Update 7th December 2008

What’s happening…

A lot has happened since 2 November. On 7th and 8th November, Matthew went with Professor Freudenburg to Cincinnati, Ohio, for another FFPN seminar. It was again a great learning experience from the professor who conducted the family life workshop with a heart of fire for about 40 family life practitioners.

On 11th November, our university celebrated the Veterans Day when the whole nation honoured those who had served and were still serving in the military. At the flag raising ceremony, we had choir singing and orchestra playing and two fighter jets flew over the place where we assembled at 12 noon. It was quite an experience to see such strong patriotism expressed among the people.

Next, Professor Freudenburg and Matthew travelled to Phoenix, Arizona, on 12th and 13th November, where the professor was the plenary speaker of a 2-day family-life summit, where some of the key family-life practitioners of an organisation gathered.

For 3 days on 21st to 23rd November, Professor Freudenburg and Professor Doyle conducted the Senior Project for 8 about-to-graduate students. It was such a powerful weekend as the professors mentored the students for the career ahead of them. We travelled to different locations in the Michigan peninsula for that. That was also the time when we experienced real snow for the first time here.

After one day of break, we left for Cape Girardeau, Missouri on 25th November for the Thanksgiving celebration with the mother of Jennifer Freudenburg. Matthew & Cori (Professor Freudenburg’s older daughter and their children also joined us for that. Thanksgiving celebration is equivalent to Chinese New Year in Malaysia. We stayed overnight at around mid-point to Cape Girardeau on 25th November (after 5 hours of driving) before proceeding to St. Louis and then to Cape Girardeau on 26th November.

On 26th November (Wednesday), all four of us visited the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial (after 2 hours of drive) where the world-famous Gateway Arch is located. I remember looking at the photo of the arch when I was studying Geography during the lower secondary school years. Professor Feudenburg and Jennifer treated us with a ride to the top middle section of the arch, at 630 feet above ground. The view over the St. Louis city was just breathtaking. The visit to the Museum of Westward Expansion underneath the arch was also very exhilarating. After that, it took us 2 hours of driving to get to Grandma Millie’s house in Cape Girardeau, the south-eastern part of Missouri, at the mighty Mississippi River.

The Thanksgiving meal and the time with Grandma Millie and her children and grandchildren was just wonderful. It was a good break for us after many months of hectic schedules.

When we returned on Sunday (30th November), we headed into a snow fall. We came back to a campus covered totally with snow for the first time.

This week, we experienced several snow falls. People say that the worst is yet to come. The highest temperature today is around minus 5 degree Celsius and the low is minus 10 degree. More snow is expected this coming week.

It is getting very cold. We have never ever experienced this cold before. If you wish to keep track of what we are going through here on the weather front, log in on http://www.weather.com/outlook/travel/businesstraveler/hourbyhour/48109?locid=48109 or key in ‘Ann Arbor weather’ on Google Search.

What’s ahead!

We are coming to the end of the fall semester. Next two weeks will be crazy with final examinations and assignments due.

A Week In Passing