It's really good to be home

Knowing we were expecting JT nine months ago, AUN very graciously allowed me to double up my classes this semester - teaching 4.5 to 6 hours weekly. I gave final exams at the end of March and left to return to the US April 1. It was the earliest I could make it, which was quite nerve wracking when Joy went in for her first "non-stress test" the Friday of my last final exam. The last time we had a non-stress test, Superstar was born! Thankfully, she passed that one and the next one Friday after I got home.

Welcoming our third child

Tuesday evening Joy was delivered of a baby boy, 19.5", 6 pounds 2. All our children have my blue eyes, much to my brown-eyed wife's surprise. Like Princess, he has some red in his hair.

It took us a while before we found his real name. At first we were going to call him John-Thomas. We decided against it eventually, but that frees up JT to be his pseudonym on the blog. So now we have Superstar, Princess, and John-Thomas.

What's Next? TSU

Joy and I are happy to announce that we will be moving to Stephenville, TX, this summer. I have been hired at Tarleton State University's Department of Accounting, Finance, and Economics. We are very excited about it, for many reasons.

I had a Skype interview with TSU in December. It was a remarkably comfortable and enjoyable interview. As I described how it went to Joy, she said that I would know where we were going next because the interview would feel like that. She didn't mean we were going to TSU necessarily, just that it would feel that way wherever we were going. One of the best parts was that they were willing to talk about a possible fly out interview before I left for Nigeria. That would make life a lot easier.

I had several good interviews at the economics conference in Philadelphia at the beginning of January - almost as good as TSU's - so I was happily optimistic about my prospects. I flew out to TSU the week before I went back to Nigeria and it was a very pleasant experience. I really liked the people I met. The town felt cozy. Some friends happened to be driving along the interstate and took an hour long detour to have dinner with me. It all just felt really good.

When I had flown to AUN three years ago to decide if I should accept their offer, I didn't feel cozy, but I felt welcome and I felt needed. At TSU I feel welcome, needed, and comfortable. That's a nice upgrade.

I returned to AUN in expectation that I would have to return to the States in early-mid February for other flyouts. It turned out there was no need. Just at the very moment I thought it was time to start worrying about why I hadn't heard back yet, TSU made me an offer which we were very happy to accept. We waited a few weeks before making this public announcement until we had a contract in hand.

The position is mostly teaching. I'm part of a fairly large group of people the business school is hiring to strengthen their research output and offerings. One of the funnier moments from my interview with them was when the mentioned the teaching load was 4-4 and they still expected research; was I comfortable with that idea? I responded that that's exactly what I've been doing at AUN, plus being department chair and other service responsibilities. I think this is the mix I'm looking for.

Several people at Tarleton mentioned that the college is like a family and they want to keep it that way. I contrasted that with another interview I had where they asked me how I dealt with difficult colleagues - sends a totally different signal, doesn't it? *lol*

Tarleton State is part of the A&M system. They have a strong agricultural section which will be very useful for my research and outreach, particularly since I've studied meatpacking. Now this is dairy country, not meatpacking, but they're not that far apart; the ag school even has a packing facility where they can hold classes.

At the moment we are planning to move out there in late July, though our son who will be born one month from now may have other ideas.

What I read in ... the Book of Mormon title page

I love that, no matter how many times we have read the scriptures, there is always more to find and discover. Last night I read the title page to the Book of Mormon and found something new.

The title page was written by a guy named Moroni just before he buried the record for Joseph Smith to find 1400-some-odd years later. Its main job is to tell the reader what they are about to get themselves into: it's written to the house of Israel and the Gentiles so they know that Jesus is the Christ and that He will fulfill the covenants He made with the house of Israel. It also gives the world's briefest synopsis of the Book of Mormon story.

