Friday, September 11, 2009

Plans!




I expect my life will be getting pretty busy here in the next few weeks. I'm a homeschooled sophomore this year. It took me half a lifetime to figure out the whole grade system, but now I've got it down. I think.

(Remember when you were little and you'd meet one of your mom's friends in the grocery store who wanted to know what grade you're in?)

Yeah. Those kind of grades. Not the "A,B,C" business. I got my first report ever last year when I started going to a private Christian resource center for a class. (And yes, I did gets A's that year. They were generous, and I was paranoid about becoming a flunking delinquent with no knowledge of algorithms. Those two factors combined essentially meant that things turned out OK for me.)

The "school" is located in a church. The bands and choirs practice in the sanctuary, the math, science, and biology classes meet upstairs in different "classrooms." And the P.E. students? Well the P.E. students go on what you might call forced marches. (Runs, I should say.)

I guess you could call it a private school. But it's more like a place where various homeschooling families in my city (there aren't many of us) pick and choose what classes we want to attend. Some people do everything- I just took math last year. It was quite the experience, and though I had some really bad days, I'd go back in a heartbeat. (Actually I am. Next Wednesday, in fact.)

Not only will I be doing math, chances are I'll be in the gospel choir, too. (I found out about this last week.)

I love Southern Gospel. We listen to it somewhat frequently at home, and I enjoy listening to the rich, harmonizing voices.

I have yet to figure out how ten white Northwestern homeschoolers will ever be able to copy authentic Southern gospel and soul music- but I'll keep you updated on our progress. (Not that I will ever be able to sound like Mahalia Jackson. No way. Sorry. Not even if I sing baroque opera songs so many times I yell the words in my sleep.)

My fourteen-year-old brother will be taking I few other lit/current events classes that I won't need to attend, thanks to my Great Books tutorial service that makes me read sordid history books that I actually end up liking. I mean that with all my heart. (Actually more like 85% percent of my heart. Verdict's still out on Herodotus and Tacitus;)


I feel so blessed to be able to be part of this online class. No matter how many times I balked at reading assignments, or complained about how gory CERTAIN historians were, it was always a pleasure to log into class at 8:00 AM every Monday, hear about people's week, discuss dead folks, and altogether have a profitable morning.
This year we'll be studying Romans instead of Greeks. (And I get to read the City Of God! Someone please keep me from saying "woot!")


Three reasons why I'm looking forward to reading a book written by an early Church Father:

1. First off- how could you not want to read The City Of God? 
2. Hopefully Augustine won't describe as many homicides and suicides as Tacitus did in his Annals Of Imperial Rome. (And I thought the French Revolution was bad....)
3. It's large. Large is good. Mostly good.

I'm going to tell you my schedule, though you might find it boring. 

-On Mondays I'll attend my nearly-2 1/2 hour GB class, then dash off to math. Twelve o'clock is lunch break, followed by choir practice. Currently I cannot tell you anything about what that will be like.

-Tuesdays I have voice lessons. My teacher's annual winter recital this year will be full of acting and singing students dressed in various articles of period clothing. It will probably look like some bizarre musical seance- Hamlet will be hallucinating, Salieri shouting. I'll be a character from the early 1900's singing a song from My Fair Lady. (If anyone knows anything about hats from that period I'd love any information.) Anyway, I have to start practicing. In addition to the aforementioned song, I'll need to memorize some Italian for another piece I'll be performing. It sounds very glamorous and scholarly indeed, but it's not. You just sort of go to a lesson one day and discover that you remember what kind of strange sounds to make. As much as I wish I knew Italian- I honestly don't want to know the meaning of the words I'm singing. I know it sounds bad, but as long as I stay away from The Boot- I'm basically singing gibberish. Turns out that the words to the Italian song I'm working on now are actually quite decent! 

-Wednesday I'll be attending my last math class for the week- as well as another choir practice. 

-Until Saturday It'll just be more class homework, and science study.

Simple, eh?
Maybe, maybe not.

I'll keep you updated on the choir. And the costume. And hopefully everything else that might interest you.



So what are you all doing this fall? I'd love to hear.




Ciao. (I'm almost certain that means go eat something;)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey!

Lets see this fall what am I doing? Well school, school, and more school LOL!

Nice post!!

Kinsey

Sandie said...

What a neat picture, Natalie!Cool. What book is it?

I just started school! :D Well, actually three weeks ago I did...

Sandie said...

You've been awarded over at my blog! :D

Sarah