Road Trip Mania Week 2

Wow. David and Timothy are both asleep, and our hosts are at a wedding rehearsal until late this evening, so I'm finally--thanks to DSL--able to sit down and blog about our trip thus far.

Week One Highlights

• Introducing David to Good Will and Wal-Mart
• Meeting Ethan Gertz, our 2nd-youngest nephew
• Driving along a bit of the Blue Ridge Parkway with my sister and her family
• Getting lost near Waxhaw, North Carolina
• Seeing friends Alissa, Hannah, and Josh, and receiving a beautiful homemade quilt Hannah made for Timothy!
• Wading in a Georgia lake with my aunt Brenda, uncle John, and cousins Alyssa and Kelly
• Eating barbecue with my grandmother in Alabama and hearing about her youth
• Having African food with Laura, my best friend from high school, and touring her ambulance
• Listening to Death in the Clouds by Agatha Christie.

Week Two Highlights

• Attending a PCA church in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and having a cookout with a Nigerian family afterward
• Paying less than $4 a gallon on gas
• Visiting with my college mom, Pam, and her husband Don
• Spending time walking around downtown Wheaton with our friend Jonathan, and especially going to the Pocorn Shop
• Seeing my grandparents, aunt & uncles, great aunts and uncle, dad's cousins, and the cat Domino
• Eating fish tacos
• Setting foot in the Pacific
• Sorting out my bank issues--thank God!!

I know I've left a lot out, but those are some of our highlights. We're enjoying the San Diego dry heat.

Oh, Timothy is awake, so that's all, folks!

Road Trip Mania Week 1

I'm hoping I'll get a chance to actually write about our travels tomorrow night or Tuesday, but I just wanted to let my followers (haha) know that we're alive and well, right now in Smyrna, TN, enjoying time with my college roommate Megan and her current roommate Sara. Tomorrow morning we're off to Wheaton--bright and early.

We're doing well... Timothy has had a hard time traveling, but I think he's adjusting really well!! I was sick the first few days, and I've actually lost weight since being here instead of gaining it! But no worries. I'm feeling better now, and we're excited about seeing all these friends and family. This is state number six--wow!

Today at church we happened to meet a Nigerian couple (!) who took us to their small group barbecue. Cool! God's good.

Okay, I'd better keep visiting. All for now!

Countdown to Road Trip Mania

Tomorrow we drive to the capital and spend the night, preparing to fly out early Sunday morning. Ai. How the time has flown! I'm so excited and so anxious that's it's hard to contain myself. I just feel like exploding. This will be Timothy's fourth or fifth trip to the capital, but his first time out of Nigeria--and David's first time out of Nigeria, too. Or even on an airplane at all. So many firsts!

I will try to keep you all informed as our trip progresses, but since we won't be taking our laptop, our Internet access might be sporadic. Please be patient with me! Here's a rough outline of our itinerary:

June 1 - Arrive Washington, DC

June 2-3 - Lexington, Virginia

June 4-5 - Augusta, Georgia

June 6 - Enterprise, Alabama

June 7-8 - Smyrna, Tennessee

June 9-10 - Wheaton, Illinois

June 11-22 - California

June 23 - Wheaton, Illinois

June 25-28 - Eau Claire, Wisconsin

June 29-30 - Grand Rapids, Michigan

July 1 - Columbus, Ohio

June 2-4 - Lexington, Virginia

June 5 - Depart Washington, DC

Wish us luck!!

The grammar book

I finally finished this huge mammoth grammar textbook that I've been editing for the past month. Holy cow, what a job. I was struggling to finish it before we leave so I can use this week to get my Joint Project stuff finished and then pack. Actually, we're pretty much packed, but I know I'll have trouble sitting still at all this week.

This book was so dreadful that I almost didn't agree to edit it in the first place. I figured it would take me between 60 and 80 hours to do. And I didn't keep track, but I'm sure it took at least that long. It was dreadfully written. The sentences were poorly constructed. There were mistakes left, right, and centre. The authors didn't follow any of the grammar rules they wrote about. Oh, it was atrocious.

I didn't start keeping a record of my favourite mistakes until about page 40. Oh, and by the way, I condensed it--between formatting and rewriting--from 296 pages to 230 (including an automatic--yay, Microsoft Word--comprehensive table of contents that's 13 pages long). Yeah!

