07.31.08
Rocky Mountain High
We had a good day this past Sunday. Continuing on from our weekend break from MTI classes we carried our adventures north to Denver and beyond. Sunday morning, we went to church at Grace Chapel where some family friends of Katie’s attend. Their church also has a missions focus on the country of Niger which is where we are thinking of going so we also were able to meet with some folks on their mission board and also a Nigerien family that happened to be there! Fun!
After church, we met up for lunch with some of Katie’s Biola friends that had just moved here and then decided to drive up to Rocky Mountain National Park. Well, it was a much farther drive than we thought but the park was magnificent! We hiked for an hour and a half before having to head back to Palmer Lake but we left with the strong desire to come back and backpack or camp there! Below are some photos from the park. Finished up the day with a delicious Dairy Queen chocolate dipped cone so not too shabby in all!
Awesome Colorado-style Weekend
Katie’s version with additional photos.
Colorado is the stuff of fairytales! I always forget how awesome it is here. This past weekend was our first time off in the MTI program so Katie and I rented a car to get off campus and have some fun. This weekend is the last vacation time we will likely have for a while so we wanted to go out with a bang and Katie put together a day of Petersen-family proportions!
PIKES PEAK
We left MTI at 6:30 am and drove down to Manitou Springs to ride the cog railway to the top of Pikes Peak. The cog railway is a railway that uses giant cogs operating on a central rail to propel the train up and down the mountain on slopes that ordinary vehicles cannot go on. At its most extreme grade, the train went up a 26 degree angle! Crazy! In comparison, most cars can only drive up 8 degree slopes. That will give you an idea. The ride and scenery were great and it was so clear that, supposedly, we could see like 5 states from the top. The top was cold! The views were amazing and the Rockies really are beautiful. Apparently, it was after a trip to the top of Pikes Peak that Katharine Lee Bates was inspired to write America the Beautiful. One near catastrophe happened…at the top, a bug flew into my mouth and got stuck at the back of my throat. I kept coughing and drinking a lot of water and finally got it washed down. Well, the train ride is an hour and fifteen minutes with NO BATHROOM! All the water I drank trying to get the bug out suddenly dropped hard-core to my small intestines. The ride down was excruciatingly long and it was a solid hour and fifteen minutes of uninterrupted prayer. Praise God He answered my prayers!
GARDEN OF THE GODS
After, a choice lunch at a pizzeria that was creepily decorated on every wall with photos of Marilyn Monroe, we head to the Garden of the gods for some hiking. That place is awesome! It is a kind of valley in which huge red and gray rock formations jut into the sky. There are several trails that circle the rocks. We hiked all around there for several hours which was a lot of fun. There were also some rock climbers who were climbing some psycho rock faces!
SEVEN FALLS
After that, we had a couple hours until our dinner reservations so we headed to Seven Falls which is a waterfall nearby. The drive back to where the falls are is along the “Most Beautiful Mile in Colorado”…self-proclaimed of course! The falls were ok, very tall and they had steps you could go up all the way to the top so that was a workout. And they had trails at the top. It was pretty cool.
We finished the day at Iron Springs Chateau for a home-style dinner and melodrama. The food was great! Chicken, brisket, beans, coleslaw, biscuits…MMMM! The show was quite fun. It began with a cheesy play that reminded my somehow of a Dudley-Do Right cartoon! It progressed through several old-timey songs from the 1920s and 30s and then finished up with a music and comedy show. It was very surreal. At one point I started chuckling to myself and Katie leaned over and asked what was so funny and I said “What the heck are we doing here??” Ha ha! We ended up a little creeped out/amused but it was fun!
We finally got back to MTI around 11pm. So, in all it was a very fun and tiring day! I definitely recommend Colorado Springs to anyone, there is lots to do, it is beautiful and especially if you like to do things outside. Just make sure you go to the bathroom before you get on the cog railway!
07.25.08
What is language?
We had an interesting lecture today that included a discussion on: what is language? what is language learning? At first glance, this seems like an easy question but closer thought reveals it is not so simple. Let me illustrate from an expamle from the talk.
Many people, when recalling their school days might say, “When I was in school I took history, math, science and Spanish.” Spanish does not really fit in this list. Why? Well, if you took a history class, you would expect to come out of it having acquired more knowledge than when you started. Same with math and same with science. In these subjects, as indeed in most school subjects, a student might expect to finish the class more having more knowledge than at the begining.
