Rollin

I realise it has been six months since I have been in Philly and as I look back I'm certainly more adjusted than I was at the start ( I imagine you are saying, duh!).

Over this period God has blessed me with some very special friends, it's amazing. I met Suzanne at a get together that was hosted by her and her husband. We found out we shared the same faith and she had spent some good time in Africa. We have been friends since, she has a son whom Mich loves to play with and we get to go places together. It is wonderful when you are in a new place and someone seeks you out, I really thank God for her.
There is another couple we met at church, Evan is a second year student and his wife Jane is a stay home mom just like me. They have a son too who is one of Mich favourite buddies, he actually looks up to Mich in many ways and they have a lot of fun together. Sam and I have been over to their house a couple of times too and it's great knowing them.

I told you that I had joined the worship team at my church, I must say it's worked out pretty well. I was extremely shy at the start but now that I'm more familiar with members of the church it's been great. I'm learning a lot about the style of worship, not being too worked up about perfection and yet giving it my all never the less.
Now you know that Mich has two buddies that he likes to spend time with, that obviously goes to show that he too is at ease. He is well accustomed to the house, he even calls it home, sometimes he surprises me when he says he doesn't want to go outside, this is the same boy who threw tantrums about getting into the house in the first place.
He has enjoyed the snow, he plays in it a lot and sometimes holds it in his hand until it melts, I still don't know how he does that without feeling the biting cold.

That said, I will absolutely not forget how confused I was when we first moved here, sometimes I felt like a zombie almost having no clue of what was going on.
Struggling to get my son adjusted to the new place while I was dealing with my own issues was a bit much. For some reason I got the other end of peoples' conversations with me, for the most part it was only till I got home and had time alone that I would figure out what they had asked me and how I made a total fool of myself. I know the language is the same but the meanings of things differs (or is it just me?).
In one conversation the lady asked "So have you and Sam been out" and I replied "yes, but not that much", then I went ahead to mention the places we had travelled to in the city. I figured out later that she was asking if we had been eating out at the restaurants around the city.
At one of our home group meetings we shared the things we had learnt over the past year. One person said "he learned not to take the 21 bus" (he got beaten on his way home), then it was my turn and so I mentioned "I learned to trust God more" because He had shown me that He could take care of even the smallest details of our move. The next person said they learned how important it is to keep time and two other people after her agreed to the same. I felt like a chicken among ostriches, their answers where more practical and mine was faith related, anyway it made me feel odd, as if they were just being themselves and I on the other hand was being too "spiri". I decided that next time I would just shut my mouth coz that way I wouldn't make a fool of myself.

Interviews

Interviews start this Friday and first years are busy getting their acts together. For those interested in consulting they have what are called "cases" to crack.
In simple terms a case is a hypothetical situation about a company that needs the advise of a consultant to help them increase their profits. The student then explains how he thinks the client should go about his business, it involves calculations and things of that nature.

To be on top of the game, the students have to practice with year mates, second years and people who are already in the field. Sam practiced with first years and most of them said he was good to go, he practiced with second years and they told him he needed to work on his approach in certain areas, he practiced with alumni and he was told, in the words of one of the guys that he "sucked" and that no body would ever employ him. That was such a blow, it took him a while to recover. As if that wasn't bad enough, check out some experiences the now second years shared regarding their actual interviews;

I hope no one got my favorite question from today: "Why did you put your
clubs in this order on your resume?" That seemed like a great way to
evaluate people.

My favorite question of the day was "did you think of being a
politician?" Note: there is nothing on my resume or cover letter that
would suggest an interest in politics.
Whatever...

Mine was "Are you sure you should be at Wharton?"

My guy stopped in the middle of the interview to send an email to her
assistant and answered a call right after that, then cut it short to
catch a train back to NY.

My guy started the interview with "you are standing between me and
lunch"

For my scheduled 5 pm interview (that didn't get started until 5:15 because he was running late)....

My guy glanced at his watch at least three times, made two references to catching a 6 pm train, didn't take any notes, and midway through the interview started asking me a question, only to pause and say, "Wait, have I already asked you this?"

I found these last two quite hilarious;

At my rate, I should be learning to ask the question “do you want fries with that?”

I just had a guy cut me off mid-sentence and say the following: “Off the record, has any one told you sound exactly like Steve Buscemi?”

The good news is they all got job offers and come August they will be off.

Classes

I have probably given you the impression that Wharton is a very intense and stressful school, well it is. Quite frankly I can't get over some of the interesting stories Sam shares with me.
One example, this guy is late for his class, he walks in and the lecture is already in session. Now you would think he would try to sneak in with out taking attention off the lecturer but no, he makes his way to the front row of the class, shuffling past students here and there. The lecturer can't believe it, she stops talking and waits for him to settle down, the class is obviously very quiet at this point. Then the guy after settling down says something like "please proceed with the lecture".
Shocking I tell you, I wonder how the lecturer felt after that, but I know that his fellow students will always remember him.