Okay, so here are some of my favourite errors from the book, copied and pasted exactly the way they were written. Some of them are so bad I can't even figure out what they're supposed to say! Enjoy!

• The god grabbed the bone with its teeth and rushed into the undergrowth.
• The robbers surrounded themselves to the police
• As we climbed the mountain, our guild slipped and fell.
• In development countries people (die) of malaria.
• That house wroth several thousands naira when I bought it.
• The referee shew the player a red card.
• The choir sand a beautiful song on the day of vocation.
• He born the blame after being found guilty though innocent.
• While he was sleeping, an enemy sow tares
• Happy and contended, the cat fell asleep.
• Punishments ring wisdom; it is the healing art of wickedness – Pluto.
• ______ English teacher told us that he has been ____ loaf of whites that cannot construct ____ sentence correctly.
• The man always complaints that he has very little clothes.
• Oh my love’s so red for a ripe rose.
• What a piece of work is man; How noble in reason, how infinite in faculties! IN action how like an angle! In apprehension, how like a god.
• As over-used idioms then become clinches – tired and almost meaningless . Some of these clinches are
• wait till the clause fill by
• give the cold shudder
• The woman felt said when their agreement fell through, and their arrangement came tooting.
• When the water hits the fire, it favourites, cutting off the air supply…
• Cissey immediately shot cut of he chain ready to vent his spleen on these underlings but suddenly plapped back into his seat.
• it is foot-hardy attempting to lend a helping hand
• if you are a retired general or a permanent secretary with loads of honey
• …the insets hop from leaf to leaf
• the refreshing breeze bends the tall tress that guard the building
• behind the strongly built bugler proof iron bars
• the system is still in a parious state
• low self-exteem
• golf, volley ball, able tennis
• the participants in the competition were respondent in different attires
• Make sure your essay is presented in a form of a slow flowing stream. It should be a flawless, well punctuated and of good spelt words.
• A mammoth crowed gathered there
• Drumming and dancing of the various title holders added pump and pageantry to the already charged atmosphere.
• Some even instigated juniors to pen disobedient
• We all wish you save journey home.
• double, triple and quadripple syllables
• use the various assignments given to access the performance of their students
• Teachers should not be complicense with assignments

Introducing a Toys"R"Us boycott

A month ago, on April 14, I had a bad experience while I was trying to order a birthday present online from Toys"R"Us for a friend. It was a very simple order, and I used an existing online-bank account because I'm aware that Westerners are paranoid about bank fraud and credit card fraud, especially from Nigeria. This online-bank system is supposed to be convenient and secure. It's never failed me before.

So I was surprised to find out when I woke up the next morning that the order had been canceled. I received an email with no explanation, just a notice of cancellation. I replied asking for some answers, but all I received was a generic response saying that I should place a phone call to customer services or fill out the online form on the website. I went online to the website and for the life of me could not find an email address to use or the form, only a phone number. I looked again at the email I'd received. It told me where on the site I could find the online help form. But the page didn't exist. I sent another email, which I knew was futile, and received the exact same response. There were no links in this email, aside from a link to the Toys"R"Us homepage. I was disgusted.

I decided to write a paper letter and spend 41 cents--which ended up being more because I included all my email correspondence, which made it overweight--to let them know how upset I was. I emphasized more than once that I was frustrated because I could not make international calls, yet that was the only way they gave to reach customer services (besides directions to a non-existent online form). Finally, this past week, I received three (3!) replies by email from a customer services representative--all three from the same woman. She said she had looked up my order and discovered it had been canceled because my IP address is in Africa. She also suggested I call to talk to her in person. Call--after I stated at least three times in my letter that I was unable to call. So obviously she hadn't even read the letter.

I'm just disgusted with the whole business. From my experience, Toys"R"Us has no customer service. None of my interactions with the company have been positive, and I have no patience left. So I'm officially boycotting the store--online and otherwise--and I invite you to do the same if you've been moved by my tale!

