First Day of Classes

For most of my life, I’ve almost always been the best at this kind of thing – learning new languages and linguistics. If I wasn’t the best, I was close to it. People would come to me for help, and I soaked up foreign vocabulary like a sponge. But today we had our first day of classes, and not only are all of the other students good at it, most of them are BETTER!!! I am SO pumped! It is really great to be around people who are better than me, who are more learned and more skilled. Now I get to ask them questions!

I am currently enrolled in two classes: Principles of Phonetics and Principles of Grammatical Analysis. If that doesn’t excite you, I don’t know what would. The classes are really fast-paced and intensive, but the professors are really helpful and understanding. The thing is, the students here all want to learn the material well, and the professors are aware of that. They also know that most of them are future colleagues, working in the field of Bible translation, so they are very willing to help out for the sake of the Kingdom. A good example of that was the fact that my 8:00 am class opened in a prayer, and the next was followed by a school-wide chapel service in the exact same room.

Raquel and I are taking all of the same classes, which is really convenient for both of us. We finally got our room completely decorated, and it feels a little more like home now.

Raquel is just about the perfect roommate for me. Today I told her, “…also, sometimes I tell myself jokes.” And without so much as a blink, she said, “That’s fine. Is this all we need on that homework?”

This is really the first time in my life where my field of study related directly to what I will be doing with my life, and I want to do a good job. So not only am I motivated to make good grades, but I’m motivated to learn these things correctly, to the tee. Translating God’s Word is not something I want just to do well – it is something I want to do as close to perfect as I can. So with three chapters of homework ranging from deciphering the word order of a sentence in Awa to identifying the type of articulation used and the parts of the mouth and lungs involved in creating the sound for the letter ‘f’, I am setting out to conquer the exciting world of applied linguistics!