etc. Not to mention the poorish acting and the pathetic plot (and by pathetic, I don't mean a plot that makes your heart wring in anguish, unless maybe because it's just that bad). All that could be overlooked more easily if it weren't for stealing other people's ideas.

Oh yes, Jason convinced Ardith to put on Hellboy on Friday (not linking it for the sake of younger siblings). I don't know what it's supposed to be... superhero or horror or comedy or fantasy or just a very confusing mix of all of those.

For Friday night supper we had a good conversation topic - since we ate in the living room, and Ardith's living room has a lot of outlets, and this means plenty of laptops plugged in at once and plenty of newssurfers going at once. All that to say that we learned that Saddam Hussein was to be executed Saturday morning... that is, about an hour later that night our time. Then followed a discussion of why the process had been speeded up, who might have ulterior motives, and more generally, whether questions had one, two, or three-plus sides. Seeing as the trial wasn't (supposed) to be broadcast live, we went to see Night at the Museum, which movie we all thoroughly enjoyed.

Saturday we all managed to get up at a decent hour and get spiffed up for a nice lunch of deli food (fifth heaven for some in our family!) with the rest of the family. Eventually we all ended up in the basement, mostly so the little boys could try out all Ardith's TV seating (beanbag, beanbag footrest, weird rockerless rocker).

That's plenty of "we"'s for one post!, plenty of movies for one vacation, and plenty of posting for today.

Happy New Year's!

Is there such a thing as New Year's Day presents? Well, either way, you might enjoy something I ran across on a friend's blog.

A Lego Bible

[Later: Except I took the link out and changed the name (after Thainamu's caution) to protect people like my younger brothers and sisters.]