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I am currently working on a research protocol that will involve collecting data from human subjects. I am taking various online modules on research ethics to qualify. I was pleasantly surprised to see that, following the completion of one of the modules, I got to print out my very own certificate! :-) In research, this sort of instant gratification, which really helps to encourage, does not happen often enough! I now look forward, in eager anticipation, to completing all my training.
Yesterday, Amani, Loretta, Elham and I completed our sequence of Ruhi courses!!! Yay. We could not have done it so quickly, and thoroughly enjoy ourselves, without the love and encouragement of such fantastic tutors, Becky, Azadeh and Betsy! Book 7 was truly fun, and we plan to put our learning into action and help start and tutor others in Book 1 :-)To celebrate our "graduation", we invited family members and friends to join us for a meal at a Mongolain Grill restaurant in north Raleigh called Crazy Fire. For dinner, I selected chicken, pork, shrimp, scallops and squid in one bowl, and sprouts, broccoli, mushrooms and onions in another, and I randomly threw in terriyaki and oyster sauce, as well as sesame oil, garlic salt and pepper, before I gave my bowls to the chefs to cook. In five minutes or so, voila! my meal was ready, and I must say the combination of meat selections, veggies and sauces was really good and better than I had thought it would taste.Next up for us graduates is the new Book 5 on teaching Junior Youth. The old Book 5 is now going to be Book 3b (Teaching Children's Classes, Grade II).
[Copyright. Anne Geddes Photography]Dear Family and Friends:
Kelly and I are overjoyed to announce that we are expecting our first baby! The baby's expected due date is October 23rd, 2006.
We will continue to update you all on baby and mom's progress, and we kindly request your prayers for the baby's health and development, and for mom's health and pregnancy :-)
Our love,
Kelly and Max
The Farmer's Market is back at Duke! Every Fridays, from 10am to 2pm, for the next few months, local farmers display and sell the products of their labour. I am particularly excited about this time of the year, because you can normally find really wonderful plants and flowers and vines that you can buy and then grow in your own garden. I have acquired this huge interest and hobby in gardening over the past year or two, and I just cannot seem to stop buying plants - especially flowering plants.
Last year, Amani, Kelly and I had a really awesome herb and vegetable (OK - tomato) garden that we started indoors late February as seeds! It was a ton of work to maintain, especially since the type of tomoato plant seeds that we bought were of the vine variety. Every week, and this is likely to be a huge underestimation, we had hundreds of cherry tomatoes! Yes, it was great, it was fun, but this year we will not be planting any vegetables or herbs. Instead, I plan for the first time to put together a garden with plants of large foliage, mixed with flowering plants of all sorts of colours.
So far, I have planted elephant ears (each bulb around 10") and cannas (which grow to over 60" tall with beautiful crimson and canary-coloured flowers). I have yet to plant - although already purchased - hostas which grow about 36" tall and produce lavender coloured flowers. There are over 2500 different species varieties of Hostas, and the growth size and flower colours I mentioned are of the Hosta francees kind. Hostas are a favourite of a friend (Lee Adkins, 85, expert gardener) who suggested these rather low-maintenance, perrenials to me. I also have many seeds for flowering plants like Foxglove and others (I think 6-8 different varieties) that I hope to germinate indoors first, starting this weekend.
I have no idea how successful my gardening will be this year, but if last year is any indication at all, it should be a very colourful and lush season ahead. I am excited, and will certainly post pictures up as soon as any flowers start to come up.
Any other suggestions for plant/gardening ideas?
[Amani and Haley, Duke University, Club Days] My housemate, Amani, and fellow Baha'i friend and Duke junior, Haley, greet incoming freshmen and answer any questions they may have about the Baha'i Club at Duke. This year (academic year 2005/06) marked the first year (in the past 20 years?) that the Baha'i students at Duke have formed an official club. Although this achievement is great, we have a long way to go to reach the level of organization of some of the more established university Baha'i clubs such as UC San Diego [UCSD Baha'i Club], Columbia University [CU Baha'i Club], Oxford University [Ox Baha'i Association] and Stanford [SU Baha'i Association] to name a few. [click here for more links to Baha'i Clubs]. Duke University Baha'i Club (DUBC) meet on Wednesday evenings on campus. Through study groups, guest speakers, social gatherings, and collaborations with interfaith and other religious/faith groups on camps, the Baha'i Club promotes the teachings of the Baha'i Faith such as: oneness of God, oneness of religion, oneness of humankind, the equality of women and men, the essential harmony of science and religion, abolishion of all forms of prejudice, and the inevitability of global peace and harmony, to name but a few. Hopefully, we, too, will have a cool internet presence in our very own DUBC website. Stay tuned!
A little over 16 months after getting married, Kelly and I finally enjoyed a "honeymoon". It wasn't the typical escape to a sunny, exotic paradise island in the Pacific. In fact, it was quite the opposite. Yes. We decided to go grande - as in Grand Canyon that is. Relaxing nothingness, instead, was replaced with hour-long hikes, and temperatures dipping into the low 20s (F) (that is below freezing for my Celcius friends). We were met with freezing rain, hail, snow, wind, overcast, and a lil' bit o' sun to cap off the adventure. 
Rewardingly, the weather made for some spectacular pictures of sunsets that gave the impression the canyon was burning! We even caught a rainbow stretching from the clouds to the layered rock of the grandness below. All in all, it made for some spectacular scenery and joyous photography, which both Kelly and I really enjoy doing. Kelly even managed to take advantage of a crisp, 
clear night's sky to take photographs of stars. So we are now back in Durham and adjusting to the rigours of the daily Duke grind. Japanese Wysteria hang delicately on tree-tops, and the Tar-Heel state is most certainly ushering in the spring season.
[Picture: Penang, Malaysia September 2005] Yay, my very own blog :-) This first entry won't be very long at all. I am at work [Duke Eye Center] right now waiting for proteins to separate on a gel. I look forward to blogging about my life, your life, and everything important by Maxwell Eblaghie. And the journey, thus, begins...
