My Isengaard

 

Ah, my impressive fortress! Who could ever scale your battlements?

And notice how camouflaged it is on a cloudy day!

Among the things that impresses me is that despite being the largest building around by a fair piece, it doesn't stand out markedly because it's well-surrounded by trees.









The guardhouse, where the guards are housed who guard our house.

The Ents nearly have me surrounded, but I'm assured they won't last into the summer months.

You can just make out at the bottom of the picture the Hobbit playground.

Bet you didn't know Isengaard had Two Towers, did you? This is the other one, but on a sunny day.

 And one of the majestic views looking down from our apartment.


AUN takes good care of us.

Registration for school

Prince will be going to the Community School that is run by AUN. We were told that the teachers would be available in their classes to meet students and to be introduced into their new classrooms Wednesday and Thursday. The school manager was kind enough to contact us to schedule an appointment since Derrill has no afternoon hours and the teachers were available for introduction in the afternoons. We met with four wonderful people, Prince’s teacher, the teacher’s aide, the school manager and the community school manager. We were able to discuss Prince’s strengths and weaknesses and had a good meeting where we both seemed to be able to pay a lot of attention even with Prince playing in the same room.
After meeting with the them, we went into Prince’s class and let him get comfortable with the room and some more balls (he had played with a ball during the meeting. I fed him some lunch. I think his favorite thing was when the teacher got out her stamps that she uses for the children’s work to let them know they have done well, one said “Way to go!” He was given paper and a stamping pad and had a very nice time using them. Even when he stamped one on the carpet, they didn’t get upset at him and they thought he was very cute when he said he was sorry.
After spending time in the class, Prince wanted to play outside again. We were waiting for a shuttle so he went out to play while we waited. I didn’t feel like the assistant to the teacher needed to watch Prince while he played outside, but she followed him around everywhere. I told her she didn’t need to, but I wasn’t going to argue the point, because I knew that her close proximity would be helpful in him getting used to his teachers and the environment, because it wasn’t bothering him and he was learning to as for her assistance when he needed it. I thought it was above and beyond the call of duty and I have to confess that it did ease my mind somewhat actually seeing him being cared for in my presents.
Prince tried on his new uniform. They have all of the students where a uniform at the school. The boys where a red polo shirt with AUN on it and navy shorts and the girls where a red polo shirt with navy pinafore or a skirt. Prince was thrilled with his uniform because it is a Mario (red) shirt to be worn every day. Their system is that you pay into their account at the bank, then you get the uniform after you give them verification from the bank that you have paid. They gave us the information, Derrill paid for the uniforms and the registration at the bank, and Prince receive his uniforms (two) on Monday which was the first day of school.
On the way out of school I also met other teachers that Prince would be working with, the PE teacher and other educators. It was a good introduction to the school. The Community school supervisor or manager is a delightful woman and I really appreciated everyone that I met.
Additionally on the way home, while Prince and I were waiting for a ride (the shuttle). A lady that lives in 16 flats where we live offered us a ride home. She, Grace, and her daughter, Praise, were very kind and enjoyable to visit with. Grace has a son who is 3 and one that just turned 5 last week. They were having a birthday party for the 5 year old in a couple of days and she invited us to attend. That was very kind after just meeting us. The more people I meet it seems that more comfortable I am here. I should not be so surprise, I am such a people oriented person.
---Joy

The Lovely Princess

Now with extra thumb-sucking action

When I was a Lad 2

As a stream of consciousness exercise, this is what each of us thinks about that title

My version:

When I was a lad I went to Yale.
Cause I knew then that I could never fail
For I studied very hard, and furthermore,
I polished up the apple for the professor.
    [He polished up the apple for the professor.]
I polished up the apple so frequently
That soon I had a Phi Beta Kappa key.
    [He soon had a Phi Beta Kappa key from polishing the apple very frequently.]

On graduation day I made a stop
At a very exclusive clothing shop
I opened up a charge account and asked them for
The best grey flannel in the clothing store.
   [The best grey flannel in the clothing store.]
That suit was a part of a great intrigue
For it proved I was a member of the Ivy League
   [It was part . of a great intrigue for it proved he was a member of the Ivy League.]

More of Allan Sherman's parody of Gilbert and Sullivan's lyrics here.

Joy's version:

When I was just a young boy, Christmas meant one thing:
That I'd be getting lots of toys that day.
I learned a whole lot different when mother sat me down
And taught me to spell Christmas this way:

C - is for the Christchild born on Christmasday
H - for herald angels in the sky
R - is for our Redeemer
I - means Israel, and
S - is for the star that shone so bright.
T - is for three wise men, they who traveled far, and
M - is for the manger where he lay.
A - is for all He stands for
S - means shepherds came.

