It has been pretty busy around here lately. This past weekend Aparri Bible Seminary had it's "3rd Grand Alumni Homecoming." That was certainly an interesting experience for me. It reminded me of my first month or so here in country when I met about a million people and couldn't remember anyone's name. It was very similar to that, although there were some folks that I had met before that I recognized like Pastor Domingo and Pastor Ibarra. I also got to meet some family members of my current students which was also interesting. Mostly I felt bad that I couldn't and definitely wouldn't remember all the names. Of course there were some people that I finally got to meet whose names I will remember, like Sir Danison who is the "favorite son" of Ma'am Linda and Sir Tony Columna.
Very soon I will actually be in the States for a short time. It's Nate Reeves' fault. Hopefully I will manage to make some visits to some special people. I'm going to be very interested to see how I feel being in the States. I don't know if it will feel like it always did or if it will feel different or if it even should feel different. This is by far the longest period of time that I've ever been away from even the Greater Cincinnati area not to mention the United States. I absolutely cannot wait to see my family and friends. I know it will be an enjoyable time, I'm not really looking forward to the "basically travelling halfway around the world and back within a week" part of it, but such is life and I know I have obligations here that I need to fulfill. Said obligations are another reason why it has been so busy; I've been making sure my students will have something to keep them occupied while I'm gone.
The best part of preparing for this trip has been all the students "discreetly" asking me to bring them a souvenir. I'm hoping I can find something suitable for all of them. The best was the student who asked me to bring her some food. I have a running joke with this student that when we eat as a group she is always one of the first three or four in line to get food, so I was "very laughter" when she turned my joke on me. Other common requests are to come along in my baggage and/or pockets. One of the students who asked could probably fit in my baggage, but I don't feel like carrying her around, lol.
Please pray for my travels; I would appreciate a safe trip there and back again very much. Also, please continue praying for my immigration status. I'm hoping to be pleasantly surprised when I return to the Philippines, otherwise we're going to be scrambling a little bit to get things arranged. I tried to email the bureau of immigration the other day and the address came back as undeliverable; which is awesome by the way. A lot of things are dependent on my immigration status, not the least of which is the immediate future. Also dependent are the "not-too-distant" future and the future future as well.
My favorite story of the past few days comes from Mr. Norman Peneyra, a member of the Aparri Church that I just met last Sunday. We had a nice conversation which included the following snippet:
Sir Norman: I heard you had a girlfriend in Buguey (a nearby town), is that true or is it hearsay?
Me: Pure hearsay Sir, I'm quite surprised to hear it.
Sir Norman: I thought you had a Filipina girlfriend.
Me: I don't think I could handle one Sir.
Both: (Very Laughter)
The "marrying a Filipina solves your immigration issues" solution has been bandied about quite a bit since I arrived, my opinion on the matter has not changed.
Thanks again to you all for all the support. God Bless.
Nick
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Choiring it Up
In an effort to improve my poor singing ability I asked Ma'am Grace Alvarez (one of my colleagues here at ABS) if I could sit in on the choir class that she teaches on Tuesday and Thursday evenings and sing with the basses. I also did this because so many of the students voiced their opinion that I should join them for choir. (Insert your "joyful noise" joke here.) Due to unforeseen cicumstances I've only made it to one class session so far, but that one went reasonably well. Especially considering it was the first time I've really been part of a professional style choir. I may have done extremely poorly, you'll have to ask Raymond who sat in front of me if you really want to know. If nothing else, at least it is fun to do the voice warm-up exercises at the beginning of class.
From the "things-you-don't-care-about-but-I'm-telling-you-anyway" department, ever since I dipped my toes in the ocean this past Sunday afternoon my sandals have smelled like wet dog. I'm trying to decide if the dogs have been sleeping on my sandals. We have two main dogs here at the seminary, as well as several other contributing neighborhood dogs. Capo and Zildjian are our two main campus dogs here and they take care of important things like chasing cats as long as it isn't too hot, sleeping all day on the sand pile, running around all night barking like fools, and inviting themselves to community meals here on campus. I'm hoping that they found time to sleep on my sandals a few times; otherwise it means that my feet stink to high heaven. I'm not ruling out the possibility; but I can't smell it on my feet, just the sandals. The boys are going to try and wash them for me, hopefully that works out.
One of the truly enjoyable parts of my experience here (and frankly there are several) has been my re-acquaintance with an object now largely extinct: the hymnal. One of my favorite things to do is go up to the "penthouse" which is the unfinished roof/third floor of the new building here on campus with a hymnal and flip through the songs seeing how many of the tunes I can remember from my childhood. I've also had the chance to meet some new-to-me hymns like "In the Service of the King" which I like a lot. As a corollary I've become re-acquainted with the flat out glacial pace at which I read music. It has been approximately 14 years (8th grade, I think) since I had to read music. Shaking out the cobwebs doesn't begin to describe that process, but it has been fun.