The other day, Sam told me how they were "playing" with Lego's in one of the lecture session. Lego's?? yeah Lego's, apparently it's not only Mich who has a fancy for them. That must have been a very exciting class, I also think it would be quite hard to forget what was being taught in that lecture. In one of my earlier posts I told you how they were told to read Asterix, now it's Lego's, hmmm I wonder what will come next, Elmo?
Now if only Makerere would borrow a leaf ...

Busy Month

Wow! January is turning out to be a really busy month for me although I must say I'm grateful that so far this semester is not as intense as the previous one.

First years are busy polishing up for interviews for summer internships, the list for the first round of admits '09 is out, the Wharton Welcome Weekend is round the corner. Second years are wrapping up, sorting through the finer details regarding where they relocating to for full time work, graduation is in May and so on.
I'm sort of feeling like a student under pressure too, well apart from the fact that I share in Sam's experiences (joys, pressures and anxieties of school) this time I have got some of my own.
About three months after coming to Philly I attended a Wharton Kids' Club meeting and ended up being assigned the duties of "Coordinator Wharton Welcome Weekend". I agreed to it but frankly had no clue what my job description was, let alone what happened at a Welcome Weekend. It didn't bother me that much because I knew it wasn't going to take place for a while until last week when I received an email that we were going to have a committee meeting and they expected a feedback from all the club reps. I was in a bit of a panic because I was still "green", I failed to get hold of the previous club members in this office and just the thought of standing in front of the committee of about 30 students made me my stomach like jelly. I had to attend the meeting with Mich and that made things even more tricky, the last time I went with him, lets just say I was kindly asked to keep him still and quiet. How do you keep a little two year old boy still and quiet for one and a half hours? so on top of being ill prepared I had to go with Mich, "stress"! I prayed for wisdom and God worked things out beautifully.
I didn't have to say anything and Mich was at his best behaviour, before going in I told him it was a very important meeting, that he had to sit still and play with his toys, I also told him of the consequences and repercussions if he didn't and all was good. He whispered to me when he wanted to say something, even though the whispers were loud we managed to pull it off.
Now I'm in the process of communicating with the fresh admits with children. It helps for them to know that there is a community for them when they come and they are free to ask questions regarding issues they are unsure of like family housing and schools for their kids.

Snow Flakes

Give thanks to the Lord, our God and King
His love endures forever
For He is good He is above all things
His love endures forever
Sing Praise, Sing Praise

Forever God is Faithful
Forever God is Strong
Forever God is with us
Forever!

This song has been on my heart all week and it has been a nourishment to my spirit.
I haven't felt like blogging much lately, I think I'm going through a quiet phase of seeing God's goodness and just hiding it in my heart. Kind of feels like a retreat for refueling.

Mich and I went to visit with a friend today and on our way there it begun to snow ever so lightly. We were excited!, Mich has been waiting for snow for a long time, not to say that we were not enjoying the "warm winter". As the flakes came down I couldn't help but marvel at God's wonderful works, it looked beautiful. Even though it was really cold the excitement on peoples faces was literaly shining through. Almost everyone I came across was either saying "it's snowing!" or "is it snowing?" kind of like it was a new greeting, you know, like "Happy New Year!".

From the rising to the setting sun
His love endures forever
By the Grace of God we will carry on
His love endures for ever
Sing Praise, Sing Praise.

Tooth trouble II

It used to be that the part I dreaded most about dental procedures was the numbing injections, gosh!!! the pain of that needle entering the gum and then the flow of the medicine into the gum muscle or whatever, absolutely horiffic!. Well nothing has changed, I still don't appreciate the process.
It also used to be that it gets better when you finally stop feeling a thing well not anymore.
I get a lot of "brain torture" when the drilling begins, it feels like I'm in a cement factory, no! like I'm a building site. The sound of the drill just freaks me out, even though I can't actually feel a thing. The whole process is unnerving, kind of feels like the dentist is doing major damage and my brain starts to trigger off pain impulses even where there are none.
I'm hoping that in the near future we will have one of those intelligent scientist invent a silencer, you know, a drill that doesn't make a sound but is still effective.
Ok, so the construction is over and everything is in place, then slowly the numbness begins to fade. But before it does,your face is all screwed up, you imagine (because you can't feel at this point) that your lips have doubled in size. Talking is really strange and when I was younger I bit my lip and tongue because I couldn't feel anything. You can imagine the shock when the numbness is gone and your whole mouth is sore.
And you wonder why I struggle to keep candy away from Mich?, I bet not any more.

Tooth trouble

Today I got to visit my dentist to continue the procedure of a root canal, my was it a long visit! For three hours my mouth was stretched wide open. I'm sure you can imagine how tiring that can be, even for people who can't keep their mouths shut :-).

