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Published: November 23rd 2008
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Not so much has happened since my last post. I'm enjoying quieter days, although they're only that way because I have to study so much more... I would like to take a moment to congratulate Bob and Ruth, on the birth of Anders, Liv and Rich, on the birth of Wyatt, and send my best wishes to John and Debbie, whose wedding I am sadly missing.
Now, in my last entry, I wrote about Ajiin and the medical screening. Ajiin got cleared for her surgery, as did at least 6 other children. One of those children left to get his surgery this past week. I was lucky enough to find out that a group of them, including Ajiin, were staying about a block away, so I have been able to visit them. A few of us took some of the mothers and children out to get ice cream, which they thoroughly enjoyed.
Last weekend, I took some time off to relax and read a book, something that I haven't had much time to do lately. I found a lesser known book of Tolkien's, called Children of Hurin, which was edited by his son. It was a long and complicated
read, but I really liked it. Who knows, maybe I'll actually try the Silmarillion next...
With just 10 days and only 4 more practices until the choir concert, we've started having multiple practices a week, all intense and running well past their original ending times. But the music is coming together, and we're all excited for the concert. Our director was given an opportunity to do a workshop with an esteemed director/composer in the States, so she has been there for the past two weeks. During her absence, one of our tenors, a Fulbright Scholar, has been working with us, which has been interesting, to say the least.
Also last week, my roommate and I discovered a sheep tied up outside our apartment. We found out that the sheep was going to be the meal for the Eid in 2 weeks, and that a local butcher was coming that afternoon to prepare it. I have never seen any animal being prepared to be eaten, so I watched some of it. I guess the one thing that stuck out for me was how unhealthy the lungs looked. Several years ago, my family went to see the BodyWorks exhibit, the
one where you can see all the body parts and how they're affected by cancer, or smoking, etc. You would've thought this sheep was a chain smoker by the looks of his lungs. Goes to show how much second-hand smoke there is around here. Way too much.
We finished one of our textbooks this week - our pronunciation and writing book. We took a writing test, which I studied really hard for, and got a 100. We then started a new book, called "Petra", which deals with fuusha (classical written Arabic) and grammar. It's complicated. Grammar definitely was not my strong point in high school, but I'm getting the hang of the first few chapters because it's similar to the sentence structure we learned for French.
On Thursday, we had a SWAN (Students Without A Network) meeting. We played a game comparing lots of little known details of the group, like how many siblings we had, how many serious scars we had, how many countries we had visited, which turned out to be quite fun. We talked about the city, what we liked and didn't like about it, and what our first impressions were. Then we played some
music and enjoyed some awesome home-cooked food. Christina's mom arrived that day as well, so I finally got to meet her.
Friday started out really well. I went to a friend's house to make apple pies from scratch. That afternoon, I hung out with some other friends from school and a friend from choir, where I got to help make a baked chocolate pudding. That evening, we had a class party, so we all got to hang out, eat, and chat outside of a school setting. It was a lot of fun. Then I spiked a fever, and stayed home from school the next day. I got some work done and studied for a bit, then watched a movie, and took the rest of the day slowly. Today I felt so much better, so it was definitely worth taking the day off.
Coming up: more choir rehearsals, teaching at the English center, EAGLES GAME TONIGHT!!!!!, and Thanksgiving, which really means pumpkin pie. Only the best. :]
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Daddy
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Just 3 weeks!
Hey kiddo, I loved you story about the sheep, and shared it with friends in Scotland. We can't wait to see you in 3 weeks!