For quite some time now I’ve wanted to have some kind of journal on this site, but the site news page seemed inappropriate for it. So it ended up here. This will mainly be a place for me to jot down my thoughts and give you (whoe’er you are) an update on my life. So, I’ve recently fallen in love with architecture. For several months I’ve had a desire to look into it, but didn’t have the time till now. (There’s no school this week because of the Olympics. Hurrah! Now I can actually relax and breathe freely for a few days, without having to worry about tests or reading or whatnot. I hasten to add that I do like school, an awful lot. It’s just nice to have a break from time to time.) I went to the library on Saturday and checked out a few books on architecture, and so far I’ve read half of one, ABC of Architecture by James O’Gorman. With any luck I’ll be able to read a few more by the end of the break. Architecture is very aesthetically satisfying to me. I’ll no doubt have more on this as I read more about it. I really want to read Vitruvius (a classic in the field), maybe even in Latin if I dare.

Oh, a couple of weeks ago I was having a slightly rough day, stressing out over a test that was coming up. As I walked home from the bus stop, I started quoting some Shakespeare that I’d memorized for the test (it was a literature test, on Don Quixote, King Lear, and The Winter’s Tale). I was amazed to see how much better it made me feel. Now I can understand why those in POW camps who had memorized poetry and scriptural passages were able to survive — reciting rich, living passages is an incredible source of strength.

At the library on Saturday I also checked out a bunch of language books, on Ukrainian, Arabic, Serbo-Croat, Nepali, Russian, Greek, Latin, and Hungarian. And on Friday I checked out a couple of books on Turkish. Yum. :) On Monday I taught myself the Hebrew alephbet and vowel system (it was much easier than I thought it would be) and started studying Akkadian. If it isn’t obvious, I really like studying languages.