Wednesday, May 14, 2008

• So Endeth...

  ...Great Books 3 and Latin 2 with Mr. Callihan. If my pillow is wet, you'll know why.

  Next year I have Great Books 4 with Mr. Callihan and Latin 3 with Mrs. Wells to look forward to! And man, am I looking forward to it!  I do so hope that my classmates from this year will still be my classmates next year. Please y'all, take GB4 and Latin 3. Oh, and I should mention that I'm in GB4B instead of A because my younger brother is taking GB1 with Mr. Wells and GB4A with Mr. Callihan is at the same time as GB1 with Mr. Wells. So no more hectic Tuesday mornings for me.

  This year in GB3 we read books from the Middle Ages including St. Benedict, Bede, Gregory of Tours, Einhard and Notker, The Song of Roland, Anselm, Geoffrey of Monmouth, Villehardouin, Joinville, Thomas Aquinas, Jacobus de Voragine, Dante, Geoffrey Chaucer, and Sir John Mandeville. Read all of those and then try and call the Middle Ages dark. Ha! The worst of it is that I simply cannot decide which is my favorite. I think I probably enjoyed Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, especially the one about the rooster called Chanticleer. Chaucer's Knight's Tale was pretty good too. He also has a tale that is kind of like Jacobus de Voragine's Golden Legend. I really enjoyed The Golden Legend too. Some people might think it's too gruesome, but for my part I really enjoyed the stories of saints. It shows that God really is everywhere and He does care about His people. He works through His people in amazing ways. One of my favorite stories was one where a bad king is trying to defile a young virgin and when his men try to move her, she is so heavy that they can't! It was hilarious. A bunch of fully grown and armed men unable to make a young girl budge. I think the king got so made and stomped so hard he went through the floor. (I might have added that on though, hehe!) I don't think I would probably believe half the stories in the Golden Legend but they are really good stories nevertheless. The Travels of Sir John Mandeville were really good too. He was very talented at telling stories that capture you. His book is a 14th century account of his journeys in the East, and like the Golden Legend, some of the stories that he tells about certain places are hard to believe but very fun to read. I can't skip Dante either. I say it's the best poetry that I have ever read. I only understood about 1/4 of it even after Mr. Callihan took us by the hand and led us through all the cool allegorical symbolism. It was a great poem though, and I learned quite a bit from it. It would be ridiculous to try and explain all that right now, so I'll pass on to my next favorite. Let's see, Anselm and Aquinas were the toughest to read and understand, and like Dante, I only understood about 1/3 of them. Geoffrey of Monmouth was great! So were Einhard and Notker. I enjoyed the Song of Roland because it was great poetry and it's basically a little tragedy overblown. It was things like people blowing their brains out with a horn and mass faintings. lol! Wonderful stuff, all of it. I can't wait to get my hands on the books for GB4!!!

  My Agenda for this Summer

  ~Ride Nicki everyday (yay!)
  ~Work in the garden (DIE WEEDS DIE!!!)
  ~Read lot's of books (I'll read Dante over again. Somebody suggest something to me)
  ~Bake lot's of goodies (like oatmeal cookies, and then eat them all)
  ~Go to Trinity Fest and visit Idaho property
  ~Eat (peanut butter & chocolate), drink (milk) and be merry (all the time)
  ~Make my friends at church give me dance lessons every Sunday
  ~Anything else I can think of or somebody suggests to me

  Oh...I forgot math. I have decided to take a vacation from everything but math. I. Will. Not. Be. A. Dunce. At. Math. If there is one thing in all the world that I will be good at, it will be math. If I can achieve one thing, it will be math. If there is one thing that you cannot convince me to take a vacation from, it is math. Then again, I might not take a vacation at all. I don't think I could live without reading Biology, as for the other things that I'm studying, well, they're too good to just take a vacation from. Y'all go to Hawaii, I'll stay in my closet and think about how much fun you're missing.

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