Tag Archives: Arabic

Archive Journal Entry: 20030311 Continued

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This morning was painful. I went to return my rental to Budget. On the way to the airport, there was an accident which slowed traffic to a crawl. And I forgot to fill up the gas which cost $25. Then on the way back, there was another accident which fully stopped traffic for about 40 minutes!!! Suffice it to say I didn’t get in to work as early as I would have liked.

This evening was great tho. I had my second Ruhi study circle session. Afterwards, the facilitator and I had a great conversation about “Breath not the sins of others so long as thou art thyself a sinner.” (Baha’u’llah). We discussed how this doesn’t mean that one cannot talk about other people, only that one cannot discuss a person’s faults. As well, this quote doesn’t give any sort of exceptions regarding children, spouses, siblings, or even when you are telling a person directly about their faults. All of it is prohibited! Perhaps there are exceptions specifically made elsewhere in the Baha’i writings… if anyone knows of them, please let me know!

Now I’m back home building more of my Ikea furniture 🙂

By the way, anyone have experience with any of these Arabic-language products? Yet again, let me know!

Archive Journal Entry: 20030226

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Today was a pretty good day. The second day of Ayyam-i-Ha, we had Melanie’s sister, Kristine, their dad, Benny, and his girlfriend, Linda, over for dinner. Melanie made an absolutely fantastic dinner including home-made bread, a great salad, her amazing squash and apple soup, and bruschetta (sp?). The meal was vegitarian, partly for Linda’s benefit. We opened some gifts. Melanie got me the Strictly Ballroom DVD (US$, CA$), one of my all-time favorites. I first watched it at Cory April’s mom’s house in Saskatoon. I’ll have to watch it again very soon 🙂

The other cool thing today was getting together with a bunch of friends from InSystems. I worked there back a little over a year ago from Oct. 2001 to Feb. 2002. Primarily I was working as the software architect for what became their eXterity products. In particular, I worked on their “Magic” authoring product (due to be released at the end of this month). Aparently it has continued to do very well as a project. Anyway, today a bunch of InSystems people came to have lunch with me at an Indian restaurant called Motimahal. The food was good and the company was excellent. It was so heartwarming to see my friends again. A big “THANKS!” to all of you!

Melanie has been reading “The Absorbent Mind” (US$, CA$) by Maria Montessori. She is incredibly inspired by it. I haven’t read it myself, but I certainly hope to!

I have been researching teaching the kids foreign languages. Two nights ago I did a big search for Arabic and Chinese online tutorials. I didn’t find anything amazing, but I did find some beginner material and some source material that I can use to make better stuff. As well, I’ve got to research some language learning methods. In particular, I want to find out more about “The Silent Method” and the “Power-Glide” materials – anyone have any experience with these, please email me. We are planning on teaching French (because Melanie and I know it fairly well), Chinese (because it is part of Melanie’s heritage and we expect our kids will go to China), and Arabic (so that they can read a substantial portion of the Baha’i writings in their original language, e.g. The Hidden Words). As well, the diversity in these languages we hope will improve their thinking skills.