Humor

There is a chapter about humor in one of the upper level books and I learned something. Knock-knock jokes are not a thing here in Ukraine. I was shocked and so I tried to tell one to a student. It went something like this:

Me:  "Wait, you really don't have knock-knock jokes?"
Her: "No"
Me:  "Awe, great! So it goes like this, I say, 'Knock-knock', and you say, 'Who's there?'. Then I say, 'something', and you say, 'something who?'. Finally, I say the punch line. Wanna try it?"
pause... pause... pause...
Her: "okay?"
Me:  "GREAT!!! So... Knock knock."
Her: "Who's there?"
Me:  "Banana."
Her: "Banana who?"
Me:  "Knock knock."
Her: "Knock knock who?"
Me:  "No no, after 'knock knock' you say 'who's there, remember?" She nods understanding and I say, "knock knock"
Her: "What's there?... Who! Who's there?"
Me: "Banana."
Her: "Who Banana who?"
Me: "Knock knock"
Her: "I'm confused... who's there?"
Me:  "Orange."
Her: "Orange who?"
Me: "Orange you glad I didn't say banana?"
*blank stare*

And that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is why you should tell an easier knock knock joke for someone's first knock knock joke experience. I know it may not be the funniest thing now, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Also, I don't remember all of the mistakes, but these are the few I remember for sure, I do know that there were a few more.

Untitled

I have been struggling to put these thoughts into words. Well, concise words anyway. I'll let you in on a secret, I can ramble sometimes.

I have been thinking about my time here and I feel very UN-missionary-like. No, that is not UN like United Nations, that is UN as in "opposite of". Why do I feel like the opposite of a missionary? Well, I'm not on the classic mission trip. I am not in the back country teaching the gospel through a translator. I am not healing people with medical problems. I am not even building a bridge, city, or orphanage somewhere. I live in a church, teach English in the evenings, and my mornings are mostly free. With so much free time, rather than spend it getting closer with God, completing weekly tasks early, or studying Russian which I claim to want to learn, I get distracted. I have the internet. The internet is a wonderful tool to find information and ides, to connect with people thousands of miles away, to get ideas and inspiration. The internet is also filled with games, memes, and more, all meant to distract you from daily life.

I wondered why God would send me thousands of miles away from home if He was just going to have me teach English. I thought I was going to be doing more "important" things here. Don't get me wrong, I am enjoying teaching, it can be quite a challenge.

Greg, my fellow missionary from WWU, said something like, "God is training me in everyday life". I agree with him wholeheartedly. In everyday life, I struggle with internet, I struggle with motivation, with maintaining a daily devotional and prayer life. God is not training me to be extraordinary, but to be ordinary. It is a tough thing to realize because our egos want us to be someone big, someone special. The truth is that I need to be trained to be ordinary before I should expect God to train me for anything else.

Division vs. Long Division

There is something that has been bothering me. Sometimes, when people talk about a difficult thing to learn, they reference long division. It is such a stigma that I always assumed I had never learned this dreadful skill and felt a little ashamed to admit it, and thus joined in dissent at its terribleness. It occurred to me one day (today) while I was on the internet that I could look it up and finally learn this devilish math.

I hoped on over to Google with a simple click of my mouse, and the internet decided to slow down. Perfect timing. I tabbed over and started reading an article I'd been interested in but hadn't read. A couple minutes later I remembered my hunt for answers and went back to my Google tab. When I saw the search results, I was perplexed. On the page before me was something quite simple. It was a series of Google-images depicting simple division. Don't worry about going and doing your own search, here is an example:

I wasn't sure why Google had messes up. This was simple division! Where was the LONG division I had searched for? I decided Wikipedia would help and opened the link. We all know that Wikipedia is filled with lies, so we should go to YouTube for a second opinion, right? THAT is when I learned that there is apparently a NEW way to do long division. If you haven't heard of it yet, you should go check it out. For those of you who were unable to learn the original way, the new way is just as accurate, but it takes longer. For those of you asking why you need long division, I refer you to Dr. Thompson's story of the Motorcycle Mathematicians.