Linguistics and its effect on my Friday

First, let me tell you about the events of the day:
*Ian took me to Covenant for my class. (He's got a Winter Long-Weekend-Break right now, so he didn't have to be dropped off at his school first.)
*I went to class. There, Hellen asked me to tell her more about English grammar. (She's from Kenya and speaks 4 languages besides English--Swahili is her native tongue.)
*Hellen and I had a grammar session and set up another one for next Friday.
*We all (Ian, Hellen, and I) went to chapel.
*I stopped by my British professor-friend's office.
*We went home, and went on from there to do errands and other grownup responsible things.

Now, let me elaborate on a couple neat things for today:

I'm really, really enjoying my class! It's been really interesting, and fun, and challenging, too. Last semester's Developmental Psychology was challenging in terms of (1) the amount of material I needed to learn and (2) the volume of assignments we had to turn in. (The professor called it 'unrelenting'--one project/test/assignment every week! Whew!) This semester is challenging in terms of the intricacy of the subject matter. It's pushing me and making me work hard intellectually, and I'm liking that. I've missed that sort of challenge.

I have a classmate (H) this semester who was also in Dev Psych with me last semester. H is also married, and so we have that in common. H is African and because English is not her mother tongue, she finds other challenges in this class. (The professor may talk for 5+ minutes about how other languages organize their sentences, and if H can't remember as easily as the rest of us the difference between an adjective and an adverb, it challenges her.) She and I spent some time together talking about English grammar, and we have another session next Friday morning after class to fine-tune her adjective/adverb understanding. Ian was at the table with me and H, and once she left, Ian told me that my ability to understand my material and to explain it to H seemed intuitive, and that I ought to more seriously consider the 'dream of ESL.' Yay.

Ian and I spent the entire day together, and we haven't done that for a long time. It was one of those days where a list of activities would bore you, but which was invigorating and necessary for both of us. You know, adventures and activities make compelling stories that are fun to read, but not as much fun to experience. This day was the opposite: wonderful and restful to experience, but not at all compelling or interesting as a story.