And that's why there's a Christmas day.

When I was a Lad

Prince likes throwing rocks. In an attempt to help him stop, I told him about "back when I was a little boy." I threw a rock and unintentionally smashed a car window. I spent the next two+ years paying to have it replaced. I was very sad to have broken the window. 

While telling the story may not have stopped his rock throwing, it has given him a newfound interest in his parents.

"Daddy, what else did you do when you were a little boy?" he asked the other day. That led to a family time sharing of pictures of me as a little boy and stories of some of the less-violent things I did ... like play chess as a two year old, for instance.

Then yesterday he told Joy, "Mommy, once when you were a little boy, you threw a rock and broke a car. Pop was really mad."

Oh, did I, she asked.

He continued, "What did you do when you were a little kid? What next when you little kid?"

J: "I told him that I went out and made friends and brought lots of people home and sang and skipped to school. He asked me why I skipped school. I said, no, I didn't skip school, I skipped TO school, and I showed him how I skipped. ... Let's see, what else? I told him I liked to sing in the choirs."

---------------------

Another interesting conversation happened when Prince bit the inside of his mouth. Joy expressed her empathy by telling him she was sorry.
"Did you do that to me?" he queried. "Then why do you say sorry?"

For some reason, Joy thinks he gets that from me. I think he gets it from her because I've had to learn to stop telling her I am sorry for her, but have to say, "I empathize," because she keeps trying to reassure me that life isn't my fault if I say "sorry." As a result, I find this comic hilarious. [On showing Joy the comic, she says that it was in reference to that that she thinks it's my fault.]
 -- Derrill

What's in a name?

Parents by other names may not sound as sweet.

Prince has learned to call Joy "mother", but only in certain circumstances:

"I'll do it your way, mother."
"I'll obey you, mother."
"Okay, mother."

Joy: It's always with a tone of resignation. Probably going to hear a lot of that during his little life, hunh?

Part of the reason of course is that on those rare occasions I have to come in and law down some Law, it is usually to remind him that he needs to "obey his mother." Mother is someone you Respect and Obey.

Yesterday morning, Joy was feeling very tired and wanted a short nap in the morning (blame the Princess). I had to go to work. Prince exclaimed, "I don't you to leave me all alone. Mommy is asleep, so she leaves me all alone. If you go to work, and I am all alone. I don't want my parents to leave me all alone." I empathized, particularly since it was the first time he called us "parents." He was very sweet about the whole thing and did let Mommy sleep another 15 minutes when our neighbors came over to play with him.

On my way out the door every day, he calls out, "I hope you come back, Daddy." I do not take this as a sign of any actual trepidation on his part, as if my coming home were in any doubt. He probably really means, "I look forward to when you're home again."

Joy also reports that he occasionally refers to me as Derrill. When I rarely hear him do it, it throws me. What did you say?? But he's usually3-4 sentences further on by the time I realize it, so it's too late to respond. But mostly, he refers to me as Derrill when speaking to Mommy, but again only in certain circumstances. "Let's ask Derrill." "Where is Derrill?" He asks, "What is daddy doing?" but he wants to know where "Derrill" is.

Prayer begins to click

Joy has been taking care of Prince's prayers as he goes to bed lately. Most of her attempts involve asking him before the prayer to think of good things that happened he could thank God for during his prayer. 

Tonight I had been playing Super Mario DS with Prince and we made some wonderful progress until bedtime. He left Very excited. It was all he wanted to talk about. It's all he wants to talk about anyway. So when I asked him what he was thankful for, it was all Mario, of course.

We started praying, and he said he was thankful for finding Luigi's hat and Wario's hat... and paused. I suggested to him, "Prince, do you want to tell God about your game?"

Ho boy, did he! I had almost expected he would continue where he left off before the prayer, asking God instead me, "Why did we find a Luigi hat in that level?" or explaining that "We found the Wario hat in the underground world. It used to be on the sea monster, but then it moved to a goomba. And when you hit him, it makes the hat fall to the ground." 

Instead, he came up with some of his first requests for his Heavenly Father: "Please help me to free Luigi from his cage, and Wario from his cage ... and Princess Peach from her cage, and Yoshi from his cage. Please help me to find the..." and just prayed from his little heart, asking God for help with his DS game.

It was a wonderful, beautiful, sacred moment.

Course, now I also feel that much more interested in making his prayer come true so he knows God hears and answers prayers.

Nibley on the Infinite Atonement, the Existence of Life, Temples, and the Second Law of Thermodynamics

This post has maintained a steady stream of visitors on our old family blog and I'd rather move them to this more public one, so I'm moving the post to here. The text consists of excerpts from Nibley's article and, except for my [insertions] are only his words.