Sigh

Yikes. I can't believe it's been almost two weeks since my last post! I'm usually so good about this! But kai, ever since I took on this freelance grammar textbook-tome to edit, I've been going absolutely bonkers. I'm tired every minute of every day, and I'm frantically trying to get this book completed before we leave in just two weeks!! I've been working as often as I can during the day, plus every night until 11:30 or 12:00 to accomplish what I can while Timothy is asleep. And when I'm finished, I'll post all the hysterically funny mistakes I've come across. So stay tuned! And I'm furiously trying to get some stuff done for Joint Project, since it seems that I'm the only one on staff who's remotely Internet-savvy. *sigh*

In the midst of all this, David was gone for a week to Lagos. He completed and PASSED his second Part I Fellowship Exam for Family Practice. Yay!! (This was the National College exam, which is reputedly harder than the West African College exam, which he passed in April.) We're so thrilled and relieved. The sad thing is that David is now on his Ob/Gyn rotation so is pretty busy. When he's at home, he's asleep. *sigh*

And I'm starting to pack for our trip. We leave Jos two weeks from tomorrow, the 31st, and fly out on Sunday, June 1. I'm getting a bit stir crazy, actually. I just want to get on the plane and have all the planning over with! I want to lean back in that small airplane seat, with Timothy on my lap--because he costs way too much to have in his own seat on a trans-Atlantic flight--and close my eyes, knowing I can't do anything about anything while I'm in the air. *sigh*

Oh, and I've been approached about considering a new position in town...which I won't talk about until I know more details and I've thought it through more. But it would be a huge step up in salary from what I'm earning now. And it would probably also be a huge increase in work, but of a different type. More decisions to make. *sigh*

How can I keep from singing?

We went to the Honors Recital at Hillcrest last night, and it was quite enjoyable. Of course, after having attended Wheaton College and had friends in the Conservatory of Music, I'm a bit spoiled. It's hard to enjoy amateur music anymore, I'll admit. But I try to be gracious because I know these kids are trying really hard. And when I think about my own musical ability, I am duly impressed by these young folk!

But I was struck with two revelations during the performance.

1. I was so thankful and relieved that I did not have a structured, intense musical youth. I've always sung and enjoyed singing, and I took occasional lessons in piano. And I did learn the clarinet in middle school and played some for concerts and musicals. But my mom didn't force me to sit down and practice the piano for two hours every day, or even once a week! Music was enjoyable to me but never a chore. I'm so glad that I spent my time with friends and reading books instead, and especially developing my writing, which is my true passion. I admire young people who are determined and focused, for they truly do produce lovely music. But my priorities were different, and as much as I'd love to be able to play the piano, I now realise that to me, it wouldn't have been worth the sacrifice of other things I enjoyed. Yay God!

2. My soul misses singing. Every fibre of my being ached when I heard some adult women sing last night and couldn't join them. I don't have a bad voice, but I guess it's just not quite good enough for me to be asked to sing in any groups. And that makes me sad. In middle school I started singing in the annual performance of Handel's Messiah here in Jos. In high school I sang in the choir--when there was one--and also in the praise team. In college I sang in the Women's Chorale, and afterward in two different community choirs. My year in California, I sang on the worship team for my church. And I miss it so much. I don't miss the performance so much as I just miss singing in a group with other people who appreciate music and love God. Singing hymns at church just isn't the same. Singing has always been the way I best worship God, and without that outlet, I feel so lost and drained, depressed and confused. If only I could sing again.

"Since love is lord of heaven and earth, how can I keep from singing??"

Working Retreat '08 Highlights

In fact, "highlights" is probably not the best choice of words, considering there was no light almost the entire time we were gone. We were fortunate our last morning (Wednesday) to have almost six hours of power!

Anyway, here are my interesting tidbits from Adena's and my working retreat for Joint Project at Miango from Monday morning to Wednesday afternoon:

• We waited a half hour after our arrival for our rooms to be ready.
• Adena got trapped in her room Monday night. I had to go find the man in charge of maintenance to get her rescued. Yikes!
• I hurt my toe really badly while rushing to the maintenance man's house to rescue Adena.
• Timothy had a snazzy time on the porch watching workmen roof a building across the fence.
• We almost stepped on a very dead mouse in the middle of the path Tuesday night.
• There was no power at all from 10:30AM Monday morning when we arrived until 6:00AM Wednesday morning, seven hours before we left.
• We had to lug one laptops back and forth from our rooms to the main office to charge while we used the other until its battery died.
• Timothy and I spent Tuesday evening watching Casablanca for the first time!
• Timothy got to enjoy his first time in a swing.
• We came home!!