July 6-12 {Catch up!}

Monday

I went to the library to volunteer, to Chocolate Necessesites, and then to Irish Dance. It was the first day of the summer session. Gelato flavors of the week: chocolate, strawberry, and lemon. We've had a number of wildfires in the area, and early this week, the smoke was really bad. Monday in particular, I could really feel it effecting my breathing. It looked like we had full cloud cover Monday and Tuesday, but really it was all smoke!

Tuesday

This was the first day of Homeschool Academy classes! I got there around 1:30 and helped Spencer set up before his math class, which went very well! I then taught a literary analysis class in which we dissected the song American Pie, and then I had an Irish dance class. The dance class was a little underwhelming, but the rest went quite well!

Wednesday

I taught a Latin class and we did some Harry Potter translating, and then we went to parkday in Lynden. Grace and I did some planning for our Geology class we're teaching and then we hung out for a while with Hailey.

Thursday

Thursday was pretty quiet. I mostly did schoolwork that needed doing and read, and played a bit of Don't Starve. That game is really fun, but also endlessly frustrating. My best score so far is 17 days, and in that last one I was killed on Day 17 by a spider I was trying to kill because I had forgotten to put on my armor. Gah. If you don't know what I'm talking about, google "Don't Starve." It's pretty great. Mom went out for dinner with friends, and Isabelle and I made a pizza, and hung out.

Friday

Another low-key day of school, reading, and such. Mom, Isabelle, and I took a walk around after dinner.

Saturday

I had a YARC meeting in the morning. It was another very quiet meeting, and another where all (three) of our boys were gone! That makes two in a row. In the evening, I babysat some kids, and ended up watching the neighbor kids for part of it as well, making for 5 kids under 10!

Sunday

It was my dad's birthday, so we went to breakfast with him and my stepmom. When we got back, we headed to my grandmother's house for her 80th birthday. Both my aunts and all my cousins were there, and we had lunch/dinner, and hung out for the day, which was fun. Two of my cousins are going to college in the fall, and one is going to the University of Edinburgh. She'll be home for Christmas, but we probably won't see her before then and it was weird to realize that the next time we'll see her, she'll have been living in Scotland for a few months already!

Wednesday July 1, 2015 {Latin and Park day}

1. Got up, and did some math and history.

2. I made some worksheets and such for the day's Latin lesson. I always tell myself I'll do lesson planning some time other than mere hours before the class, but that never happens. :P

3. Walked to Gloria's house for Latin. We had our class, then had a Harry Potter Latin meeting, both of which were fun. I do need to figure out a way to change it a bit though, to make sure everyone is interested. I think the two younger girls tend to get a little lost when Spencer, Grace, and I are able to handle more of the grammar and such than they are. That is something I need to figure out for future weeks...

4. We went to park day, which was just down the street. It was quite hot and not super interesting, though my friend L. showed up, which was great!

5. We went home, had dinner, watched Doctor Who, read Sense and Sensibility, and went to bed.

11th Grade Highlights

Since I am now officially done with my junior year of high school, I thought I'd share some of the year's highlights, in pictures! The rest of this post is all pictures, with captions. Enjoy a little taste of my year, in mostly chronological order.

Going out to dinner with friends before school started

Steampunk Halloween!

Performing in Dracula! I'm in this picture, can you find me?

Visiting the Lights of Christmas with friends, none of whom are in this photo :P

Curling Isabelle's hair before the Nutcracker.

Backstage selfie from the Nutcracker.

On stage in the Nutcracker.

Buying 12 boxes of tea for C. for Christmas!

Awesome early morning sleepover selfie.

My friends and I have our own shelf at Village Books!

Visiting the University of Victoria.

Hailey painted my nails at the Superbowl party

Our awesome current events to find out what we value most. For me? Community.

Visiting the University of Portland over spring break.

Seaside, OR

Pacific Lutheran University

Baking cookies at a sleepover

Teaching Latin

Painting this little guy was fun :)

Visiting the Pompeii exhibit at the Pacific Science Center

Lots of Geology homework that tested my drawing skills...

Mother's day selfie

My 17th birthday!

Working with friends to get C. a birthday gift he sorely needed.

Performing at the Scottish Highland Games!

Thursday June 4, 2015 {Rehearsal}

1. I got up, ate some breakfast, and worked on my Latin lesson plan. I took a shower and walked to Gloria's in time to meet H. for Latin. We're starting to get geared up for our grand adventure translating Harry Potter this summer, which I'm really excited about.

