Yesterday evening, Amy and I had over a classmate of mine, Fahad, along with his cousin, Rakan, an MBA student in Oklahoma. They’re from Saudi Arabia. (Fahad is the one on my right.) We had an enjoyably evening and a wonderful roast.

Did you notice that I got a haircut? We had decided to wait till the semester was over. So Amy took care of it Friday evening. (And she did a marvelous job!) If you’ve forgotten how long my hair had gotten, here’s a recent photo (taken after an event that required a tie — something unusual for me these days).

The semester ended well. I had two final papers (due Tuesday and Wednesday), and some final exams to grade (I finished those yesterday). So summer has begun. My plans are to study French, continue my work for Nightlight Christian Adoptions (formerly Carolina Hope), design a couple websites, and conduct research on Jarai for my dissertation — along with some other miscelaneous items.

By the way, Amy’s old computer (very graciously given to her a couple years ago by her brother Jon) is on the way out. If anyone is trying to dispose of a (still reliable) laptop that’s a couple years old (at a reasonable price), please let us know!

Back on March 15, we had our pastor (John Lutz) and his family (Shawn, Micah) over for dinner. Amy made a wonderful pot roast (maybe she’ll put up some photos?) and some great cookies out of yellow cake mix (the only cookie-making ingredients on hand!). Here’s the cookies:

The Lutzes tried out our Boomwhackers — introduced here — (new church orchestra?). They were pretty good, especially considering that they didn’t get much prep time. (Does “especially considering” turn a compliment into an underhanded aspersion?) Here’s a 20-sec clip:

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Finally, since you can see from the top photo (which we’re all part of) that I obviously have a timer function on my camera, here’s a little something showing … well, you’ll see:

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On Thursday and Friday, my department hosted its annual Student Conference in Linguistics & TESOL. The photo above shows me with Jacob, a conference presenter who traveled from Mexico. If you look closely, you’ll perhaps notice that this photo was not taken at school but in our apartment. Jacob’s cash-to-expenses ratio wasn’t looking so good on Friday, so to help that situation from getting worse, Amy and I invited him to stay at our apartment last night. Of all our very appreciative guests (many of whom read our blog — so let me emphasize that all of our previous guests have been very very appreciative), Jacob was probably the most overflowing in his gratitude.

We enjoyed our time talking with him, and we have an open invitation to stay with him and his wife in Hermosillo, Mexico, next time we’re down that way.

I just watched this presentation while dusting (white glove for our apartment complex this week!). Lomborg is a Danish statistician who argues that even though global warming is a real (man-made) problem, there are better ways to spend our money than cutting carbon emissions. He’s quite humorous.

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It’s been more than a month since Christmas, but I still think this was a totally cool present (from my sister Emily). I don’t think I’ve ever had an eraser this big, and I love it. (And its size makes it more ergonomic!) Another cool present — one we use every morning — was a new coffee maker from Steve & Charity and the boys.

If you gave us a present that’s not mentioned here, it’s not because we haven’t used it. We just haven’t taken a picture of it.

While I’m rambling, I’ll also mention our recent overnight guests, David and Natalie Wynn, who stopped by on their way from Florida to Washington (state) — moving from one military base to the next. (David is a Marine.) Though not our first guests, they were the first to sign our guest book. Not that the other guests refused, just that we always forget to get it out.

David and Natalie took us out for a nice supper, and we enjoyed our evening together, which included a rambling walk around the campus and lots of catching up.

On Dec. 19 we told you about Amy’s 1st PTA. There were some embedded Quicktime videos, but some people had trouble viewing them. I’ve converted them to Adobe Flash, which works on almost everyone’s computer. So here they are again.

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Last weekend, Lap Siu (pictured above) and his family visited Dallas to spend time with other Jarai. (There are about 100 Jarai in the Dallas area.) Lap is from Vietnam, and he immigrated to the U.S. as a refugee around the age of 18. He and I have been talking for the last year or so, but this was my first chance to meet him.

Lap graciously gave up a couple days to consult with me about the Jarai language and also to assist me in recording a 30-minute traditional Jarai tale, told by a middle-aged Jarai man, Dun (pictured below), who knows a lot of the old legends.

Part of the recording session involved going over a release form that all research participants must sign. One section of the form states that participates are not paid for their participation. Dun replied (in Jarai) something to this effect: “The words that come out of my mouth cost me nothing.”

Lap himself also recorded some rhymes for me. You can listen to one below and see the transcription and translation here. This particular one was written by Lap, and it goes along with a traditional Jarai tune. (I recorded Lap reciting the poem, too, but I just discovered that the file was corrupted. I tried to recover it from my backup, but apparently it was corrupted from the start. Anyway, here’s Lap singing it.)

