News as of January 30th 2008
After a relaxing month with just one two-week class, it is
good to be talking with you all again. It has been a month of sadness,
strangeness and success.
Strangeness--snow in Georgia – who would have thunk it? There are some children here that
moved in from Florida and they had never seen snow—it was great seeing
their excitement. The kids did not
miss school unlike their Charlotte friends. Two days later on Saturday there
was enough snow for the kids to make snowmen – snowfish
and have snowball fights. Their snowmen did not last long as teenagers dragged
them off on their sleds. Charles even witnessed a snowman riding on the roof of
a minivan; unfortunately it was not strapped down so it soon blew off. People,
you need to remember to buckle all snowmen in to avoid future snowman carnage.
For the sad news, all but two of the 8 fish died this
month. Over a period of 3 days, Charles & B held 7AM fishy funerals. S & B handled it all very
well. The fish caught a parasite
called ICH for short which prevented them from being able to breathe. We think
it may have been brought on by the power cut on New Year’s Day as ICH is
associated with stress and has a 10 – 12 day cycle period. The two that
survived are both of the same species. In a few more weeks we will start to
repopulate the tank.
My class on Galatians went well; yes I was again
translating Greek. I might add that
Paul’s Greek is much different than the Greek in John. You know, of course, that Paul can
write one sentence that is as long as a paragraph. When you’re looking for a verb in
all that rambling (and sometimes it isn’t there-the verb ‘to be’
can be understood) it gets a little challenging. I enjoy the challenge though and I am
waiting patiently for the grade on the exegesis paper. I sat the class with Dr. Cousar who is one of the top Galatians scholars of our
time. It was cool quoting
commentaries in class that the instructor wrote. Even better the other commentaries
were written by people he knew personally.
Speaking of grades, I received my official grades for the
fall semester. Are you ready for
this? Three A-‘s and one A;
total GPA 3.85. I can’t say
it was no sweat, because it was challenging. Challenging is good though.
In regards to the subject of challenges, S’s testing
has been completed for what we thought was talent development. Interestingly, S was tested for the gifted
program. He missed the cut off to
be considered “gifted” by a few points and we are looking into what
the options are to challenge him since he is showing signs of boredom. If any of you have suggestions on how to
challenge him in class, let me know.
He told me the other day that his tablemates asked him to stop humming
to himself because it was distracting them. Another day he showed a beautiful “blob”
he had drawn on four sheets of notebook paper. Yep, he’s bored. B on the other hand is being considered
for the gifted program for 2nd grade, she scored “off the
charts” on her testing. We
will see how that goes; she is much more verbal about her boredom. She told me the other day that First
grade is so easy that it’s like being in Kindergarten. I meet with her teacher tomorrow
about her scores and placement. We’re
proud of both of them. When I took
those tests as a child, I made designs with the dots. I guess I must have been bored too.
A new toy arrived in the mail for Charles and we have all
spent a couple of hours playing with it on family night. Charles is now the
proud owner of a digital slot car race set that allows up to 6 cars to race all
at once. My first few attempts sent the cars flying off the track but it
wasn’t long before I was winning.
We were considering getting the paint on my old Honda
redone as it is looking really bad; however, the continuous failure of my old
computer during the writing of long papers has forced us to purchase a new
computer. Three times I lost papers
just as I finished them.
Fortunately, on two of them I had just printed them and was able to
retype. The third one, Charles
spent several hours working out how to restore it from the phantom temporary
files. He was successful, thank
God. That one was due the following
day, so enough was enough; we purchased a new laptop to avoid such stress in
the future. On a good note, Charles
was able to find a part for the car on eBay to fix the lock on B’s door
as it would not always lock or unlock. B was very good at reminding her Dad constantly
about this problem which I believe gave him the motivation required to resolve
it : )
We all continue to study in the house and Charles has been
learning all about questionnaires as he continues with his Thesis. So far out of the 10 small businesses
that he needs for his study, he has identified 2. I’m presently preparing for the
Bible Content Exam. It is one of
the ordination exams but is also required for the MDiv
degree. It has been dutifully
renamed amongst my peers—the Bible Trivia exam. Some of these questions would come in
handy for one of those lovely retreat games that Renda
comes up with. Questions like who
is David’s great grandfather?
A: Boaz (from the book of
Ruth). You know me; I’m
actually enjoying taking the practice exams just to see if I can answer the
questions. My weak spots are the Minor
Prophets and the epistles, mostly because they all run together after a while. I only need to pass the test with at
least a 70% and I consistently score higher than that on the practice tests—so
no worries about passing it.
I realized today that I have one more day off before the
spring semester starts. I thought I
returned to class on Monday the 3rd but I actually start classes on
Tuesday the 4th. That
was a pleasant surprise, since I have a little bit to do to finish an outfit for
B.
My Mom & Dad arrive tonight to stay and play with
little B for a few days before her birthday next month. Due to obligations my
mother has, she & my dad will not be around for the birthday party so pray
for us as we deal with 9 kids.
Since we don’t have room to party in the apartment, the seminary
allows us to use the meeting rooms on campus for such events—free of
charge. I probably will have to
clean up but that’s no big deal.
It’s going to be a long day though but we’ll have fun.
God Bless, Diane J
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