Matt was not feeling well last night so we decided not to go out to dinner. Apparently it just got worse and he had a very rough evening. He said he has practically manifested every symptom imaginable in 12 hours. He got up and tried to eat so he could come in to teach, but it was just too much. So I am teaching solo today. It shouldn’t be a big deal. I will rearrange the schedule so I cover stuff I am more comfortable with. I will just be tired by the end of the day.
My journal will be shorter today since I can’t write during Matt’s lectures. The morning went well. The lecture I gave in the morning was the most difficult one, but most of the students tried hard to get it. Several of them sat me down to repeat an important point from the lecture and we worked it through it until they understood. The workshops seem to be more helpful pedagogically than the lectures when there is even a mild language barrier.
The afternoon lecture did not go as well. Matt is a really conscientious worker and I knew he would not miss unless he was deathly ill. When we parted ways last night he just felt a little queasy. So I didn’t prep like I was going to carry the whole day myself. But Matt did get really sick and I should have prepped it just in case. But when we transitioned to the workshop things went more smoothly. It is difficult to run a workshop solo, since there are generally more questions than one person can field, but both of the exercises (morning and afternoon) went surprisingly smoothly.
An interesting side note about Kenyan TV. They omit the same seven words that get bleeped out of movies on TV in the US…but they add one more to the list that we don’t bleep. Any reference to God besides a direct noun is bleeped (or actually is just replaced with a silent pause). It is really instructive to watch American TV (which is usually unedited b/c they avoid the 7 words) get edited for careless use of the Holy Name. There sure are a lot of silent pauses. I am not really into legislating around the preferences of the church (especially anything that smells of censorship), but I would make a straight up swap: all seven of the banned words in TV and radio (e.g. allow F-bombs) for a few silent pauses in place of careless references to God.[1] Far too big a deal is made of F-bombs and far too little is made of the Lord’s name.
One of the great (but rapidly vanishing[2]) benefits of the developing world is the glass coke bottle. I don’t know why, but I enjoy coke out of a glass bottle 100% more than out of a plastic bottle. Each day at lunch we get a bottled coke and I like it.
My journal will be shorter today since I can’t write during Matt’s lectures. The morning went well. The lecture I gave in the morning was the most difficult one, but most of the students tried hard to get it. Several of them sat me down to repeat an important point from the lecture and we worked it through it until they understood. The workshops seem to be more helpful pedagogically than the lectures when there is even a mild language barrier.
The afternoon lecture did not go as well. Matt is a really conscientious worker and I knew he would not miss unless he was deathly ill. When we parted ways last night he just felt a little queasy. So I didn’t prep like I was going to carry the whole day myself. But Matt did get really sick and I should have prepped it just in case. But when we transitioned to the workshop things went more smoothly. It is difficult to run a workshop solo, since there are generally more questions than one person can field, but both of the exercises (morning and afternoon) went surprisingly smoothly.An interesting side note about Kenyan TV. They omit the same seven words that get bleeped out of movies on TV in the US…but they add one more to the list that we don’t bleep. Any reference to God besides a direct noun is bleeped (or actually is just replaced with a silent pause). It is really instructive to watch American TV (which is usually unedited b/c they avoid the 7 words) get edited for careless use of the Holy Name. There sure are a lot of silent pauses. I am not really into legislating around the preferences of the church (especially anything that smells of censorship), but I would make a straight up swap: all seven of the banned words in TV and radio (e.g. allow F-bombs) for a few silent pauses in place of careless references to God.[1] Far too big a deal is made of F-bombs and far too little is made of the Lord’s name.
One of the great (but rapidly vanishing[2]) benefits of the developing world is the glass coke bottle. I don’t know why, but I enjoy coke out of a glass bottle 100% more than out of a plastic bottle. Each day at lunch we get a bottled coke and I like it.
Here is a map of downtown Nairobi with the University, park and hotel
____________________[1] I’m not talking about anti-God speech…that is using the word as a noun. I am just talking of how many times it is used as an exclamatory.
[2] I have noticed that many of the road side shops are selling coke in plastic instead.
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