Choosing a home in Texas

We got a new job Southwest of Dallas and at the end of June we moved to Texas. I had never been there before. Derrill had only been there when he had his flyout interview. He is going to be working in the Texas A&M system teaching Economics which is what he loves. We really just been having one adventure after another because in April we had our third child, but that story is for another time.

After Derrill got his job, we planned to look for a house to buy and move down here after we bought it. We spent some time before we had our baby looking at homes online and narrowing down some of what we wanted in a home. After we had our baby and we were trying to choose a time to come and see homes, we realized that we needed to get pre-approved for a mortgage loan in order to start looking at homes. I got some names of some lenders and made some phone calls. One man I talked to said that there would be no way to close on the loan until after Derrill started his job. We didn't want to wait that long to move here and get settled. We were thinking late July, early August would work.

So, I started looking into places to rent and I found that there were not very many 3 bedroom apartments available. I could find about 7. As I made calls, I also discovered that apartments were being taken quickly because there was a shortage of places to live given the influx of new students - TSU is adding more than 3,000 next year. I called people and started realizing that we were not going to be able to visit and see something and choose what we wanted to live in. I began to think that we would be really lucky if we could get into a 3 bedroom. I discussed my thoughts with Derrill and he suggested he would rather live in a 3 bedroom and commute from Dallas than live in a 2 bedroom. I began to panic and determined that I had to take the first 3 bedroom that I could get.

Arrived in Texas

Wed, June 25, about 10:30pm we pulled up to our new home in Glen Rose, Texas. I hadn't realized it had been two solid months since I last posted, and I wanted to remember the last couple weeks. Hopefully more regular blogging will resume. We'll see. In the meantime, here's what we've been up lately.

Oh yes, we have two other children

This was the first day I ever did my daughter's hair. Not that you can see the hairdo, but that isn't the point.

They love each other
They love their brother

The Sesame Street Word of the Day was sculpture. Princess and I practiced sculpting with marshmallows and toothpicks, peanut butter playdough, and other nefariously edible objects. We made some snowmen, faces, a Mario level, and a mess - not necessarily in that order. It entertained her for more than 90 minutes straight.

I let the kids take a picture for the very first time. They took pictures of the royal Sophia family.

Superstar made Easter eggs at school he is proud of.

But not nearly as proud as he is of all his missing teeth - 3 out and 2 more wiggly so far.

John-Thomas and family

More baby pictures

Because you can never have too many of your baby's pictures.

Which baby?

Several people have thought John-Thomas looks just like a miniature version of Superstar. I got wondering how easy it is to tell them apart. Here are some pictures of both of them. Can you guess which is which?

Superstar can get 3/4 right

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. :)