The Joy of Languages

I am taking German at my local community college. I have enjoyed it immensely. I am listening to a German podcast as I write this, and have noticed things about learning a foreign language.
1. It increases the knowledge of how your own language works grammatically which makes you a better speaker.
2. It is fun. It allows you to speak with more people, and the joy of learning and making connections is cool.
3. It allows you to get more perspectives when you look at the news through new websites.

I plan on taking more languages throughout my life, and I will use all of them as I travel the world. Up next: French.

First day of school

A pretty good first day. I have two classes in the morning, band and IB English. I then have the rest of the day free. In band we got our syllabus, and in English we learned about each other.

I then went over to the community college where I am going to start running start on September 21. I forgot to pay for one of my classes, and talked with one of my friends for a while and got my ID card. I went home around noon and then rode the bus back to my high school. There I ate lunch with another one of my friends and then hung out in A pod and wandered around the school. I was in the library in the end, and went to my grandparents on the "yellow limousine" or school bus.

I rode my bike for a little bit when I got home and basically am resting.

Reading and hanging out.

Over the past week not too much has happened. On Monday through Wednsday I read The Scarlet letter for English. It was a good book, which had some good themes. I rode my bike of course on each of these days. I finished yesterday and then hung out at a friend's house. It was really fun.

Today I spent a lot of time with my grandparents and made some money helping in the yard. I got a graphing calculator and shared my Aussie currency (finally) with my grandparents.

The Great Gatsby is interesting. I haven't read anything like it before, and has a lot of just basic city people running around doing their things.

The Past Year

High school has been interesting. I am going into my junior year and I am in two clubs, Environmental club, where we recycle for the school, and debate, where I compete with debaters mainly from King, Snohomish, and Pierce counties. It was pretty steady, with Jesse following me around while I'm sitting with my friends from Environmental club at lunch, and going through six classes, biology, history, geometry, wind ensemble (the advanced band), boring typing or simple weight lifting, both where all brain functions minus breathing, blinking and heart beat are turned off (not my choice. Wasn't even on the radar.), and then the pre-IB Honors English where we read Dickens. A very bizarre schedule for anyone, especially a scientist, 3-year knowledge bowler, and debater.

I went in August of 2008 to visit my grandparents in the Tri-cities. It was a good chance to get to know them as a teenager with more experience from the last time I had an extended visit, which was 2004 in Hillsboro.

I travelled to Victoria, Canada in December with my Mom, which was a fun trip. Lots of snow in the great white north.

On July 14, I board a plane to Los Angeles enroute to Sydney, Australia enroute to Cairns, Australia. It is going to be 7:45 PM July 15 PDT, or 12:45 PM July 16 local time when I finally land. I am going to go be excited for the whole thing, from aborigonees, to dolphin feeding, to home stays, and to the Sydney harbor bridge. Their money is nice because you can tell denominations quickly because their length is different.

Running Start starts in late September with cheap college credit and getting an associates degree in my senior year.