It all started in UG when the plans to travel were finally wrapped up, we had visas etcetera.
I decided that I would have my teeth worked on before I came here because I knew how expensive it would be, actually my dentist put it something like this " you are wise to do this now because if you wait... lets just say the amount of money you spend out there would pretty much suffice to buy land and build a house here".
He knew all my problem teeth and worked on them but there is this one tooth that gave me most trouble and yet the very one he didn't sort out properly. Two months into my stay here it was giving me trouble again so I decided to visit the dental school for help.
Now, I've come to learn that seeing a doctor here can take a while say three months, unless you have an emergency but how do you define emergency?!, well I guess that depends on the patient. My tooth wasn't bothering me all the time but it was sensitive and that was cause to see the dentist.
In November I was told I would have to wait till January, but at some point I thought, this in my case is an emergency, so I called in and got an appointment for the next day.

Its a dental school so three quarters of the dentist are students and we alas are the study material. The first stage was to fill out some forms, then have x rays done and answer lots of questions on my medical history. When my x ray result came back, things didn't look good,I was told I needed to do a root canal. When the dentist told me how much it would be I froze, $1700, oh my!!! I asked him if there were other options he said, well you could just remove the tooth. There is no guessing what I opted for, I was still in shock (and you say, I thought your Dr. in UG had prepared you for that?!). Anyway he goes out, comes back a little later and says, "well you actually have three options, do a root canal then have the tooth crowned, get the tooth removed and have an artificial tooth implanted or just get the tooth out". The first two options cost pretty much the same amount, the last option was 60 bucks and that was now looking like peanuts to me. Obviously I chose the last option, I told him I couldn't afford the other two, he gave me the look of "you gotta be kiddin me", then he said OK, lets go.

He led me to another part of the practice where I met with two other student doctors who were supposed to carry out the procedure... I think.
The ladies were really sweet, they told me not to remove the tooth, how it was worth saving and how I wouldn't have to pay every thing up front and so on and so forth.
They won me over but first I had to check with Sam that all was well then they took me yet again to another section of the building, I found out that that was where the action actually takes place.
I was introduced to yet another student doctor who this time was going to do the dirty work. She explained to me what she was going to do, this first visit was going to be cleaning out the tooth and easing the pain, so that next time I would come in and have the root canal. I had already told her that I didn't have the money but I could afford the first part of the process, she said no problem. Within an hour and a half of her grilling and pocking and having another of her colleague's and supervisor check out my tooth I was done. It felt weird lying there and having these people discuss my tooth as though it was some fascinating study material, I wanted to say, "hello, guys I'm here" but of course I would not, besides my mouth was being held open by metals. Anyway long and short, they did a great job,I had no problems over Christmas or the New year and I got scheduled in for another appointment.

Sam and I talked it over again when I got home and we came to the conclusion that, which ever way they put it, it was going to be way too expensive and it wasn't realistic under the circumstances. Offices' were closed over the holiday period so I had to wait until the Dental school was reopened so I could call and cancel the appointment.
I called in yesterday and told my doctor that I wouldn't make today's appointment because I hadn't got the money.
She called me back later in the day and said if that was the only reason I cancelled it shouldn't be a problem I could still go in. That was music to my ears, she said she had talked to the authorities and they said I could pay just the consultation fee of $10 and pay of the rest slowly seeing as it wasn't going to be my last visit.
Cool!!! I had my friends look after Mich while I went in for the next stage. When I got there, she had even better news for me, they were not only going to allow me to pay in bits but the whole fee had been chopped in half, my eyes almost popped out. Originally the root canal was going to cost $400, now it's down to $200 and I have been able to pay off a bit of the 200, I'm left with a little less than $100. Is God good or what?! that is miracle number one for '07.

Tomorrow I will let you get a taste of what it's like to be at a dentist's mercy, this is information for the lucky people out there who have never had tooth trouble.

Fire works

Mich and I spent the evening of the 31st with my navigator friends, they had invited a Chinese friend, so we were a good number. I didn't get to have much of a conversation with him because of the language barrier. I tried at the beginning but I had to repeat myself 3 or 4 times switching words back and forth for him to understand what I was saying and even then I didn't get an answer to my question. We resorted to keeping the conversation light and short,with closed ended questions.
There was plenty to eat, we had meatballs, crab, greens, Pizza to mention but a few by the time we were half way I was absolutely satisfied.
We played a board game called Yahtzee and that was fun.
My Navigator friends love candy and this being the holiday season they had it all over the place. Alas my battles with Mich begun, I tried to keep the candy away but he had already seen it and was going crazy. I was successful for the most part but Brent couldn't help giving it to him, hhhaaaa!!!! he is like a grandpa.

Mich and I were dropped home about 9pm and soon after that I put Mich to bed. For some reason I had no sleep yet so I sat up, tried to watch TV, then decided to send some mail. Before long it struck midnight and there was lots of noise outside. I went to the front porch, looked up and I could see the beautiful display of fire works. I thought that was real cool, back home you needed to be at strategic points early enough if you wanted to see the fire works and now all I had to do was step out of the house. That was nice.