Last night from 6 to 7 was Amy’s first PTA. It was a blast, even though I didn’t win the raffle. (Actually, I didn’t even get a (free) ticket. I think they were for the parents.) In addition to the raffle, a few other things reminded me of elementary Christmas programs I was in as a kid at Hampton Park: the enthusiastic chatter in the audience throughout the program, the crowd of parents in the aisle taking photos of their kids during the performances, and — the program’s climax — kindergartners jumping up and down on stage while Feliz Navidad was played on a boombox. (You wanna see that? You’ll have to click on Continue Reading, further down.) Okay, so maybe not quite like programs Amy and I were in as kids. But it was lots of fun!

Amy did have a nervous 20 minutes waiting for her kids to a arrive. From about 5:35 – 5:55 only 2 or 3 of her students had shown up. But by 6:05, about 12 total had come (out of Amy’s 40 1st graders from the last two weeks) to sing Jingle Bells and shake their instruments (first audio clip below). They sang loudly and with enthusiasm

The crowd thoroughly enjoyed their singing, as you can hear from the very appreciative applause:

Yeah, and they’re cute. Here are some photos.

If you want to see a video of Amy’s kiddos — and the kindergartners who, as their teacher told me, “Like to jump up and down”, go on to the next page: Continue reading 1st PTA →

These were Amy’s words when we went out to the ice-covered car this morning a little after 7. We’d started the car about 5 minutes before, and some of the ice on the windshield was melted, but not enough. Not finding my ice scraper, I made do with my umbrella (hey — it was better than my fingernails).

Sorry, no photos.

This afternoon while Amy worked on lesson plans, I threw together a new website (based on this one for its design) that I’ll use to market my small-scale web design business. I recycled an address I used while I was in Cambodia (www.josh-in-cambodia.org) and used the initials to create J.I.C. Web Design.

I had intended to use Jensen Dimension for my web portfolio, but I started to doubt the wisdom of passing out – for business purposes – the address to a web site devote mainly to family news.

You already know that I’m past the exam, but now I can announce that I passed it, too!

I had a noon-time appointment today in the office of one of my professors: present were my former PhD advisor, my current PhD advisor, and the department chair. (Such was the arrangement for announcing the results to each test taker.) After showing me my scores, they congratulated me and shook my hand. And that was about it.

(In the photo, that’s me and one of my Korean classmates, Sok Hun, who also took the test this semester.)

For our wedding, Amy’s close friend Rebekah Pringle (pictured at right with Amy’s sister, Emily, who likes to be in photos) wrote us a wonderful song text, which Brian Pinner (a close friend of mine) set to music for us. [update on 11/21: the setting was co-written by Dianne Pinner and Brian Pinner – and now that I’ve been reminded of this by Brian, I realize that I left Mrs. Pinner out of the wedding program; sorry, Mrs. Pinner!] Amy and I were thrilled with both the text and the setting. In case you didn’t hear it (or want to hear it again), you can listen to it as streaming audio here (guitar and vocal: Brian Pinner). The song starts about 5 seconds into the track.

“Song of a Covenant” is a translation of the Hebrew song title, Shir Berith.

The text of the song is below: Continue reading Song of a Covenant (Shir Berith) →

This past Saturday the PhD Diagnostic Exam was given, and 7 hours after the procedure began, I emerged, thoroughly examined. I won’t know the results for a couple weeks. I suppose that until then, I can’t say that I’ve actually been diagnosed, unless the act of taking the test is itself the diagnosis.

The test was divided into four sections: sound structure (phonology), grammatical structure (syntax), meaning and use (pragmatics & semantics), and meaning in context (sociolinguistics and historical & comparative linguistics). Each section had 2 or 3 essay questions to choose from, and for each section, there was at least one question that I felt reasonably confident answering. I thank the Lord for mental alertness and help for my hand, which sometimes cramps up badly if I write for an extended period of time.

When I came home, Amy prepared chicken fajitas, and we had a nice relaxing evening. Homework was prohibited. (A little more praise for my wife: as the exam was approaching, Amy was such a help to me in carving out time to study, relieving me from other work, and encouraging me.)

And thanks to you all for praying.

In addition to making it more likely that I pass my diagnostic exam, a benefit of studying phonology is the occasional snack that my wife prepares for me.

On a completely unrelated note, after looking at this photo of my one-year-old nephew, Amy and I both wondered what he knows that he’s hiding from everyone.

Amy got us our absentee ballots from Greenville, and we sealed them up and mailed them today. Incidentally, when I voted, I was more concerned about these guys than about these two.

Don’t forget to vote.

[update 10/21/08: For those of you who wanted to comment on this post — I turned off comments so that the blog doesn’t become a forum for political discussion.]

