Syntax

Well, I did it. One requirement for my Syntax class is to lead the discussion one week and to answer follow-up questions online. Last week was my week. I had the assignment of leading the (3-hour!!) discussion on Case licensing (can you say hard?) and answering the questions, some posed by the professor (can you say harder?)

Ok, for those of you who haven't heard of it, syntax is word math. At first it was fun, drawing tree diagrams of simple sentences, sort of like elementary algebra. You make cool connections and say, "Wow, this is neat!" It's all a trick to suck you in and make you read journal articles by people with names like Chomsky and Uriagereka and Marantz who torture sentences until they break down and cry, just to see how far they can go. Ok, so maybe math doesn't make the equations cry. I don't know. I gave up before I got that far.

Case licensing is the procedure used to tell if a pronoun or a noun (you can see it better in languages that wear their Case on their sleeves) is he, him, or his. It sounds simple, right? He goes before the verb, him after, and his when your referring to something that belongs to him. Well, it turns out to be devilishly tricky, and all those crying sentences. . .

Well, anyway, I'm just moaning. I enjoy this class a lot. But this was a bear of an assignment. We got to pick which date/topic we wanted to do, and I asked for anything early in the semester so it would be out of the way before I got into my semester projects. The presentation was rough; there was lots I didn't know, but the professor is cheerful and willing to step in (she kept apologizing for taking up too much time--hah! I wished she'd do the whole thing!). And I just now finished the last of the seventeen posted questions (some took more than an hour each to answer--well, for me; I'm pretty slow sometimes). Hooray!

Scripture of the Day

Today I was reading in Alma 58, a chapter filled with marching and stratagems and other stuff that makes me want to catch up with the Gospel Doctrine class by just skipping ahead to 3rd Nephi, but then I came across this gem in verse 11, right after the statement that the Nephite army had prayed for deliverance:

The Lord our God did visit us with assurances that he would deliver us; yea, insomuch that he did speak peace unto our souls, and did grant unto us great faith, and did cause us that we should hope for our deliverance in him.

I love the recognition that the assurances the Lord sends include not just peace to our souls (no small gift, that) but also faith and hope, which are so often though of as things we do for the Lord, not the other way around.

Family Picture

For those of you who want a current picture of our family, here's the one Dad took in July on the day of Michael's farewell. You can download it and print it off to your heart's content.

Benjamin's Concert

On Tuesday I played hooky from the second half of my research design class and went to Benjamin's concert at the high school. I'm not being biased when I say I was blown away!

The first thing I liked I already knew about, and that was new uniforms. Hooray! In the past the uniforms have looked like the picture on the left (the same uniform for boys and girls), but this year the new directors decided the orchestra should look like an orchestra, and the picture on the right is Benjamin's (I didn't corner a girl for the picture, but they had actual long black dresses, in a flattering style for a variety of sizes):




Every year one of the feeder middle schools plays in this concert, and this year Midvale's came. they had a new director, too. And I was impressed with his ability to keep those kids moving. The William Tell Overture galloped along nicely! Then the Hillcrest band came out, with a new director fresh out of college, and their first piece is what made my jaw drop. They played a really ambitious piece of program music called "Gettysburg: The Third Day" by Jay Dawson, which started with a Trumpet Quartet hidden in the back of the room for a surround sound effect. The whole thing was quiet and loud and slow and fast and very well done!

After the band the orchestra took the stage. They played the Brandenburg Concerto #3 (1st & 2nd movements), a pavane by Jay Welch, and something called "To Tame the Raging Rapids" about a river rafting trip by Brian Balmages. The orchestra director was new last year, and she also gets a great sound out of these kids.

Benjamin is working hard and pulling his weight as a senior (really? a SENIOR?). The whole thing, start to finish, sounded great (the jazz band, too). I don't think I've ever heard a high school instrumental concert with more ambitious music and fewer sour notes. Definitely worth missing class for!

Snow!!!

The weather report said we should get rain turning to snow this weekend. Yesterday (yes, on Robert's birthday) we got a few flakes but nothing stuck. This morning we woke up to what looked like real snow, until we looked closer. But here's a picture I took after choir practice of one of the lavender plants on our parking strip. By the time we left for church 3 hours later it was melted. When we came home it was snowing again.

I think this is the earliest we've had snow stick since we moved here!