Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Top Seven Things I Have Learned from Student Papers

Well, it's research paper season, and even though we're only in the outline stage, I have already discovered some surprising new facts from my students. If you're into facts for the day or top ten lists, please enjoy the following trivia for this week:

7. The Eiffel Tower was built for the French Revolution.

6. Winfrey’s mother can not stand the crazy child’s behavior, she intends to put the Green into the justice, the beds happen to children is full, she was out. (What I really learned from that sentence: Electronic translators are bad! . . . Oh, wait, I already knew that.)

5. The mummies of the Egyptian pyramids had been protested well.

4. Princess Diana was a good mother because she never let her sons join the recreation.

3. Martin Luther King, Jr., signed the emancipation proclamation.

2. If you stand under the Eiffel Tower, you can feel lots of poems and writers who are come from the last century.

1. The destruction of Pompeii was not a bad thing because it can promote tourism development.

Desiree

Friday, April 10, 2009

Pregnancy Pictures

Sorry! I posted some pictures on Facebook and totally forgot to put them on our blog. But for those of you interested . . . here they are! This is at about 6 months.

Thursday, April 9, 2009

The Name Game

It was always a girlish dream of mine to sit around with my husband and discuss baby names. (You know, girls are forever discussing these kinds of things—like wedding colors, for instance.)


That dream ended shortly after Dave and I got married.

While there are loads of things that Dave and I enjoy discussing, it became obvious very fast that naming our future children—especially those who would be female—was not going to be one of them. Conversations went something like this:

Her: What about Madeline*?
Him: No! That sounds so pretentious.
Her: Oh! I know! Sylvia*! I love the name Sylvia!
Him: That makes me think of an old lady. . . Hey! How about Prometheus!
Her: Dave! That's not even a girl's name!
Him: Promethia?
Her: Dave!
Him: You know what I think is a cool name? Magor-mis-abib! It means "Fear on every side."
Her: ::Stunned silence::

So we stopped talking about it—until it became absolutely necessary. In fact, I decided I wasn't even going to bring up the subject until we knew whether we were having a girl or boy—to cut down on the discussion as much as possible.

After we found out we were having a little girl, my mission could not be put off any longer. I had us both sit down and write a list of at least 10 names that we both liked. (Dave ended up with 8, and I ended up with 15, but it was a good start.) It was a surprising success for two reasons: 1) The name Magor-mis-abib did not appear on either list, and 2) we actually had quite a few names that we both liked!

In case you're interested, here they are (in no particular order). We're going to keep thinking about them until Baby Talbert actually makes her appearance. Please feel free to comment on them or give us other suggestions!

Possible first names:
Evelyn
Chloe
Fiona
Katherine (to be called Kate)
Pheobe
Sophia

Possible middle names:
Marie (my middle name)
Elizabeth

We'll see what actually happens come June (or July).

Desiree

* I apologize if this is your name. Please know that I love your name. It would have been one of my first choices!