Assalam Aleikum

Tomorrow will be my 6 month anniversary working at the Language Acquisition Resource Center at San Diego State University. It is amazing how quickly time has flown by, and how much I have learned in such a short period of time. To be honest, I didn’t know much about Arabic and Persian cultures before I began working at the center, nor did I know that much about foreign languages. Of course I took my high school language requirements, and worked towards a master’s degree in teaching English to speakers of other languages, but the actual languages themselves, I knew very little about. I am the only monolingual in my office, but am making it a goal of mine to work on my Spanish over the next few months. My brain has been resting after 18+ years of school, but I really need to get back into the classroom soon! So what exactly do I do? After six months, it is still difficult to put into words what I do, since I do a little bit of a lot of things. You can check out our website at larc.sdsu.edu I work mainly with the critical language program, helping coordinate classes in Pashto, Persian, Arabic, Iraqi, Russian, Turkish, and Chinese. I have spent my last few months working with Pashto and Iraqi, but as the summer approached, I began working with the ROTC language program, where the main focus is summer intensive language institutes. Thankfully, the institutes began last week, so I have been able to take a deep breath and relax for the first time in a few weeks. One of the perks of my job is I am able to experience many unique cultural events, especially food. Last Thursday, I attended a classical Persian concert, which introduced me to very unique percussion instruments. And on Friday I enjoyed a meal from Afghanistan, in a traditional setting. I spend most of time doing paperwork, running around campus for signatures, and making sure Marine’s are using their parking permits correctly, but I also get to enjoy the finer cultural events that make the endless paperwork worthwhile!

Oldies but Goodies!

James wrote this a few months ago, and I just realized we never put it on the blog. So, enjoy a few observations made by James when our friend James was visiting...in early February!

A few weeks ago we were enjoying a rare rainy day in Balboa Park with our friend Tall James who had come to visit when he kept commenting on the cherry blossoms blooming in early February and how odd that was (he lives in Washington DC). Upon closer inspection, the flowers were in fact dogwoods, the VA state tree and flower. They usually bloom out east sometime in late March/April timeframe, basically around Easter most years. This brings up an interesting point. San Diego, with slight temperature variations, does in fact have seasons. These are not the typical four seasons we learn of through pictures in grade school, but subtle differences that you have to pay attention to.

With most days being sunny, 60-80 degrees, you quickly stop paying attention to the weather. Angela had a conversation with a student who is from a few hours south of here in Baja California, where they get more typical seasons. He has observed that the seasons here are more names, like the dry season with Santa Anna winds, or the rainy season. I would not characterize these periods as "summer" or "winter", as the Santa Anna’s seem to mostly be in the fall. Recently we have had a few weeks of scattered rain showers. Nothing really special for those from other areas of the country, but people around here were quite excited. Particularly on the roads, where I don't believe people know how to turn their wind shield wipers on. I actually saw snow, on a recent clear day at work. I could see snow covered peaks in the east, as the coast gets rain, and at 4000+ feet, they get plenty of snow. Hopefully the area will get more needed rain as we are still in a 3 year drought, but I thought the subtle seasons are worthy of note when we live in an area famous for its pristine weather... though we realize that we miss regular seasons. I am having a hard time realizing how time is passing, as Valentine's Day is generally much cooler for us...

James is on a boat!

As most of you know, James is living in Mississippi on the ship. Most of you do not have his address, and I know he would love to get a little bit of mail, so I wanted to share it with everyone. Please send him mail so he feels loved! :)

ENS James C Gouger
USS MAKIN ISLAND (LHD 8)
OPS/OZ
FPO AP 96672-1601

Come and visit me in San Diego! Our apartment is always open, and I'd love to have guests! You never know how long we'll be here!

Heads, Carolina Tails, California

"Heads, Carolina Tails, California.
Somewhere greener, somewhere warmer.
Up in the mountains, down by the ocean.
Where? It don't matter, as long as we're goin'
Somewhere together. I've got a quarter.
Heads, Carolina Tails, California."

