A Praise and A Request

Happy Friday to all of you. If your week has been anything like mine perhaps you are ready for it to be Friday! Whew. It's been a full one here at the Bedinghaus house.

I would like to give a huge praise for Liam sleeping for eleven hours straight last night! 8:30 to 7:30, yes please and thank you, I will take that. I woke up at 6:30 out of a full night's sleep and couldn't believe what time it was. However, the downside of a nursing baby sleeping that long...well, lets just say I was in pain. So I dozed until 7:30 when he did wake up and then poor baby, I overfed him and he threw up everywhere. A lot. Good morning to me! But I was still thankful for the long stretch of sleep.

On a completely different note, I finished re-reading Water for Elephants last night and it was not as good the second time around. I re-read it because it's coming out as a movie and I like to do that before I see a movie based on a book. This time around it seemed much more crude and not as interesting. Maybe that was because I already knew the twist at the end? If you haven't read it, it is an interesting read, but beware of some of the more vulgar parts.

And finally, another different note, I'm asking for prayers for Rob tomorrow as he takes his master's exams. I think most of you know about these, but basically he has to take three, two hour exams on three different subjects within linguistics. He is choosing to focus on Second Language Acquisition, Phonology and Sociolinguistics. (Don't ask me to define those areas!) He was given a reading list for each section that amounted to a total of 139 scholarly journal articles. He can be tested on information from any of those articles and be asked to apply the knowledge to various questions. Oh and did I mention that even though it is 2011 he has to hand write each exam? Like with a pen.

He is pretty anxious about the exams because he really wants to pass all three sections the first time around. He would be allowed to start his PhD work in the fall if he doesn't pass a section, but that means not walking at graduation in May and obviously having to retake the section again. He wants to be done with these tests!

Please pray for:

• Retention of everything he has studied
• No headaches and hand cramps
• Focus on applying what he has studied to specific questions
• A calm approach to the questions and for his brain not to freeze up

It's been a full week for us and we're both anxious for this part of the semester to be over. While he still has to finish up the rest of his class work and teaching before the semester is actually over, it will be good to have this part behind us.

Thanks for your prayers and love for us! Happy weekend.