Camping Time!

Sometimes, it seems very hard to imagine that I’ve been here 4 weeks already. But other times, I feel like I’ve been around for months. Life has settled into a more predictable routine now that phonetics is over (which I got an A- in). I’m really starting to become more fascinated in the topics being discussed in the survey class that I’m taking. Today the subject was methods of determining linguistic relatedness between dialects. There are a number of different approaches, each with varying strengths, weaknesses, time commitments, and expertise required. Some of these methods lend themselves very well to quantitative assessment, and some very much do not.

But statistics, and mathematics in general, is popping up in more places than I expected. Earlier this week I developed a simple little linear programming model to determine the optimal locations for selecting sites for language programs. It’s not much really, but it’s something, and I’m going to try to expand it a little more.

But not this weekend, because in about an hour and half I’m leaving to go camping. We’re going a couple hours north to the Squamish Campgrounds for the whole weekend. It’s a CanIL organized trip and almost everyone is going. I understand of course that it’s not real camping if you can drive right into your campsite, but it’s pretty much the only kind I’ve ever known. It’s going to be a great time to relax and enjoy God’s creation, particularly since professors were told not to give any homework this weekend!

Well I gotta go get ready. Thank for your prayers, and I’ll be sure to put up a good picture from the weekend for next week!

Aaron