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."

What we did this summer - Idaho

On Pioneer Day (July 24) we drove to Idaho. Our primary mission was for me to have an informal interview with the econ department chair at BYU-Idaho where I would have loved to get a job offer. I did get a formal interview later but as of this point the answer is not this year. It was very nice of the chair to make time for me.



Idaho is also where Joy's father (DeWayne Lazenby) and the grandfather I'm named (that would be Derrill One) after are from. After visiting Rexburg, we drove a couple hours to Albion where her father is buried. Albion, population 267. In case any others of Joy's family visit the gravesite, there are some pictures to help you find the plot below the fold.



The cemetery is next door to an emu farm, so that's a good clue.


We were surprised to find another relative there next to DeWayne. Joy's best guess is that DeWayne's adopted stepson, Michael, had a son, David Lazenby 1996-2011, and buried him next to DeWayne. We're not positive, though.




Joy sat next to the grave and told the kids some stories about her father and the happy times. We left him some flowers we picked up next to BYU-I.

We pulled in to Snowville afterwards but I already told you about that, so I'll spare you.

What we did this summer - Timp

Way back in July, we took the family to Mount Timpanogos to go hiking through the caverns. It was a perfect day to take off. In the canyon it is at least 10 degrees cooler than in Provo/Orem, and of course in the cave it's down in the freezing temperature range.

I had checked Google maps and found out how long it took to get there. We left with oodles of time. We arrived only to discover that Google map only takes you to the entrance to the park. It's another half hour's drive to the ranger station! We drove on in and were told we'd have to book it to make our scheduled tour and that all the tours for the day were packed full so if we missed it they couldn't fit us in later. It's a mile and a half walk (not bad...) straight up (stink...).

"Oh, and you can't use your stroller."








Aack. That's going to make this whole two-year-old-with-us thing much more difficult.

A very traditional Thanksgiving

Left to right: cole slaw, cranberry sauce, some bird,
apple pie I mistook for meat pie, carrots, wait-that's-not-chocolate-
it's-a-cinnamon-brownie!, rice that's hotter than the hot sauce,
and some kind of crumble that was too hot for me.

The last two years, I think I've done better at celebrating Nostalgia Day than Thanksgiving Day. While still being thankful overall, I thought a lot about what was missing, what was unusual, what was uncanny, and especially what was just Wrong about Thanksgiving in Nigeria. Much of it isn't even Nigeria's fault - I mean, in order to be a Traditional Thanksgiving, it has to be at my aunt's house, the one they sold more than 20 years ago. Some crowning foods just don't exist here.

I wondered what traditions and nostalgias my little boy was picking up, celebrating American Thanksgiving in Nigeria. Would I some day read his blog post titled "It's just not Thanksgiving without jollof rice and bleached cabbage"?

Ah well. We do the best we can. We are grateful for what we have, not for what we don't, right? Of course right. AUN is a wonderful institution for even planning a big celebration.

Today though I realized I am actually celebrating a Very Traditional Thanksgiving. In some ways, you can't get more traditional than to celebrate Thanksgiving as an expat.

My four pilgrim forefathers who were there on the Mayflower were wanderers in a strange land, a tiny and very opinionated minority in a land of people who looked and spoke differently and who ate strange foods. The first two years were very hard. They watched as friends left one by one - in their case to death and in mine to other jobs in other lands. Finally they threw off their socialist ideals, embraced private property, and enjoyed the bounties of the land with new friends. As far as Hallmark versions of the holiday go, I think I've done this just about right!

I leave for home in two weeks. 14 days. I am thankful for the number 14.

The Passive-Aggressive Professor

On Thursday one of my classes was decidedly empty - only 2 students showed up, and both of them were more than 10 minutes late. I was ready to leave.

Today there was no one there at 8-10 minutes late and I was getting mighty frustrated. Finally most of the class showed up. There was a quiz today and they did not have much time left to solve it.

Because most of the class was not there on Thursday, I decided to be a very nice guy and hold some extra class time after our normal class to review what they missed. When normal class ended, I told them they were free to go and, if anyone wanted, I would quickly review what we did last time.

When someone grumbled about not wanting to stay for an extra hour and a half, I told them I needed to catch my bus too; this would be mighty fast. And then I said something in all sincerity:

"I'm just doing something nice to be of service and help. Don't feel that you have a responsibility to stay."

I meant that. I was not providing a burden of guilt.

I wanted them to feel that I was being helpful, and if it wasn't helpful, they should go do something else.

But as soon as the words were out of mouth, I heard a different prof with a different voice use those exact same words to mean the exact opposite. "How dare you be so ungrateful! Here I am busting my chops, taking all this extra time so you lazy ...." ouch.

So if any of you are my students, just know that I meant what I said sincerely and please don't take it the wrong way.