Would you please consider signing the Fairness for Families petition?

Here’s the background:

1. Until recently, to get approval to adopt from overseas, families would file a form with the US Government (with US Citizenship and Immigration Services) called the I-600A. When this was approved, the approval would last for 18 months.
2. For most overseas adoptions, 18 months is long enough to complete an adoption, but …
3. China adoptions have slowed down dramatically, and now many families are waiting a couple years (or more) for a China adoption to go through.
4. While families are waiting, their approval from the U.S. government is expiring. Our government has given families ONE free 18-month renewal. But …
5. That renewal is running out for some families, and our government is telling them that they must start from scratch. Here’s why — and what it means:
   • In the last year, our country has officially become part of an international treaty governing intercountry adoptions, and part of this has required a new and “improved” (gag me with a well-used motor oil rag) process — no longer “I-600” but “I-800.”
   • The new process (I-800) is long and onerous
   • Some families will have to change agencies (think: a whole new set of fees — thousands of dollars) because only certain agencies are approved for the I-800 process.
   • Families that are required to change agencies will lose their “place in line” — moving to the end of a 25,000-person waiting list in China.
   • Some families will lose their approval, because Chinese requirements have changed, and by resubmitting their application to adopt (instead of just leaving it in line), they will be rejected.

The petition is asking US Citizenship and Immigration Services (US CIS) to obey the law (the Intercountry Adoption Act of 2000) which requires USCICS to “grandfather” old cases. In other words, cases submitted under I-600A form must stay I-600 cases instead of becoming I-800 cases.

For more info (and more things to do!), go to my Carolina Hope blog post about it. Also consider passing this around to your friends and family.

Thanks! I won’t do this often. (By the way, I lifted the cute photo from Carolina Hope’s website. But I’m the one who took the photo, so I think I can do that. And no, he’s not available for adoption.)

A few days back Amy posted about my new whiteboard. The scrawlings you saw on the board were preliminary notes for a presentation about the linguistic framework proposed by Charles-James Bailey, a presentation that I made today in Historical and Comparative Linguistics. You can see the presentation here, but you probably don’t want to. That’s okay. (The slide that you see here has a quote from Bailey I particularly liked.)

I got some positive feedback from my classmates about the 50-minute presentation (it was assigned as a 20-minute deal, but I got permission by email last night to go long). I mention the positive comments because — though directed to me — they belonged to my wife. Last night she patiently sat through my presentation (in its first draft) and made some pedagogical and organizational recommendations that resulted in a talk that actually made sense to the class. (The resulting presentation resembled the original draft … not at all!)

Thanks, Aim!

(Oh yeah, and she made me yummy pizza for when I got home.)

Josh here. I’m not sure whether I’ve shared with everyone what I’m doing this semester. The Lord has very graciously given me about 30 hours of work a week:

• 10 hours as a Graduate Research Assistant (working in the linguistics computer lab and maintaining the linguistics website)
• 10 hours as a Graduate Teaching Assistant (attending Formal Syntax class, making photocopies, facilitating class on the two days that the professor is gone, perhaps doing some grading)
• 10 hours for Carolina Hope Christian Adoption Agency

The linguistics website work is a continuation of what I did this summer: redesign our department’s website. The site is still under development, with a couple more major sections to be added or revised this semester. As part of my 10 hours a week, I also clean keyboards, run software updates, and keep the printer paper stocked.

As far as the teaching assistantship, I was supposed to teach an ESL research paper class for graduate students. But only one student registered, so the department moved me to the syntax class. Overall, this has been very good for my schedule (less prep, less grading), and I was grateful that I was able to keep the stipend I was planning on having.

For Carolina Hope, I work on the website, adoption forms, and blog. (You might want to read a post I put up yesterday — a sweet story about a little boy with his adoptive mom.) I also recently helped my boss develop an online education course about adoption homestudies.

Of course, the most important thing this semester is spending time with my wife. But you know about that already!

Why am I happy at 11:45 pm? Well, I can think of a couple reasons:

1. Amy made me really good peanut butter cookies today! After supper while I was doing my GRA work, she went to Wal-Mart and bought the ingredients and served them up to me warm while I finished up for the day.
2. We just finished a game of Monopoly. I won’t say anything other than this: I think it’s no coincidence that on the front of the box, the guy holding all the money also has a respectable amount of facial hair.

Last evening we finished our last major apartment project: decorating the walls. Amy will tell you more in a later post (which will include photos), but this 37-sec. video — unedited and in real time — shows you the frenzied pace that we keep up here in Texas.

(This video requires Quicktime player, available as a free download from Apple. Or you can download the video here — right click and save target — and watch it in Windows Media Player.)