After a few years of correspondence courses, Mom realized she could select various texts for us just as well as anyone else could and started buying things on her own. This meant trips to the curriculum fair every year. I was permitted to accompany her and even started helping to choose curriculum; this was always a great thrill.

I hated writing when I was a child. I would do everything in my power to avoid it, and if I could not avoid it, I would make sure to write something I didn't like so that I wouldn't care if it was critiqued.

Worst of all were the programs where one had to follow various rules to construct a paragraph: "Begin at least one sentence with an 'ly' word." "Add three vivid adjectives." "Avoid using these words." "Begin one sentence with a prepositional phrase." The results were equally painful to read or write.

The least unpleasant and most productive writing assignments in the early years were simple descriptions and narrations of real things. Although I kicked myself for the idea many times, a family newsletter that I started provided far better practice in writing than anything else we did in those days. Known as the Funny Farm Moooos (that was the name of our farm), it contained various only-slightly exaggerated accounts of our events for the amusement of distant relations. It remained in circulation for about fifteen years, although in later years it was only issued at Christmas.

Grammar workbooks (we mostly used A Beka) were pretty much a waste of time. What little information they conveyed didn't take multiple years of repetition to learn.

Somewhere about 10 or 11 I used a workbook called The Phenomenon of Language, which taught grammar and linguistics from the perspective of Latin. Perhaps it was just that I was getting to a more analytical age, perhaps it was the quirky drawings, perhaps it was the coolness of studying Latin, but that was my all-time favorite course.

I enjoyed the A Reason for Writing penmanship books (at least the way they were 20 years ago; I haven't seen the newer editions), mostly because the sentences, being Bible verses, were not as unspeakably trite as the standard handwriting books; also because of the cool final product pages we got to make at the end of the week. I will confess, however, that my handwriting, though legible, is far from elegant unless I am making a fancy card. It just never seemed important.

Our foreign language experience was highly eclectic. We started out with Spanish from when I was five to when I was eight or nine, because Mom had a friend from Colombia. Classes at Mrs. Johannsen's (her husband was not Colombian) house were one of the highlights of the week. She also taught us, and several other homeschooled youngsters, art. And they had a lovely tire swing.

Then the Johannsens moved to Florida, so we were left to find someone new. Eventually we discovered a lady at our church was an Italian raised in French-speaking Africa. We started with French, which I believe was the language of Mom's school days, but then had a  brief flirtation with Italian when my eldest brother married an Italian woman. They lived in Italy, though, so we had little occasion to speak it and went back, finally, to the more familiar Spanish with various tapes and CDs.

As I got older, there was the aforementioned Latin program, plus some standard Latin texts that I started but didn't get very far in. Due to our other curriculum choices, we studied the Greek alphabet and some rudimentary New Testament Greek.

In my mid-teens, a friend of mine found out about some Hebrew classes offered by a local Messianic synagogue. These were fantastic; the teacher mixed basic Hebrew instruction with ramblings on every theological and philosophical matter under the sun. I never got past the first half of the book, but I did learn the alphabet and basic grammar. And I would gladly go back to visit any chance I got.

This same friend and I tackled a video course in elementary Greek later on, but didn't finish it.

So, in sum, I have studied six different languages, and can't read, write, or speak any of them. I think I could pick up Spanish fairly quickly if I had the chance to use it. I at least know enough of the Biblical languages to use the standard reference works. I think human language is fascinating and adore reading things about linguistics.

I rather wish I had just stuck to one thing and learned it. But there's always time to try again.