The thing I've been missing this week is my fiction books. Summer was always a time when I spent a lot of time reading whatever I wanted. I usually read "The Lord of the Rings" every summer as well as a few other timeless classics like the "North and South" trilogy and the instructional manual for my wristwatch.
Other than some lower than expected scores on my mid-terms I think that classes are going pretty well. I'm willing to chalk up some of the poor scores by my students to them taking one of my tests for the first time. Otherwise I'm hoping they just didn't study. I had an excellent conversation with Ma'am Linda Columna (another of my esteemed colleauges here at ABS) about this very topic, and was very encouraged that she had noticed some of the same things I noticed and had reached some similar conclusions. She also assuaged my fear that I was a horrible teacher. For that I was very grateful.
I am eagerly anticipating my brief trip to the States, not just because of the event that I will be a part of but because of the people I will get to see. When I was scheduling my time here in the Philippines, a quick trip home after a few months in country seemed like an excellent idea. I still think it is an excellent idea and am therfore forced to conclude that God was the one who came up with that one by providing an excellent opportunity to do so.
"I am happy in the service of the King; I am happy oh so happy!"
Nick
From the "things-you-don't-care-about-but-I'm-telling-you-anyway" department, ever since I dipped my toes in the ocean this past Sunday afternoon my sandals have smelled like wet dog. I'm trying to decide if the dogs have been sleeping on my sandals. We have two main dogs here at the seminary, as well as several other contributing neighborhood dogs. Capo and Zildjian are our two main campus dogs here and they take care of important things like chasing cats as long as it isn't too hot, sleeping all day on the sand pile, running around all night barking like fools, and inviting themselves to community meals here on campus. I'm hoping that they found time to sleep on my sandals a few times; otherwise it means that my feet stink to high heaven. I'm not ruling out the possibility; but I can't smell it on my feet, just the sandals. The boys are going to try and wash them for me, hopefully that works out.
One of the truly enjoyable parts of my experience here (and frankly there are several) has been my re-acquaintance with an object now largely extinct: the hymnal. One of my favorite things to do is go up to the "penthouse" which is the unfinished roof/third floor of the new building here on campus with a hymnal and flip through the songs seeing how many of the tunes I can remember from my childhood. I've also had the chance to meet some new-to-me hymns like "In the Service of the King" which I like a lot. As a corollary I've become re-acquainted with the flat out glacial pace at which I read music. It has been approximately 14 years (8th grade, I think) since I had to read music. Shaking out the cobwebs doesn't begin to describe that process, but it has been fun.
The thing I've been missing this week is my fiction books. Summer was always a time when I spent a lot of time reading whatever I wanted. I usually read "The Lord of the Rings" every summer as well as a few other timeless classics like the "North and South" trilogy and the instructional manual for my wristwatch.
Other than some lower than expected scores on my mid-terms I think that classes are going pretty well. I'm willing to chalk up some of the poor scores by my students to them taking one of my tests for the first time. Otherwise I'm hoping they just didn't study. I had an excellent conversation with Ma'am Linda Columna (another of my esteemed colleauges here at ABS) about this very topic, and was very encouraged that she had noticed some of the same things I noticed and had reached some similar conclusions. She also assuaged my fear that I was a horrible teacher. For that I was very grateful.
I am eagerly anticipating my brief trip to the States, not just because of the event that I will be a part of but because of the people I will get to see. When I was scheduling my time here in the Philippines, a quick trip home after a few months in country seemed like an excellent idea. I still think it is an excellent idea and am therfore forced to conclude that God was the one who came up with that one by providing an excellent opportunity to do so.
"I am happy in the service of the King; I am happy oh so happy!"
Nick
Monday, August 1, 2011
Philippine Phirsts
Mid term examinations have finally arrived here at Aparri Bible Seminary, it is flat out hilarious how much more attentive students are when you inform them that you are about to review for an important test. Throughout the review I was pleasantly surprised with how much they remembered or took notes those first 2 weeks when I was sure they didn't understand a word that I was saying. Writing the tests were slightly easier than I expected; we'll see if these students can manage to impress me. I really hope they do well on these tests.