The new thing I saw came before all that. In that all-caps, serif font it says

"THE 

BOOK OF MORMON

AN ACCOUNT WRITTEN BY

THE HAND OF MORMON

UPON PLATES

TAKEN FROM THE PLATES OF NEPHI"

I asked myself: What are the very first things Moroni, probably unconsciously, wants us to know?
1 - This is my dad's book. He wrote it. He physically wrote it with his own hand. I'm not going to take credit for my dad's life work.
2 - He wrote it on plates. The gold is irrelevant. It's just plates. Of course, if you're holding these plates right now, you kind of know that.
3 - Mormon, my dad, used sources. His primary source material came from other plate records we call the plates of Nephi.

In other words: MORMON AND MORONI CITE THEIR SOURCES!!! and that is the first thing they want us to know.

My number one single greatest complaint about the students at AUN is the constant plagiarism to which I am subjected and the neverending headaches and struggle I have trying to convince them that the quote-mark key is not their enemy. Here in the very first words of the Book of Mormon, we see the prophets taking care to cite their sources and give credit where it's due.

It flooded back to me how often Mormon mentions the plates he's working from, explaining that he isn't recording even 1% of it all, adding a whole section just to explain what he's copying and where these other plates came from, mentioning that the words he's about to write came from Alma's very own record, and evaluating the reliability of the sources (now if the guy who kept the records didn't make any mistakes, it was this year....).

I didn't weep, but that was beautiful to me. Mormon and Moroni cite their sources. Just one more reason why I love this book. :)

A conversation with Hugh Nibley about my answer key

I was writing an answer key for my International Finance class just now. In passing, I mentioned an "Edenic business climate." That's when the imaginary ghost of Hugh Nibley walked into my office and took a seat.

Hugh: That is a contradiction in terms. There is no business in Eden, so there cannot be an Edenic business climate.

DW: Alright, fine. I'll call it idyllic then.

Hugh: Idyllic for Bablyon?

DW: Listen, Hugh, I'm trying to write an answer key here, and I'm not teaching a religion class.

Hugh: Why not? Shouldn't you be preparing them for the real world?

DW: I'm not being paid to teach religion. I'm being paid to teach about that part of the real world that deals with international finance and that means talking about business.

Hugh: 'Business! Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business: charity, mercy, forbearance, benevolence, were all my business. The dealings of [international finance] were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!' Do your idyllic business conditions improve those?

DW: Thank you, Charles Dickens. Look, I do the best I can to bring ethics into my teaching. I have students consider the impact of these policies on the poor; I continually challenge them to "rove beyond the narrow limits of their money changing holes" to serve their fellow Nigerians; every semester at least one class gets to see me tearing money into shreds to convince them that money is not the point and never has been; according to their answers on the midterm, I seem to have convinced my principles of macro students that their businesses will be best served by paying their workers more; 

Hugh: Which you weren't trying to do...

DW: I'll take it anyway. I gave a mini-lecture just last week on Christian and Islamic finance. I do what I can. It's hard being an economist and a preacher at the same time.

Hugh: You mean it's hard to have one foot in Babylon and one in Zion at the same time? Some day you're going to have to choose.

DW: That's not a fair description of me and you know it.

Well, either he gave in at that point or else I had successfully fought against the light long enough to go back to the darkness of mere economics. 

And idyllic business climates.

What do you remember about Nigeria, Superstar?

We figured the Princess would be too young to remember anything about Nigeria. There was some chance though that Superstar would keep some memories of his home here. So now that they have been gone for almost a year, I interviewed Superstar to see what he remembered.

DW: What do you remember about Nigeria?

S: We didn’t have Mario Galaxy 2 yet. …. I had a train track.

DW: Do you remember any of the people?

S: Monday, Friday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. 

[This is only partly a joke. Monday is a guard and Friday is a driver. I also know multiple people named Sunday. I have yet to meet Tue, Wed, Thur, or Sat. I assume this is because I don't get out much.]

J: Do you remember any of the children?

S: Dahiru, Ethan, and who was the little one? Issa. I remember what he looks like because he looks like one of my friends at school here.

[Superstar did not remember his bedroom, so I took him on a Skyping tour of it.]

S: I remember the alphabets on the wall and the Winnie the Pooh clock and that is it.

That is most of what Superstar remembers from being a 3-5 year old almost a year later.

