An Educational Journey: Sophomore Year

I have been extremely remiss in writing on this blog and I apologize all over the place. Unfortunately, something know as life has prevented me from being more diligent.


As a sort of a 'catch-up' post, I thought I would do one of my favorite things: a list. So here is a list of the things I am doing during my second year of high school.

• Latin--this is a new thing. I joined a class/discussion group this year and part of the curriculum is latin. Once I got the idea through my head that no work, no gain, it actually became rather enjoyable. I hope that it will make Spanish easier to learn--and English to understand.

• Biology: I admit, I'm behind the conventional curve with science. But as long as I get the required credits in, it'll all even out in the wash. My class (my mother wasn't excited to have a squeamish student learning hard-core science like that in her house) started two weeks ago and so far I am enjoying it. We'll see how I feel when it comes to dissection. I'll just keep telling myself that it could be, and has been for people I know, worse than dissecting a pig fetus. Moving on.

• Math: We did math through the summer, but I'm ashamed to say that I slacked off for a good part of the year on Algebra and now I am paying dearly. However, for the last couple of weeks my teacher-of-all-subjects has sat next to me to make sure that I understood what I was learning and I admit, it has eradicated the feeling of throwing spaghetti at the wall. She calls it 'Algebra Camp' and I call it...well, never mind what I call it. It's not the most fun experience in my life, but I'm sure it won't be the worst. I'm just glad I have this option.

• Reading/History/Language Arts: These three subjects really fit in together. I'm not entirely sure what particular time period in history I'm doing (I'll probably pick books off of the Ambleside list, but we shall see). The group mentioned above seems to have an essay assignment every week, so my writing better be good by the end of this year.

• Miscellaneous: I hope to start giving violin lessons to beginners, and perhaps finish sewing my 1940s costume--which I started a long time ago. Those are my hopes, but it seems that my main accomplishment in my free time is deep-cleaning my room (I'll get pictures up as soon as possible on Lucie Land) and sleeping. Does anyone have ideas about adding hours to the day? I'd sign a petition.

Well, I suppose that's all for now. I'll attempt posting some of the things I write for school here.

Adios!

Where Literature Ties in With Hypotenuses

Homeschooling is filled with wonders, many of which it is too easy to forget, so I am going write one before the afore-mentioned event occurs.

A few days ago, I was watching my math lesson about right triangles, the Pythagorean Theorem, etc. A right triangle is made up of two "legs" and one "hypotenuse."

A few weeks ago, I was reading the O. Henry story "Schools and Schools" (I'll have to write about O. Henry very soon--those are some stories that are not to be passed up). The story was about three cousins: Gilbert, Nevada and Barbara. Gilbert and Barbara were raised together, and they have a sort of a tacit agreement that someday they will marry. When Nevada enters the scene, however, that arrangement is upset. To cut a long story short, O. Henry called the trio a "triangle" and Barbara was relegated to the position of "the hypotenuse." I had no idea what that meant until I learned about the Pythagorean theorem. I love it when my educations dove-tails like that.