Like I promised, here is a little more about me.
I live in Ohio, and have lived here for my entire life, the past 25 years. The depressing thing is I may live here for the rest of my life, LOL. Honestly, it's not that bad of a place to live.
I have a degree from the University of Akron in Business Administration. I attended UA from 2004 to 2009, but skipped 2008. I am currently enrolled at Stark State College as a health care student. I'm still not 100% sure what I want to do, but I'm thinking about Occupational Therapist Assistant, but it has a 3 year waiting period.
My main interest, and what I spend most my free time doing, is foreign languages. I'm currently interested in Spanish, French, German, Esperanto, and Mandarin, but really have been focusing on German. I really like German, and have been studying it for the past month or so. I would like to get into Mandarin since I have had some experience with the language and enjoyed it, it is different from the other languages I'm interested in, and think it could be useful in the future. I am interested in many other languages, mostly Romance and Germanic languages, but I don't want to list them because it will seem very unrealistic. There may be YouTube polyglots who say they've studied 40-50 languages, but I know myself. I'm not going to study a dozen languages, much less have any proficiency in any of them.
I've been studying Spanish off and on since early 2009, so it's been about 20 months. My progress in Spanish is embarrassingly slow, and have little to show for my efforts in the past. I took 2 years of Spanish in high school, and, like my math skills, my skills from high school Spanish wasted away to almost nothing. I bought and used Practice Makes Perfect: Basic Spanish in March of 2009 as preparation for taking college Spanish. I then took 2 Spanish classes in college and enjoyed them but took the classes as an elective, not as a requirement. I started self-studying Spanish seriously when I started Elementary Spanish II in June of 2009. After my college classes, I studied it off and on, studying seriously for a few months and then putting it aside for a month or two. I have not seriously spent time with Spanish since July of 2010, but would like to get back into studying it, as I like the language and think it can be very useful, especially since I'm thinking about going into health care. Pathetic as it is, I have yet to complete a beginner's book in Spanish yet. Very embarrassing.
I also studied French for 2 years in high school and, just like my math and Spanish skills, they have diminished. The good thing is it does seem familiar to me when I read some French in one of my beginner's books. I really like French, maybe even more than Spanish, but I don't intend to study French anytime soon, as I think it interferes a little with my Spanish.
It is a bit difficult to explain to people why you would want to study Esperanto. It doesn't seem to get the same respect as other languages of its size (about 2 million speakers) and even some language lovers on my favorite language forum, how-to-learn-any-language.com, don't seem to think it is a "real" language. The good thing is that you can learn Esperanto for free on lernu.com, a popular Esperanto site. You can also sign up for a free correspondance course, which I've signed up for last year at about this time but have yet to complete a lesson, since my interest in Esperanto waxes and wanes like the moon. I even bought some books for learning Esperanto, but really haven't gone over them. I don't want to argue about whether we need an international auxiliary language (IAL) or if Esperanto is the best IAL. I think some very interesting people know Esperanto, and you can learn one language and chat online with these interesting people in several different countries in one common language.
Well, enough about languages. I'll discuss other things I like.
One of my favorite classes in school, both high school and college, was history. I am particularly interested in military history and Medieval history. I'm not sure why, I just find that aspect of history interesting. The only problem is I read my last military history book (it was about the Battle of Stalingrad) in the summer of 2008 and I haven't read a book about Medieval history in a long time. I am changing this now, as I've borrowed books from the library about the Battle of Marathon and a rather large book on Medieval history. I have a break from school until the 18th of January and intend to use this time to the best of my ability.
One activity that I would like to get into is birding, or bird watching. I decided this would be a good hobby because I took an online survey and bird watching was the top match, which I somewhat agree with, since social aspect, researching, and a hobby that can be done inside and outside were my most important aspects in a hobby. I've always enjoyed watching birds, especially as a kid, when I was the family's self-proclaimed bird expert (well, as much of an expert as a kid with an identification guide could be). There are two Audubon Societies near me, one in Akron and one in Canton, and I might try to go to one or the other, or possibly even both if one meets at a more convenient time and the other has more field trips. I guess I should find a more experienced birder to show me the ropes and teach me the proper technique, as well as show me good locations. I hope to go to an Audubon meeting soon.
I am also interested in music, both as a musician and as a listener. I've learned to play the cello, recorder, trombone, and violin, the first three in elementary school and the violin I took my first lesson in May 2009. The trombone is the only instrument I feel comfortable playing in public, and I hope to start playing the violin more, but I don't think the violin is a very good instrument for me, as I need to use my hands. I don't have good manual dexterity. Oh well, at least it isn't the piano. As far as listening to music, I've come a long way from only wanting to listen to classical and hymns, since my religious leaders wanted me to think everything else was evil. I don't know what I really like, although I still like classical. Whatever sounds good, I guess.
Since this is a blog, I guess I should talk about religion and politics, as they seem to be a popular subjects to blog about. I have to say, I feel really uncomfortable about writing this. I really hate talking about religion and politics, as they are subjects that good people demonize other good people for not having the same values they do. I was raised Baptist, first GARBC and then independent. I really have a dislike for the fundamentalist Christianity I was raised with, for a variety of reasons. I'm not really sure what my religious orientation is, but I don't think I'm completely ready to give up on Christianity, just to find a less fundamentalist variety. My politics were very conservative and I considered myself a member of the Religious Right for a time. Now I am much less conservative and really dislike the major conservative pundits - like Hannity, Beck, Coulter, Limbaugh, and Pat Robertson - as much as I dislike the major liberal pundits, so I guess I'm a moderate on most issues. What I once considered major issues that I thought God would judge America on, such as abortion and gay rights, I now think is really none of my business. Ah, one religious fundamentalist ultraconservative American down, a few million more to go.
My favorite saying for religion and politics is:
If it's stupid, but it works, it isn't stupid.
Oh well, that's enough about myself. I'm not a very good writer. Thanks to anyone who's read this far.
See you later.
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