The many identical love interests of Modesitt

I've been enjoying two of L.E. Modesitt's series - Imager (a trilogy and one at 5+ books) and Recluse (a long series). In trying to keep the chronology of Recluse straight, I visited his Wiki page, which notes some criticism that his characters are all the same. Now, he's written a ton of books in many series, and I assume he is right to point out that he has a lot of other characters.

On the other hand, I'm 12 books in and having a hard time distinguishing the male heroes' love interests.

Superstar learns about jobs

I got home to UT. We left for CA to spend Christmas with my parents. We went back to UT. I left again for the big economics job market conference at the beginning of January in Philadelphia where I had a number of preliminary interviews. I came home and had another phone interview. I flew out to Texas to have a major interview with Tarleton State University. I came home, had a last phone interview, and flew back to Nigeria.

It was not quite the Have-Daddy-Stay-At-Home the kids were hoping for. I forget whether I was in Philly or TX, but Joy reported on a conversation she had with Superstar:

S: I don't want Daddy to get a job.
J: Why not?
S: I want him to stay with us all the time.
J: But if Daddy doesn't find a job, then Mommy will have to get a job. Would you rather Daddy stay home and Mommy goes to work?
S: No. I want you both to stay home, always.

Joy managed to convince him that if we're going to eat, someone needs to work. When I came home, I spent a good bit of time talking with the kids about how my goal was to find a job in the States so we could all live together again.

For Family Home Evening one night I decided to have a lesson on setting goals - it being so close to New Years, it seemed festive.

So bright, his father calls him Son

My dad's a smart guy. He made sure to train me to do some math in my head. While waiting in lines at Disneyland or for a restaurant to seat us, he'd play math games with me.

Having a grandson is a fun thing for Pop because he gets to do it all over again. Imagine his surprise when Superstar - who is only 5 years old - walks into his office, asks to practice his math with Pop, and wants to work on fractions and division.

Superstar's school is a wonderful place. Recognizing he already has remarkably advanced math skills, they let him join the older kids for math. One day the teacher was showing a movie in her class, and he complained that he was there to do math and wanted to do his math. They have him work on addition Tuesdays, subtraction Wed, multiplication Thur, and he gets to choose what he wants Mon and Fri, which is usually subtraction. Just before I left to return here, he passed a multiplication test. (One school I was interviewing with during lunch heard about this and asked if he got an A or just a passing grade - as if that made a ton of difference in a 5 year old. The answer is: he got a B.)

Now, I'll grant you, the way he does his multiplication is by adding numbers quickly. So you give him times tables to fill out and he can do them, 6x7 is just the last question 6x6 plus 6 more, and 6x8 is that plus 6 more and .... But he can still figure it out if they pick problems at random too.

Superstar, Joy, and I played Quirkle - a Scrabble-like game using colors and shapes instead of words. Superstar was able to keep track of his score in his head, adding up double-digit numbers to over 200 almost flawlessly.

My dad's a smart guy. He's in a little bit of awe about Superstar. That's my boy! My son, the math will be with you, always.

A day with my daughter

Princess' first selfie, taken on the plane back
from Christmas, was the last picture taken
on my iPad before I lost it.

I just got back from vacation with my family in Utah. Most people are astounded at how verbal our 2.5 year old daughter is. She's not only verbal, Princess says some adorably cute things - though some of it you
may have to have been there for. I decided to write down just one day's worth while I was home. This was mid-December when I had been home for just a few days.

At breakfast we tried to figure out what fruit she wanted. Joy asked her if she wanted apricots.
"Yes. I will eat apricots. You like apricots, right, Daddy?" as if my liking apricots was an important factor in the decision.

After breakfast she announced, "I will put the milk away." She lifted the heavy jug and took it to the fridge. "Will you open the fridge?" I did. "Where does it go?" On the top. "On the top ... I did it! I put the milk away."

I forget the situation, but she was apparently very cute when she said "I crossed them out."

We could hear the children not playing together well. Before we came to them, Princess came to us: "[Superstar] is playing with the pink car and he won't let me play. That makes me mad and I don't 'preciate it."