Settling In

I'm registered, orientated, and paid in full. :) It's nice to have all the little details behind me and the classes ahead.

I've met our Deaf man from Paraguay whose come to teach both Field Methods and Second Language Acquisition (the signed language sections). I've also met and spent some time with his interpreter, who is a dear woman whose language skills blow my mind. Just today she interpreted for the orientation from spoken English (ahhh!) into Paraguayan Sign Language - which means her brain was operating in THREE tiers for the 3 hour time slot (English-to-Spanish-to-Paraguayan SL). Incredible. The diversity here is definitely an exciting element of this whole program.

Yesterday, it looked like I might be roommate-less this summer. My original roommate drove up from Minnesota with her best friend (who was roommate-less). After checking with me and a bit of fanagling, she moved in with her best friend instead, which is exactly what I would've done in her shoes. :) This afternoon, as it turns out, I discovered I'll have a roomie after all!! Melanie is a first year student who's been teaching in Kenya for the last 7 years! I'm thrilled.

Tonight is the "Get Acquainted Party." I've already met a whole bunch of wonderful people!! Some of the girls on my floor and I will try to get out for a run this afternoon before dinner. In the meantime... homework beckons. (And I haven't started classes yet; this is very telling!)

My classes:
Second Language Acquisition (Paraguayan Sign Language)
Signed Language Phonetics
Syntax & Morphology (Grammatical Analysis) I
Introduction to Sociolinguistics

"Behold, God is my Helper; the LORD is the Sustainer of my soul." -Psalm 54:4