Is this true with Spanish, or indeed any other language? Not really. You still posses the same amount of knowledge, you have merely learned a new way to express it. Language is a means of communicating, not a subject to master or a skill to acquire.
On that point, language learning also differs from learning subjects like history and math in another way. You do it naturally. People don’t naturally acquire a knowledge of history. Or math. Or biology. Or whatever. You are taught those things. We all learned our first language without any special teaching or effort. We were simply exposed to it and acquired it. As such, everyone has a natural ability to learn a language. The ability is innate in our humanness. Pretty cool God made us that way.
Anyway, that is your random thought for the night!
07.24.08
MTI Update
It is Thursday night in our first week (out of 2) at MTI. The courses are so interesting. For example, did you know that the English language uses only about 44 sounds but that there are hundreds of other sounds being used in languages around the world? Here is a brief description of some of the course highlights:
New sounds and mouth shapes – we unconsciously speak by forming different shapes with our mouth, lips and tongue. Air is routed through the mouth or nose and the vocal chords are either moving or not. It is fascinating studying common sounds and words I use every day and seeing in a mirror the shapes your mouth makes, where the tongue goes, etc. It is amazing watching other people talk and “reading lips” for the first time. Crazy!
Fricatives – besides having a very funny name, fricatives are consonants that are voiced or unvoiced in which air comes out the mouth impeded. In English we have only 8 but there are 4 others. I know how to do them now!
Sweet new lingo – alveopalatal affricate, bilabial glottalized explosive, uvular trill, velar fricative…the list could go on…
Learning language FAST!! – We are using language acquisition techniques that maximize soaking up as much of a language in context as you can and focusing on comprehension rather than saying it back. The teachers use various languages and it is amazing how much can comprehend after only a little practice! I can now understand and respond to various commands in Jeh (a Vietnamese tribal language) and can respond in dialogue or certain commands in Russian. Sweet! The point is not to learn these specific languages during the time here but to demonstrate that using certain techniques can help you better learn a new language.
Mutual encouragement – it is so great being here with other future missionaries and hear how God is working in their lives and hear about their walk with God in service to Him.
Attending the course with Katie – it has been so much fun being here together! Being able to be in class learning together, encouraging each other, talking about the classes and just having fun together! It is a super glimpse about how fun language school will be!
I reckon this post is long enough. I will share some more later.
Fricatives R Us
Nestled in the Rockies. Performing strange actions with my mouth. My lips and tongue forming unheard of shapes. Unnatural sounds emanating from my throat…where could I be?? Well at the Program in Language Acquisition Techniques of course!
Katie and I are currently pursuing this course in at the Mission Training International (MTI) in Palmer Lake, CO. Rather than a study of a specific language, the course aims at equipping missionaries to learn a new language easier, more quickly and more effectively. We are studying phonetics, linguistics techniques, and sundry other language focused areas. It has been awesome so far!!
Stay tuned for more of the juicy details!
07.23.08
Engaged!!!
It has been a while since I posted and there have been some big changes in the meantime! The big news is that Katie and I are now engaged!! Many of you are aware of the unusual and exciting way our relationship began and has grown and I am amazed to have found such a fun, loving and Godly woman to spend my life with! I am truly blessed. We are both very excited and are planning on being married in January!
The gist of how it went down: Well, every month we would have a special monthiversary date where we would do something extra fun or special. We had missed it in July while Katie was in Oregon so we planned to do it when we got back from Oregon. So I came and picked her up and we went and had some h’orderves in Fullerton and we strolled around town for a while. We still had a bunch of time before the dinner reservations so we drove around for a while and I tried to confuse her about where we were going (I don’t think it worked) then went to this really nice restaurant up on a hill in the Brea/Fullerton area and had a great dinner there. After dinner, I thought you could see the Disneyland fireworks from up there so we waited for them…and waited…and they never started so I said we should walk over to this park across the road. We knew the park well, we have gone there to hang out and talk a bunch of times and it is great. It looks over Brea, very cool. So we walked almost all the way there when all of a sudden we heard the fireworks which were starting way late! So we hustled back up the hill and watched them. Then we went back to the park and that is where I proposed. (She said yes!) We hung out there for a while longer until the sprinklers turned on unexpectedly and we had to make a hasty exit.
So that’s the story (it saves me from writing it over and over again for different people!). We are pretty excited!