2. After I got home and ate lunch, I worked on school stuff for a few hours including math, some history reading, a geology lab, and a paper for English.

3. I wrote a blog post for my main blog, and took a walk with Isabelle to obtain part of a birthday gift for a friend (more on that later).

4. I got ready to go, and when Mom got home from work, we went to a dance rehearsal.

5. We got to rehearse with the musicians who will be playing for us, which was really great. I love dancing to live music.

6. We came home, ate some pizza, and then I frantically finished the homework I had due for both English and Geology.

7. Read Sense and Sensibility, and went to bed.

Thursday, May 21, 2015 {Harry Potter in Latin}

1. Got up around 6:45, and got ready for the day.

2. Spent my morning doing various schooly things, and planning out the day's Latin lesson.

3. Walked two blocks to Gloria's house for Latin. We did some fun activities that included reading the first Harry Potter book aloud in Latin.

4. I had an idea about creating a Harry Potter Latin Summer Book Club (still working on the name :P), and emailed people who I thought might be interested by such an idea.

5. Did some more things that were boringly academic in nature, then went to my dad's house.

6. Researched various smartphones for a while, and made a nice chart of what they cost from different places.

7. I realized that my SAT scores were up on the College Board website, so I went to check those. My total was a 1800, which I was pretty happy with, though I wish I had done better on the math. Interestingly, my ACT scores are actually quite a bit better than the SAT scores.

8. Isabelle and I had dinner with my dad and Beth, then came back home.

9. I discussed college stuff with my mom for a while, watched Doctor Who, read Jane Eyre, and went to bed.

Friday, May 8, 2015 {Last Self Defense Class}

Another backlog, almost back up to the present!

1. Woke up early, went to school. Some of my friends and I have had a group chat on google hangouts and have recently discovered the near impossibility of getting all four of us in the chat at the same time. We were all briefly on in the morning for about 10 minutes, then I had to leave for school.

2. Got off the bus, walked to Kulshan, and waited for class to start. The bus I take gets me there about 20 minutes early, so I usually am the first person there.

3. It was a lab day in Geology, and we spent the day working on what my teacher calls "Geopuzzles." Basically, we get a drawing of a cross section of an outcrop or roadcut of rock, and then we have to say how the layers (and other features like faults) got there and in what order. I actually really like those, and I have a few more to do as the post-lab homework.

4. After Geology, C. and I went back to our normal spot in Syre. L. came and hung out with us for a while.

5. My English class was canceled because of an all-day all English department meeting, so when C. left for his next class, I went downstairs to get food and then finished up my essay. I added the Works Cited and did some proofreading. I recently was introduced to the bibliography tool in Word, and it is awesome. It makes citations so much easier. 

6. I walked to the computer lab to print off my essay, and over to Anna Wolff's office to turn it in in a box outside her door.

7. After doing that, I went back to Syre (the social hub of campus), and hung out with Lydia and her friends, most of whom I know to varying degrees. Matt, a guy from my English class, walked by and we talked briefly about our essays (both of which exceeded the 6-8 page guideline) and the fact that I'm on Anna's tenure review committee (woo! more on that later).

8. I got on the bus downtown, and walked (8 blocks uphill) to an appointment I had. After that, I walked back the way I came a few blocks to the Co-op downtown to do Latin with IP (using 1st and last cause "i" is too confusing to use alone as an initial). 

9. After Latin, Ted picked up IP, and my mom picked me up and we went home to eat dinner. After dinner, we went to the final self-defense class. The first part of the class was roleplaying de-escalating situations in pairs. When we came back to the big group, the teacher asked S. and I to do part of our roleplay again for the group, because we had a pretty realistic situation. That was a bit embarrassing, but we did do it anyway. The rest of the class was mostly review of things we've done over the past five weeks, plus a few new things about getting out of headlocks and stuff like that.

10. We got home pretty late, and I texted with some people for a little while before reading Jane Eyre and going to bed. For the first time in a week or so, I was so tired that I fell asleep pretty much immediately. It was a really long day, the kind where at the end of the day, the beginning of it felt like it had been a week ago.

Thursday, April 30, 2015 {Latin}

1. I got up around 6:45 and got ready for the day.

2. I spent most of the earlier part of the morning focused on making a plan for Latin. Around 10, Lisa called to say I. wouldn't be at Latin. I made a few more quick calls to make sure that H. would be there, and that Gloria was fine with us using her house as a classroom.

3. After finishing up the Latin prep, I read and notated an essay of a classmate from my English class which I am doing a peer review of. I ate some watermelon while doing this. Also did some history stuff.

