Here's the juice: Rob successfully completed his Language & Society course as well as the first half of both Phonetics and Grammar. His final exams were on Monday and major project in L&S was presented last week. If he feels like signing onto this puppy and sharing more on that, he can (hint, hint, Rob).
As for me, I think I did alright. I poured every last bit of my physical resources into a final project which I handed in Monday morning. The class I took was Analysis of Non-Western Music. Sounds like fun, right? It was a blast. Basically, we did 2 weeks (and a bit) of theory and class readings before getting into the analysis of the music system of the Urubu-Kaapor people group in Brazil. Not that we got to go to Brazil or anything. But we did listen to a collection of recorded songs, transcribe and analyze them. Then, we produced a Scripture song in the Urubu-Kaapor style with Urubu-Kaapor lyrics. We all presented our work on Friday by singing each others songs as a group. Corey, the T.A., videotaped our singing and plans to send a copy of the video to the Urubu-Kaapor people for their viewing pleasure. The prof, Tom Avery, has a good relationship with them so he anticipates they will enjoy our work and be both encouraged and amused. We also sang one of their traditional pieces for their (dubious) listening pleasure/amusement, which we had learned in the course of this session; a lovely little ditty called 'Arara-hu', a.k.a Red Macaw.
Yesterday was cleaning day. We did a complete relaxation thing after we returned the apartment to a 'move-in clean' state. Our air conditioning was busted all weekend so we were catching up on sleep these last couple of days from the restless nights of that time. We caught a movie ('The Village') Monday afternoon while they fixed it.
This morning, we attended a seminar on a new piece of software called Shellbook Publishing, a utility for literacy promotion and community development internationally. Right now, I'm blogging. This afternoon, we're going to register for the next session, buy groceries (we're out of milk) and rent a movie. The library system isn't quite as advanced as that of the Seattle area. Many things are different in Texas. We have become poignantly aware of how dependent we had become on lattes on every corner and free wireless, 75 free printed pages per week and a great video/music selection at every library. [sigh] We are high-maintenance.
We've enjoyed visiting various churches in the area but have not been integrated anywhere yet. We've been to a charismatic Lutheran, an independent church-plant, a mainstream ELCA and a megachurch (T.D. Jakes' church, the Potter's House ... great preaching). This Sunday? Still working on that.
Time to get lunch and prepare for the afternoon. Feel free to post comments and to get/stay in touch with us.
much love - the Dancing Sni
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