Hugh Nibley, "The Meaning of the Temple," Temple and Cosmos, Ch. 1:

One basic proposition receives particular attention ... the well-known second law of thermodynamics: everything runs down. ... Let us quote [Lyall] Watson, the biologist:

Left to itself, everything tends to become more and more disorderly, until the final and natural state of things is completely random distribution of matter. Any kind of order ... is unnatural and happens only by chance encounters. ... The further combination of molecules into anything as highly organized as a living organism is wildly improbable. Life is a rare and unreasonable thing ... infinitesimal.

There is no chance of us being here at all. ... The nuclear physicist P. T. Matthews asks:

Why is the proton stable... [with a lifespan of 50 minutes vs. 10 to the -8 seconds]? There is no obvious reason why it should not disintegrate into, say, a positive pion and neutrino... . By relentless operation of the Second Law, essentially every proton would by now have decayed into lighter particles. Clearly the opposite is the case, and there must be some very exact law which is preventing this from happening. ... A human being is at very best ... quite unimaginabl[y] improbabl[e].

So the physical scientists and the naturalists agree that if nature has anything to say about it, we wouldn't be here. This is the paradox which Professor Wald of Harvard says, "The spontaneous generation of a living organism is impossible. ..." [Matthews continues]

If, after seeing a room in chaos, it is subsequently found in good order, the sensible inference is not that time is running backwards, but that some intelligent person has been in to tidy up. If you find the letters of the alphabet ordered on a piece of paper to form a beautiful sonnet, you do not deduce that teams of monkeys have been kept for millions of years strumming on typewriters, but rather that Shakespeare has passed this way.

It was the evolutionist who seriously put forth the claim that an ape strumming on a typewriter for a long enough time could produce, by mere chance, all the books in the British Museum, but did any religionist ever express such boundless faith? I don't know any religious person who ever had greater faith than that. ...

Shakespearean Recommendations: in Full Color

Before we left for Nigeria, I discovered "Romeo X Juliet", an Anime version of the classic, on YouTube. The entire two season, 24 episode show is there for free (or was a few months ago). The first season is a very interesting reimagining of most of the story -- medieval fantasy with flying "dragon-steeds," a much better palace intrigue, and topped off with the usual environmental message of man's evil destroying the balance of nature. In this version, Juliet is the only survivor of the royal house of Capulet who were all murdered by Romeo's evil father in a bid to become king. The Bard himself is a character with a minor but important role. When they get to the second season, though, they've run out of Shakespeare and could have closed things off with 2-3 more episodes, ... but that wouldn't be enough for a whole new season, would it? So the second meanders a bit until the lovers are reunited for the dramatic climax. The title song uses the tune for "You Raise Me Up." Beautiful artistry, good retelling, worth watching again. [And remember, folks, this IS Shakespearean tragedy -- parental discretion advised.]


The last several weeks have also seen a very playful rendition of MacBeth (now how often do you hear MacBeth called playful?) by webcomic HousePets.  It has been so very entertaining that I picked up my collection just to read the original for the first time so I could appreciate the comic more. (Any time I've thought of it, it's always surprised me I've never seen or read either MB or King Lear, so I'm glad to get one out of the way. Of course I'm familiar with the plot, main characters and some choice lines - even wrote a Star Wars parody of the sisters' chanting - but it's different reading it in the original Klingon, as they say.) Reading it all has brought all my favorite parodies of it to mind, too, Peter Shickele's set of 'modern' Shakespeare songs top among them. My favorite line so far from the original is MacBeth's after his "discovery" of the murder: "Had I but died an hour before this chance, I had lived a blessed time...". Beautiful stuff. Or you can try the parody:















And then they make him king. Greeeeeat.

Not in full color, I can also recommend this rendition of Hamlet starring Groucho Marx. Any recommendations for other excellent renditions and parodies?
 -- Derrill

(For those wondering, some children who lived by us in our first apartment called anything animated "full color" to differentiate it from live action color movies, which did not suit their pallet.)

Prince Bore His Testimony

We laughed

We cried

We were duly admonished to "Obey Jesus"

Prince was named "Momma's little man" today for his dashing looks. As soon as I said we would all have the chance to bear our testimony, Prince rushed up to join me. When it was his turn, he said ... well, he said several things that were kind of garbled. He started by saying "Thank you that..." as if he were praying. He closed by saying "Obey Jesus." What happened in the middle is less well known. He was very excited.

We had hoped to be joined by another family today, but they sadly couldn't make it because of the inclement weather. Hopefully next week.