4. I walked to Gloria's for Latin. With one student missing, it was a bit of a different experience, but I think it went well, and we covered everything I wanted to in the time allotted.

5. I got a ride home from Connie, and then ate lentil soup while working on my peer review letter.

6. My dad came to take us to his house. Once there, I finished the peer review letter and submitted it online, then switched to Geology. I researched volcanoes for a while for an essay I have to write, but burned out pretty quickly. I finished a post lab worksheet, then did a bit of work on a lab on plate tectonics, and read a bit about metamorphic rocks in my textbook. I am a bit behind on reading, but should be able to catch up pretty easily this weekend.

7. I did unimportant internet things for a while, like checking DeviantArt which I really need to do more often, and briefly discussing the new CGP Grey video and the new Hello Internet episode with H.

8. As burned out and tired as I was, I persevered and worked on math prep for the SAT a bit. Not sure how useful it was since I was having a really hard time paying attention, but since the test is on Saturday, it seems like a good idea to at least try to be prepared.

9. Isabelle and I ate dinner with Dad, Beth, and Aidan (my stepmom and stepbrother), then went to Menchies.

10. Came home and read the peer review letter that my classmate wrote for me. I think he had some good suggestions, and I will definitely take what he said into account as I go about revising this essay.

11. Cleaned the house a bit for current affairs tomorrow. I thought about trying to do some more school stuff, but my mental exhaustion won out and nothing productive was done.

12. Watched Doctor Who, puttered around a little on the internet, read Jane Eyre and went to bed.

11th Grade Goals

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With a new school year soon beginning, I think it's time to make some goals for how I want the year to look. This year is bringing a lot of changes, both in my personal life, and in my social group that are going to make things pretty different. Several friends of mine are leaving for college (or have already left), and while that doesn't really change how I do things, it changes my experiences. I'm now doing Running Start as well, which is completely changing my school structure, and I'm doing a lot more dancing that I've ever done in the past.

Goals:

1. Be as healthy as possible, both physically and mentally. While this isn't entirely under my control, I do want to do whatever I can to stay healthy, whether that's making sure I eat well and exercise, or in some cases taking medication and going to the doctor to figure out that some of my problems are. Last year, I was sick nearly all year, and I would really rather that not happen again.

2. Accept that I'm not always in control. This goes with #1. Sometimes, I just can't do as much work as I would like, because of illness, or just life circumstances. While I can make an effort to deal with my anxiety, a lot of that is just accepting that I can't always change things. My goal is to learn to go with the flow.

3. Finish the Latin book I'm on. One thing I'm really sad about is that I probably won't be able to keep doing Latin. But, I am 3/4 of the way through the book I'm working on, and I really want to finish it, even if it takes me all year.

4. Manage my time better. I have a lot of different things going this year: dance, college classes, school at home, volunteering, blogging, reading (I have some exciting things on that front to talk about soon), and more. I have never been particularly good at managing all the things I have to do on a daily basis, but to keep up with all these different things, I'm going to need to get better at it.

5. Start thinking about college. I have a year left until I need to start applying to colleges, and that means that it's time to start thinking a little more seriously about where I might want to go, what is important to me in a college, and what schools I want to visit and eventually apply to.


These are some of my goals for my junior year of high school. I will try to check in every few months, and talk a little about what I've been doing to help achieve these goals, and how it's going.

Latin

 Yesterday in our Current Events class, we were talking about the Common Core, and education, and we ended up spending a lot of the time discussing how we would structure a national school system. Being homeschoolers, most of us don't have a lot of experience with traditional schools, so the discussion was quite interesting. At one point, we were talking about what should be taught (stick with the basics, like language arts and math, and let the students do the rest on their own, or teach them some of everything), this question came up: Why do we learn something? There were a variety of answers to this question, most of them being somewhere in the "Because I'll need it later," category, but somebody said, "Because it's fun."

Our leader, while trying to get us to say "Because it's fun," or "Because it's fascinating," used Latin as an example. When he said, "Why would you learn Latin?" my mom and I both started laughing because this is a conversation we have on a nearly weekly basis.

Now, here's a little perspective on this. When I was in 4th grade, I started learning Latin using Latin for Children. I continued this through sixth grade. In 7th grade, I stared Latin Alive!, and over the next two and a half years, I went through the first book and a half in that series before realizing that I had learned very little and that I was doing it wrong. Last spring, I went back to the beginning of Latin Alive Book 1, which I am now almost done with. This is my 7th year of Latin, so I think I think I have some right to an opinion on this topic. The problem for me is that my thoughts on the matter change on a regular basis.


