I left West Lafayette on May 30th, drove through the rain and storm, and arrived in Sedalia, MO for the wedding I was to be a part of there. There was more than one crisis leading up to the wedding, but it was beautiful and it honored God. I'm very happy for my SIL roomie, my sister in Chris, my dear friend, and her husband.
London & Andrew Brumleve
I left shortly after the reception. I went through the drive-thru at Hardees, filled up with gas, and headed toward Kansas City where I hopped onto I-29 headed for North Dakota. But the time I reached KC it was around 10:30pm. About an hour or so later I decided that I needed to sleep. I slept at a truck stop for about 3hrs and resumed my journey. I only drove for an hour before I realized I needed more sleep. Rest areas are few and far between on that portion of I-29, but when I found one on the Nebraska border I slept like a beast for another 2hrs. By then, it was 6:30am and the sky was light. I felt a switch in my body flip and I was ready for the rest of the trip.
I pulled into Grand Forks and the University of North Dakota around 2:30 in the afternoon (roughly a 12hr trip excluding sleep), signed into the dorm, unpacked my car, and headed back to Fargo for a graduation open house.
A family of friends were having a graduation open house for their youngest (high school graduation) and their middle child (college graduation). Our families would go camping together when we lived in Minnesota. We've had lots of fun camping and biking times with them and I was glad the open house was on exactly the perfect day for me to make it!
By the time I returned to my dorm, my new roommate had joined my humongous dorm room. Her name is Beth and she's from Texas. I must admit, I was nervous about the roommate I would receive this year. You may recall that London (in the above picture) was my roommate for both previous summers at the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL). Beth and I get along splendidly and have had some pretty provoking talks about faith, linguistics, and the deaf community. She's pretty fluent at American Sign Language (ASL) and is evening interpreting chapel meetings as her work assignment. I'm looking forward to getting to know her better.
I'm hoping to reach out more and meet more people this summer. Last year I kind of blocked people out inadvertently and don't want to repeat that. I'm meeting new people and trying new things.
As far as classes go, this summer I am taking 3:
Language Survey
Ethnographic Methods
Sign Language Phonetics
The first two are required for me to do Language Survey with Wycliffe. I plan on telling you more about them when I have a better idea of what they're all about. I wasn't initially planning on taking Sign Language Phonetics, but I thought, "When at SIL, do what the linguists do!" I have no real knowledge of ASL or any other sign language, but sign languages interest me and I won't likely have this opportunity to study the phonetics of signed languages again. Carpe signum = seize the sign. Hopefully, when I start actually producing signs, I can record me signing and post it here.
With all this excitement going on, I forgot that my birthday was on Wednesday until... Monday night. Beth was ecstatic and insisted we go to the Blue Moose to celebrate. The Blue Moose Bar & Grill was my initial plan for birthday shenanigans to begin with, so I did not protest. Two first summer students and a recent acquaintance who is studying her 2nd summer at SIL came with us. We had a lovely, girly time. We ordered dessert since we went after dinner, they sang Happy Birthday obnoxiously loud for me, and a few of us climbed the moose and had our picture taken with him. (pictures to come?)
I hope to be more specific about what's going on in my classes when I have a better understanding of them. I also have another book review for you. :) Stay tuned.
Have a Moosie Day!
<3
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