Where has the time gone? It seems like only yesterday that James and I were moving to California, and now we find ourselves, nine months later, living in different parts of the country, counting down the days until we will be together. We haven’t updated in a long time, which I’m sure you are aware of, so this is going to be a quick overview of our last two months. I think it’s enough to fill up a short post! As many of you already know, James’ ship is in Mississippi, and while he is technically stationed here, he isn’t actually here. He’s been gone for almost two months, and it feels like forever. I’m not very good at this whole Navy wife thing, though I do enjoy the many dresses I am required to buy! Still, by far, my favorite thing about the military. I have spent my last few months doing research and writing for my thesis project, which I can happily announce that I completed, received an incredible grade, and will be graduating with a 4.0 this weekend. It hasn’t quite hit me yet, except I actually have time to breathe and sleep, but I am excited to be done. I was very pleased with my project, and am now pursuing opportunities to use it in the real world, whether that be presenting it or writing an article. I am still working at San Diego State University, and have been very busy there. We are a national language center, and we host so many courses and programs and activities that I can’t even keep them all straight. So that takes up a ton of my time right now, as I work long hours, especially since we are gearing up for our summer immersion language programs. James is even busier than I am, working around the clock every day. When he first moved down there, he had an apartment (that was bigger than our real apartment!), but he now lives on the ship, so he lives and works in the same place. At least he gets to say “I’m on a Boat!” If you don’t get that reference, you are probably behind on your pop culture, but we love you nonetheless! I’ve spent the last few weeks traveling quite a bit, as I visited James , went to the memorials at Virginia Tech, spent a wine weekend in NC, and will be going home to the 757 for graduation. James and I are actually meeting in Charlotte and flying in together, which is very exciting. And…my brother got engaged last week and I am soooo excited to see my sister-in-law-to-be for the first time since she’s had her rock! Unfortunately, my brother will be in Spain for my graduation, so he won’t be able to make it. It should be a very exciting weekend, and hopefully when I come back, I will have some time to do some blog updates.

Spring in Southern Cali

Sending our love from California! Life updates to come soon...we promise!

Hoooray Beer! And Wine.

When we used to visit Tall James in Northern Virginia while in college, we used to call him our tour guide, due to his detailed knowledge of all the monuments in DC. He did his research on San Diego before visiting, reading in a magazine about a world renown brewery in north San Diego County. We visited Stone Brewery and received the best brewery tour we could have asked for. Angela learned the basic brewing process in an interactive 45 minute tour and then we were able to do a free tasting. The FREE part was amazing as everything out here costs money… The brewery was a fairly new facility and had an odd theme of gargoyles, but the beer was of high quality. They focused on darker, high gravity beers including a decent IPA and Russian Stout. Since we were in the area of the San Pasqual Valley that had several wineries, we took James to our favorite local one. Orfila winery was started by an ex-US ambassador, and creates quality wines from grapes grown locally and up north near Monterrey. Angela and I loved their Syrah buying two bottles, and James liked the whites, but decided he couldn’t fly easily with them. We hope to get up to Napa and Sonoma Valleys before we leave California, but had a great afternoon with libations with a good friend.

Winter Blues?!

Written during the East Coast snow storm...) While the rest of the country had a lovely snow day full of sleet, power outages, and slippery fender-benders, we spent the day at work. While at work, we had no need for extra layers, ice scrapers, or salted sidewalks. Though the simple beauty of freshly fallen snow escaped our gaze, we experienced a spring like day that is often the norm here. Mid 70s temps, gently cooling ocean breezes bring in plenty of sunshine. While we struggle at times with our actual jobs, days like today make the Mediterranean climate fantastic. If we could afford a view of the ocean we would catch the sunset every day with a glass of wine! We will only be here for one more year, so we are trying to experience the outdoor lifestyle in a place centered around a ceiling-less atmosphere. We love that we can go to the beach year round here!