Let's start at the very beginning. Why would you want to learn Latin in the first place? There are a variety of answers to this question including, but not limited to: Because it would help you with your English vocabulary and grammar; it would help you learn other Romance languages; it would allow you to read ancient texts in their original form; it would prepare you for jobs in things like medicine and law. I think these are all good and valid points for learning Latin.

My personal issues with it come later on. I have done Latin for over six years now, but in reality, I've probably only done about two years worth of high school Latin. The early programs I did were for kids to help immerse them in the language, and really didn't go that deep. While Latin Alive does go much deeper, I haven't gotten very far in it.

What this means for me is that I know a lot about basic Latin. I can tell you tons about 1st, 2nd, and 3rd declension nouns, 1st through 4th conjugation verbs, the present, imperfect, future, and perfect verb tenses, the five basic noun cases, and some about the other two, and plenty about adjectives of the 1st and 2nd, and 3rd declensions. That's where most of my knowledge ends. Of course, that's not all I know. I know a LOT of vocabulary, and much more grammar than that, but what I just listed, which is about a year's worth of high school Latin, maybe a little more or less, is really all I feel completely comfortable with.

Now, I can read Latin relatively well. I can parse and label and translate pages of Latin text. I understand concepts far above and beyond what I mentioned above. I have a quite good grasp on most basic grammar. But for six years of work, this feels miniscule. Here we finally get to the point where my argument with my mom comes into play.

I think all the reasons people list to learn grammar are completely valid. I think they are very good points. In fact, for those same reasons, I would encourage people to learn Latin. The problem for me is that I think I have achieved those goals. My Latin does help my English vocabulary. My Latin grammar occasionally helps my English grammar (though it actually more often makes me incredibly confused. I learned a lot of more complicated grammatical concepts in Latin before I did in English. I then expect the English to be the same, but it rarely is. More often, it's a lot more complicated, or at least different enough to be confusing.). My Latin does help some with Spanish. I have read original Latin texts, and translated them. I have enough of a background that if I go into something like medicine or law, I will have a great basis of knowledge to work from.

At this point, I do not see how continueing to learn Latin will help me with any of these goals. I think those arguments are past their point of usefulness for me. That does not mean however, that I think I should just stop learning Latin right now. I know my mom is reading this right now, and she is probably a bit confused, since some of what I'm saying here will sound like the opposite of what she hears me say regularly. Don't worry, Mom, I'm getting there. Really, really slowly. I think Latin is a wonderful language to learn, and I don't want to stop learning it. I really don't.

Over the past six years, I have attempted, many times, to quit Latin, without success. My mom never let me. She would cite the above reasons, and tell me I had to keep going. I'm now grateful that she didn't let me quit back in elementary school, but I'm still conflicted about whether it is currently worth it.

I'm a pretty stubborn person, as anyone who has ever lived with me can tell you, and after this many years, quitting now, just when I'm finally getting somewhere, would feel like failure. At the same time, I have more work this year than I have ever had, and I'm beginning to feel a bit of pressure to focus more on what I'm going to use in college, and less on what I just want to do (are any of you Current Events people reading this? This is exactly what we were talking about on Tuesday.). Latin is now a subject that is not going to help me get into college. It's not going to help me get a job. Is there a point in continuing at all?

Quitting right now would make me really, really sad. I like Latin. It's hard, and I do get frustrated often, but in the end, I like it. It's logical (usually), it has clear patterns and rules, and it's very black and white. That sounds a little like math, doesn't it? Latin also has a kind of poetry to it that math will never have. You can use those patterns and rules to create a kind of art. I really haven't done THAT much Latin, and I don't want to stop. I want to make it through Latin Alive book 4.  It makes me really, really sad to know that that probably won't happen.

College is becoming more and more of a priority right now. Things like Math, English, and Science now seem far more important that Latin. I am struggling each week to get through all the work I have to do. Is Latin really worth it any more? If Latin was commonly taught in college still, if I knew I could continue learning it, this would be a no brainer. Of course Latin would still be worth it. I would need to continue so that I would be prepared to continue it in college. But the chances of going to a college that teaches Latin are relatively slim. Do I still have time for Latin?

In conclusion, I want to say that this is something I still haven't figured out. The pressure of being prepared for college is now stronger for me than the desire to learn things like Latin and History. Does this mean I'll stop entirely? Probably not. But it leaves me very conflicted with no real answer. What's more important? In class yesterday, we never really answered that question, and I don't have an answer either. Is Latin worth it?