8 Days In

Well still here, just finished my 8th day of classes and I got my official student ID earlier this week!

While last week seemed to be go by slowly, this week has flown by. Most of my time outside of class time is spent reading, doing homework, or writing up summaries. I am taking 4 classes which I am really enjoying. I have learned SO much that if you told me before I came up here what I would know how to do after just 8 classes I probably wouldn't have believed you!


My classes are:
(1) Morphology and Syntax 1
(2) Sign Language Phonetics
(3) Sociolinguistics
(4) Second Language Acquisition with a lab where I am learning Colombian Sign Language!
My days are pretty packed full...first class is at 8am and I have classes until 11, chapel is 11:10-11:50, lunch, then classes from 1-2 and 3-4. On top of that I have some meeting and my work assignment, so all the free time I have is mostly on homework. On top of learning some really cool things I have also met some really awesome people. It is really cool to be around so many linguistics and missions minded people. Most of the students here have either been on the field already, or training to be on the field, and as far as I can tell all of the professors have spent significant amount of time on the field with many different types of langu/cultural groups. I have been able to have such great conversations with people gleaning from their experiences. My roommate has been a missionary overseas since 2007, I met a someone who is working with a Biblical translations team for the Deaf in Kenya, one of my professors was a missionary and language surveyor with the Deaf in Spain, and I have also had an encouraging conversation with a Deaf translator with Wycliffe about how to teach the Deaf to study the Word of God. I honestly can't believe I have gained so much in such a short amount of time here at SIL. So many more things I want to type about, but unfortunately I have a list of things to get done tonight. Miss all of you back home, and feel free to text or call any time. If I don't answer I will get back to you!


Oh, and did I say that the weather this week has been much nicer than last week!  My dorm room which is on the 3rd floor does not have AC, and it was in the 90s last week.  This week however the highs have been in the 50s - mid 70s...which is a lot more comfortable without AC!  Here is a Picture of my dorm room.
Well, I will blog again soon, but in the meantime check out the PDF of this newsletter about Wycliffe's partnerships and their work with the Deaf.
Word Alive: Deaf Around the World