Haiku of the Day - Nov 9, 08

If you being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask.

Good gift-giving dad
A steamroller of goodness
There’s no stopping him

Haiku of the Day - Oct 27, 08

Hope

i lost my nosering
it could be anywhere but
it’s within my grasp

a glint off a gem
that thing i’ve been longing for
it’s within my reach

Haiku of the Day - Oct. 19, 08

first one in a long time...

Sunday Day of Rest Haiku

rice pudding and tea -
dreams of uninterrupted
nothing is hard work

work at nothing-ing -
let us make every effort
to enter that rest [Heb. 4:11]

rest on this Sunday -
stare out the window and eat
rice pudding and tea

Back in Classes

I joined Wycliffe in May, but then I resigned in June because I’m really not sure what I want to do. What I learned at Training Camp in June is that I really like Wycliffe and everything that they are involved in. I want to be involved in Wycliffe in the future when I have more direction. I will still be able to rejoin Wycliffe and I will not have to go to Training Camp again. They are willing to let me just pick up where I left off. I’m praying for direction either toward a place or a field of work.

Chelsea, the girl who I was thinking of being partners with is now planning on finishing one more semester here (she will be my roommate) and then going to Central Asia where she has already been. I’m really excited for her because she’s going to have a great impact there.

Right now I’m taking a class called Language & Society which is pretty interesting. It is about attitudes that people have toward various languages, about how language use can change, about how language forms a person’s identity and other such topics. In a couple weeks I’ll start another class where I will learn how to learn a language and then I will take a class about analyzing the grammar of that language. After the semester is done in December I have no idea what I will do. Please pray for that with me.

Done with Bimester #1

I am now a Wycliffe member! After a long process of filling out the application, etc. I have been accepted. So now I’m planning on going to Training Camp in Orlando where I will learn about Wycliffe policies, next steps and such.

For my Cultural Anthropology class that I just finished I had to visit a cultural setting six times, so I chose to go to a Korean church called Binnerri Presbyterian Church. I also had to interview someone from that setting. I interviewed my friend’s mom who is a Korean lady who came to the States when she was in her 20’s. She has an amazing testimony. One thing she repeatedly said was that she wished she had known how to read the Bible and grow spiritually. Though she was saved when she was 33, she said she didn’t “find the Bible” until she was 50 years old. Then she started going early to church every week so she could read the pew Bible before church started. Her testimony reminded how important the Bible is for spiritual growth. It’s the main way that people can have a direct relationship with God and grow to know him better on their own. So I’m more excited about being involved in Bible translation.

This summer I will be doing some traveling. I’m going to Wycliffe Training Camp in Orlando from June 14-28. Five of my friends from here are also going. Then the plan right now is to go to Charlotte, NC to see my grandparents, then Knoxville, TN to see my brother and some friends, then Ohio to see my other brother and some other friends, then Indiana, then Des Moines to see my parents and then it’s back to sunny Dallas to work and start classes again on July 23.

Please pray for:
* safety in travel and good times with friends and family
* wisdom re: decisions about a future project location and partner (see last update)

Update After Session 3

I just finished up my third of eight sessions at GIAL in Dallas. I have studied Grammar, Phonetics and Phonology. I’m well on my way to having a basis for understanding the languages of the world! I’m really enjoying my classes a lot. I’m learning a lot of fascinating things about languages like Seri (from Mexico), Korean, Pitjantjatjara (from Australia), Zulu (from southern Africa) and many other languages. No, I’m not actually learning to speak these languages; I’m just learning things about the sounds people make while speaking them or about the structure of them.

Here are some of my favorite quotes from my professors:

“If you still have some areas of confusion, we have done our job well.” - Paul Kroeger, Grammatical Analysis Instructor, on their goal of showing us that we still have much to learn about Grammar.
“The main reason for the existence of Phonology is to provide a means of employment for phonologists.” - Steve Parker, Phonology Instructor, tongue-in-cheek answer to a student’s question about why we are learning such in-depth analysis.

I’m blessed to be living on a campus with many great people. I live in the dorm with a few other students. We have a lot of fun playing games, hanging out, doing homework together, going out for Vietnamese or Moroccan food (see photo), etc.
I’m also working at Walgreens part-time and tutoring some middle schoolers. So I have a very busy schedule right now.
I’m in the process of applying for membership with Wycliffe. I’m looking into doing a storying project (called OneStory) overseas when I’m done with my classes here. It would involve translating Bible stories into a language that is unwritten so that the people can have a snapshot overview of the message of the whole Bible. I will have one partner with me. There’s a girl here studying with me named Chelsea who I may partner up with.
I was able to go to Knoxville for my older brother’s wedding on March 1. Shout out to Dave and Sara! It was great to see friends and family there.

Please pray:

• for time-management (that I would focus on what is important not just what is urgent)
• for wisdom about decisions regarding OneStory
• for wisdom about whether Chelsea and I should be partners
• that I would learn to focus on God’s glory in all situations

Expression of the Day - March 23, 08

Easter

Expression of the Day - March 14, 08

“Bleeding Order: A relationship between ordered rules in which the rule (A) that applies first removes a structural representation to which another rule (B) would otherwise have applied.”

Expression of the Day - March 10, 08

Stops Make Better Consonants Than Fricatives

N = Some(thing/one) of nasal character

Haiku of the Day - Feb 17, 08

Trees

(shall I) kill a tree?
are you kidding me?
may it never be!

Bonus: Phoneme Poem

acute observation:
phone me the phonemes
you have identified
as contrastive
in identifical contrivements
how ENVIROTRASTIVE!

Haiku of the Day - Feb 11, 08

Rhyming Haiku Comprised of Exceptional Loanwords Which (Abnormally) Contain a Sibilant Following a Long Vowel

skim a microfiche
while you smoke some fine hashish
won’t you have some quiche?

Haiku of the Day - Jan 26, 08

The Day of Bat Zion Prophesies & Dancing, Ruthie’s Curry, and the Foursome Homework Session

i rise triumphant?
who knows what the Spirit does?
khub shaad hobeto

Haiku of the Day - Jan 25, 08

The Day that Classes Should Have Been Delayed Because of Ice But Weren’t, Again for the 10,000th Time I Looked For a Job, Talked to Lynn Landweer and Ate Great-Granny’s Hot Chocolate Pudding

music is candy
the prophesied exhaustion
amazing party

Haiku of the Day - Jan 24, 08

The Day I had 4 Class Sessions Instead of 2, Unseth’s Bible Study, Enlightenment About Sign Language by Man Di and the First Day I Didn’t Finish My Homework

minimal pairs rock
especially with non-manuals
hope for ice at 1:00

Haiku of the Day - Jan 23, 08

The Day I Talked to A Wycliffe Recruiter, Read Ruthie her Homework, and It Was Cold

nothing out-standing
except that same old same is
better than it was

Haiku of the Day - Jan 22, 08

The Day of Pangasinan in the Computer Lab, Bengali in Grammar Class and Heath Ledger’s Death

cold jog is warm heart
i need more sufjan and to
quit you as usual

"A Chance to Die"

Biography of missionary Amy Carmichael

Author: Elisabeth Elliot
Publisher: Revell
Rating: Good read  (See ratings guide)

This book is about the life of Amy Carmichael, a missionary to India around the 1890’s to 1940’s. This is a very thorough and pretty well written biography of her life. However, my complaint with most biographies stands true with this one as well. The author tends to paint her character in such glowing terms that you would think she was a perfect angel. But I noticed some bad (human) qualities in her. There’s a lot you can learn from her life IF you address the bad and comment on it.