Syllabus Shock and Ramen Noodles!

So, Darrin and I made it through the first week of classes!  I have to admit, it was a bit overwhelming for both of us.  Going over all of the class requirements and syllabi. (The words "syllabi" and "syllabuses" are both acceptable plural forms of "syllabus', but I think "syllabi" is more fun to say.)  Hundreds of pages of reading, many papers to write, even a new language to learn...it's a lot to accomplish!   We are praying that God will work a miracle in our "old" brains and help us kick them into high gear!

In addition to experiencing "syllabus shock", we have been exposed to several different cultures this week.  The first of which obviously derives from my Hebrew class.  My first assignment was to memorize the Hebrew alphabet, spoken and written.  Learning Hebrew is not like taking Spanish or French.  It's more like learning Japanese.  The Hebrew alphabet is composed of 22 symbols that represent different sounds, all of which are consonant sounds.  We haven't learned how the vowels work yet, but I know it has something to do with adding dots to the symbols.  Oh, and you read this from right to left, so it is a bit more difficult than high school Spanish.

Anyway, I had to figure out how in the world I was going to be able to speak and write this from memory within a week's time.  Well, the music teacher in me kicked in, and I set the alphabet to a familiar tune.  I had to play with a few tunes to get one with the right timing, but I finally came up with "Jesus Loves the Little Children".  I want you to sing it now...go ahead...come on...."Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world.  Red and yellow, black, and white, they are precious in his sight.  Jesus loves the little children of the world."  Very good!  Thanks for singing along.  Now, keep thinking about that tune, but add in the words in the picture above.  Remember, read right to left.  Here we go..."Aleph, Beyt, Gimel, Dalet..."  I won't make you finish it, but that's what I have been doing for several days.  I just walk around the house singing the Hebrew alphabet.  The kids are singing it too.  It's great!  Writing it is a bit more challenging for me.  I have just been writing it over and over and over and over.  I'm getting the hang of it.  I have a quiz on Monday afternoon.  Say a prayer! :0)

Another cool cultural thing we experienced....Indian dancing....not Native American, but from India...Bollywood type stuff.  There is a dance class for students and family members on campus on Monday nights.  Kayla and I went last Monday and LOVED it!  We will be going back!

Let's see...this might be stretching it as a "cultural experience", but I thought I'd share.  Darrin has had a couple of great interviews at Olive Garden (Italian culture...Ha!).  He got connected with them at a job fair we attended last week.  We are waiting to hear back from them, but it seems promising.  So, that's another thing  you can add to your prayer list please. :0)

Oh, and this is one of my favorites of the week....Kayla has recently been exposed to a Japanese delicacy....ramen noodles!!!!  Would you believe that she, nor any of my children, had never had them before.  On our very frugal seminary budget, we thought our children should be exposed to new, exciting items from the grocery store. A $0.20 package of ramen noodles was a great place to start!  Who knew they would be the best thing since sliced bread???

Those were all of our cool cultural experiences for the week. :0)  Darrin and I both have quizzes in multiple classes next week and must choose topics for interpretive papers and books for book reviews, on top of LOTS of reading.  Oh, and don't forget about the Hebrew! :0)  We certainly have our work cut out for us, but we also know that God has brought us to it, and He will bring us through it! :0)

The kids start school on Monday....FINALLY!!!!  They are ready, and Darrin and I are most definitely ready for them to go back to school.  Today we went to Adam's school for an open house.  He and I spent over an hour of one-on-one time with his new teacher.  She is wonderful, and we are very excited about what this school year holds for Adam!  We also were able to go to Emma's school.  It was not a time to meet the teachers, but a time to get familiar with the building and where everything is located.  Emma was quite excited when we left there today.  Kayla isn't quite so lucky.  Her high school open house was on August 1st, so we missed it.  She gets thrown in on the 1st day never having met anyone or had a tour of the school at all.  The day we went to get her schedule we asked for a little preview, but we were told there would be seniors in place to help on the first few days.  She is a bit nervous about finding her way around such a huge high school, but after a week or so, she'll be an old pro at it! :0)  One other great adjustment for the girls...their school day starts at 7:25am.  The bus picks them up at 6:45am!!!!  That's definitely different.  They get out of school at 2:15pm.  Adam's school day is much later...9:15 - 3:45.  I think that will work well for him.  Please pray for the kids as they get adjusted to new schools and begin to make new friends this week.

One more thing...please keep the sale of our house in Danville in your prayers!  It is being shown on Saturday.  The showing may have past by the time you read this, but please pray anyway.  We know that God's timing is not our timing, but we sure would like His timing to hurry up a bit. :0)  I really think He is going to take us to a new level of faith when it comes to relying on His provisions in His perfect timing.  We have learned those lessons in the past, but perhaps not to the degree that we are about to learn them!

More to come next week about first quiz grades and the kids' first week of school!