Last week on Thursday night I received an extended Ilocano lesson from a number of students here. There were several interesting moments, but the verb system is what I want to tell you about. I'll use my favorite activity here in the Philippines as an example. A hand fan is called a paypay (pronounced pie-pie) in Ilocano. In Ilocano most nouns can convert to verbs, so the present form of this verb is agpaypaypay. Ag is an augment and it is paired with a partial reduplication to form the present. The future is agpaypay, it drops the reduplication, and the past is nagpaypay, so it just has a different augment. If I wanted to say 'I am fanning' or 'I fan' it would be agpaypaypayak. Ak is a pronominal suffix that is a shortened form of the pronoun "siak" (pronounced shock) that means "me." Now the funny part, paypay literally means air-air or air supply. So literally agpaypaypayak means "me air-supplying" or maybe even "me very airing." In light of the band Air Supply (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HejVjzhKTY) and the aforementioned "very jokes" this is about the funniest verb in the history of the world.
Some other firsts that occurred recently: I tried pizza for the first time in the Philippines. It wasn't LaRosa's but it was pretty good, and was the only time I've seen real cheese in this country. Also, I tried halo-halo for the first time which is a type of dessert here. Halo is the Tagalog (the national dialect) word for "mix." Thus the dessert is called mix-mix because it has things like ice and ice cream and fruit and gelatin and licorice and you're supposed to mix-mix it all together. It was pretty good too. The best part of the trip was that the pizza parlor was air conditioned. Another first was my attendance at a big birthday party here. It was Pastor Angelo's birthday yesterday, and the church here in Aparri that he serves roasted a pig and basically had an all day party. We were there for dinner and supper and the roundtable that followed supper and the snacking that followed the roundtable. This was yesterday and I seriously think that I ate about 10 meals yesterday. If you're saying something to the effect of "You should have just said 'no, thank you'," you come here and try to say that and see how successful you are. They just make fun of me and give me a full plate, maybe you'll do better. The pig was pretty good though, I will give them that. And the banana cake, that was pretty good too.
For those of you who were curious, my eye is pretty well healed, there is still a little bit of blood in the white of my eye, but it is gradually disappearing. I want to add that all of this healing is natural, I took no part in the local cure.
It's hard to believe that I'll be in Indiana soon for Nate and Brooke's wedding. I'm looking forward to that. My flight leaves Manila in 28 days. I'll be in Indiana for a little less than a week, and then right back to hopefully finish out the school year. I say "hopefully" because immigration issues may still play a part; keep praying about that.
Nick
Last week on Thursday night I received an extended Ilocano lesson from a number of students here. There were several interesting moments, but the verb system is what I want to tell you about. I'll use my favorite activity here in the Philippines as an example. A hand fan is called a paypay (pronounced pie-pie) in Ilocano. In Ilocano most nouns can convert to verbs, so the present form of this verb is agpaypaypay. Ag is an augment and it is paired with a partial reduplication to form the present. The future is agpaypay, it drops the reduplication, and the past is nagpaypay, so it just has a different augment. If I wanted to say 'I am fanning' or 'I fan' it would be agpaypaypayak. Ak is a pronominal suffix that is a shortened form of the pronoun "siak" (pronounced shock) that means "me." Now the funny part, paypay literally means air-air or air supply. So literally agpaypaypayak means "me air-supplying" or maybe even "me very airing." In light of the band Air Supply (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HejVjzhKTY) and the aforementioned "very jokes" this is about the funniest verb in the history of the world.
Some other firsts that occurred recently: I tried pizza for the first time in the Philippines. It wasn't LaRosa's but it was pretty good, and was the only time I've seen real cheese in this country. Also, I tried halo-halo for the first time which is a type of dessert here. Halo is the Tagalog (the national dialect) word for "mix." Thus the dessert is called mix-mix because it has things like ice and ice cream and fruit and gelatin and licorice and you're supposed to mix-mix it all together. It was pretty good too. The best part of the trip was that the pizza parlor was air conditioned. Another first was my attendance at a big birthday party here. It was Pastor Angelo's birthday yesterday, and the church here in Aparri that he serves roasted a pig and basically had an all day party. We were there for dinner and supper and the roundtable that followed supper and the snacking that followed the roundtable. This was yesterday and I seriously think that I ate about 10 meals yesterday. If you're saying something to the effect of "You should have just said 'no, thank you'," you come here and try to say that and see how successful you are. They just make fun of me and give me a full plate, maybe you'll do better. The pig was pretty good though, I will give them that. And the banana cake, that was pretty good too.
For those of you who were curious, my eye is pretty well healed, there is still a little bit of blood in the white of my eye, but it is gradually disappearing. I want to add that all of this healing is natural, I took no part in the local cure.
It's hard to believe that I'll be in Indiana soon for Nate and Brooke's wedding. I'm looking forward to that. My flight leaves Manila in 28 days. I'll be in Indiana for a little less than a week, and then right back to hopefully finish out the school year. I say "hopefully" because immigration issues may still play a part; keep praying about that.
Nick
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