It with pure happiness that I announce to you that I will soon be a “Nuuta” (pronounced noo-ta; it means “Father” in my home language, Naskapi)!
Most people wait, I guess, to announce these things, but I figure the more people we have praying for this little being that is now growing, the better.
We went online to see pictures of what it would look like. Tamika thinks it looks like a little dinosaur. 🙂 I can remember seeing pictures in National Geographic not to long ago that showed the fetuses (fetii?) of various different animals and how at this stage they very much look the same. It’s so amazing to me that I was once that small. It makes me wonder what my parents thought at that time. We’re already looking for names and stuff 🙂
It snowed yesterday. Ever since this weekend I’ve been wearing my mukluks. It’s been bitterly cold here, freezing Tamika’s coffee cup when she accidentally leaves it in the car. 🙂 It’s cold enough to wear them; probably the only time this winter that it is. It has to be extremely cold to wear mukluks, because they’ll get destroyed if there’s any water around. Wet weather requires seal-skin mukluks, and I have a pair made with caribou hide.
Tamika is still excited to journey to Canada this fall, though my parents are unsure if she should go. My dad is unveiling the culmination of about 20 years of work; the Naskapi New Testament. It’s getting printed, and there’s going to be a huge release party. It will not only be the first time a significant work is published entirely in Naskapi, but also the first time the Naskapi people will have the Bible written in their own language.
I’m going to leave it up to Tamika. I don’t want anything to keep her from being comfortable. I know she’s strong, but we’ll wait until it’s closer to that time.
My review went pretty well. Thanks so much for all your prayers, I really appreciate it. I was really nervous going in, but my boss put me at ease. It was really tough for me, however, because I really wasn’t sure what the expectations of me were when I first got hired, and had been looking for as much direction as I could. It’s very tough to live up to expectations when you aren’t very clear on them…
Good things came out of the review, though… I’m going to start regular meetings with my boss (probably once a month) so that I can make sure I’m doing what he wants.
Over the past couple months, I’ve found out that this job is a lot more than just a graphic design job; and I am often the sole drive behind many of our projects here. That is no problem for me, if that’s what I’m required to do. I’ve had positions like that before.
Tamika’s “sister”, Katrina, went off to Iraq a little while ago. We went up to Scranton to see her before she goes. She stayed over at Tamika’s house when she was younger, and Tamika’a mom treated her like her she was her own (and still does). We got to hang out with her family for a bit, and we all went to some outlets to go shopping. I was struck at how peaceful Katrina was, and how much she had peace with going over. You could see that the Army had really done some good things for her. She talked about all her friends there. She understood that she was there because she chose to be, not out of anyone’s decision but her own. She mentioned that some people’s attitude and personality changed after they’ve been in there for a while, but she said that she felt obligation to serve out what she had signed up for. I found that admirable.
She’s going over as a linguist, actually, so she’s thinking she’ll be pretty safe. I kind of wish that the Military would publish things like that more. I’ve heard some complain about how we’re “going over there without knowing anything about the culture, etc etc etc”.
Well, it looks like they’re trying… Katrina speaks Arabic fluently. As in, she can watch television and listen to songs from Iraq and understand them. AND, she’s well read on what’s going on over there. She gave us a mini-class on the difference between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, and knew the roots of what is going on over there.
Needless to say, I’m very impressed.
At Zerflin, I’ve got a couple website projects coming up, and perhaps a few business cards as well. I’m working on planning out some weddings as well. I’ve finally put up my photography packages in the services section, so if you need me for portraits, weddings, or just to come to something to take pictures, let me know.
I’m hoping to implement my commissions system soon; I’ve had Tamika working on it for me, and she had it almost done.
TTFN,
~Benjamin