School plans... ugh!

Well, I guess its that time of year again. Mom's been working out our assignment lists and boy do they ever look impressive. I'll post mine here and link to Mom's blog so that you can read my sibling's lists.

Here's mine: (the asterisks stand for credits earned when completed)



Bible and Worldview
*(Hebrews to Revelation)
Church history review
Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, The Universe Next Door, Seven Men Who Rule the World from the Grave, The Deadliest Monster, Postmodern Times and parts of Beyond Opinion
Reformed faith classes

English
*BJUP British Literature
The Roar on the Other Side by Suzanne Rhodes (poetry)
Classics to accompany history (1500 to present), with reports
Two science biographies or other science books, with in-depth reports
Wordsmith Craftsman, partially
*Rod and Staff Building Christian English 9/10
Elements of Style

Math
Finish New Additional Math from Singapore
*Calculus and/or statistics (university texts and ALEKS)
University of Waterloo Math competition and preparation
Corporate accounting (ALEKS)

Sciences
*Advanced Chemistry (Apologia and ALEKS)
*Advanced Physics (Apologia)
*Anatomy and Physiology of Large Animals (yes, this is a vet course, but she really wanted to do this for advanced biology. She will need to learn background material as well. I think I’ll grade it by having her do a report or a hands-on project for each chapter. She has at least two job shadowing days planned with vets, so that will help. If this becomes too challenging, we will change our plans.)

History
*Second half of Spielvogel’s The Human Odyssey, including map work
Read relevant Truth Quest guides and do the assignments
Read and report on classic literature from the time period
Two essays
Time line work

French
*Finish BJUP French 2,
*French Three Years from AMSCO
Rosetta Stone Levels 2 and 3
Various readings
Speak with co-workers

Dutch
Finish Rosetta Stone level 2
Visit the Netherlands
Read novels and nonfiction
*Finish Hugo’s Dutch in Three Months and then begin Taking Dutch Further (if I can get a copy) or some other intermediate level grammar book.

Greek
Finish Elementary Greek 2, an unfinished commitment from the past(1/2 credit)

The Arts
Music: organ as well as flute, guitar, or fife
Picture Study

Physical Activity
Judo: work on brown belt

Other
Work on dairy farm, full time September and October, part time for the rest of the year
Trip to Netherlands, December
Gary North’s Study Habits (free download at garynorth.com)
Prep and write SAT
Apply to universities and scholarships (This means I need to get transcripts and reports finished!!)
Puppy training


How will I ever finish that in six months? - most of the first term will be spent in Manitoba and the Netherlands-so really I feel overwhelmed already!!!

Anyways, you can read about the rest of the family's school plans here.

...Enter Puppy Number 2!

-Meet Rex! He is a Border Collie/Lab cross. He's a week younger than Chester, which makes him 8 weeks old today. He's very playful and loves to have attention. Both puppies get along very well, which is nice for all involved ;-)

Chester

Hi Everyone, meet Chester! He is the newest member of our menagerie - at least for the next few minutes, until Dad goes out to get Rex. I got him yesterday, on his 8 week old birthday. Since Vic and I had been fencing all day, we figured we'd like to go out for supper. When we found out that Mom and Dad were going to a Shakespeare play, we decided to take all the kids. So the five of us went out to a little Chinese restaurant in a nearby town. Afterwards we went to pick up my puppy. We spent almost an hour on the farm playing with all the puppies and doing paperwork and just chatting with the breeder. Then we drove to the farm(where I work) and showed him off to my boss and his family. It was past 9 o'clock when we finally got home with him and then we had to figure out where exactly he was going to spend the night. We had been sooooo busy with fencing that we hadn't exactly had the time to set up his pen.

So I slept in a tent with the puppy! It got a little interesting during the thunderstorm - Chester really didn't like that. It got even more interesting at about 3 am when he decided that he had had enough sleep and started climbing all over me and chewing on my nose and fighting with my blanket.

Now he is quite attached to that tent; and, as you can see in the picture above, he likes to sleep curled up close to it.

And now off we go to get Rex!!!

...from farm work to school work...

Second cut is done. The fence is fixed -somebody caught the rake on the fence and took out quite a sizable bit... (that somebody wasn't me!) and I have at least 2 days off, maybe 4! Don't get me wrong here. I love working on the farm. Its amazing and I learn so much, but I haven't had a decent night's sleep for a WEEK! and I'm tired.

'out of the frying-pan and into the fire' ...from farm work to school work... Chemistry, English, French, Dutch(for my Holland trip) and an online course will keep me very busy for the remaining weeks of summer. My goal is to get far enough ahead is those subjects so that when I go to Manitoba in the fall and Holland in the winter I won't fall too far behind.

My goals for tomorrow are to write a Chemistry test and an English test and to finish 2 assignment for English. I also want to sign up for the online course and work on some French. Will that actually happen? I really don't know. It is possible... I think!

On the weekend I'll be getting a puppy. His name is Chester and he will be 8 weeks old on Friday. He is a purebred Border Collie and very cute. Mom and Dad are also getting a puppy this weekend. Their puppy's name is Shaggy (at least that's what he's called now). He is a Border Collie/Lab cross and is also 8 weeks old.

Thanks to all you who have left comments or emailed me... I enjoy hearing from you!

A Passport... finally!

Finally, after over ten years of not being able to leave the country, I applied for a passport. It was surprisingly easy: get 2 pictures, fill out the form(the online printable version makes it a breeze), and get someone to be your guarantor and sign the form and one of the pictures.

Ok, that wasn't so bad, but I didn't have great hopes for my time at the passport office. Well, they surprised me. I was in and out in a little over 15 minutes! Now all I have to do is wait for it to come in the mail!

And that's one more thing crossed off on my "To Do Before Going to the Netherlands" list.

Our Darling Buddy!

Buddy

Just recently we got a second dog to be a companion to our Buddy(a border collie cross). Her name is Hanna and she's ten years old. She is a purebred Australian Shepherd. I don't have a picture of her because, for 10, she's very, very active.

Robots

Recently I have been having quite a few discussions both on online forums and in person about Robotic Milking. I have been priviledged to work with Lely robots and have developed a huge facination for that type of thing. Below are two videos, one of Lely's Astronaut A3 and one of DeLaval's VMS. Enjoy!

School's Out!

Now that I have finished school for the year, I'll have more time to work (and ocasionally bring my sisters to the farm with me), to preserve, to care for our 2 day old meat chicks, to practice organ, flute, guitar, classical recorder and fife, and to just relax. Hopefully I'll either pick up Judo again for the summer or start my childhood dream of taking horseback riding lessons! One other thing I'll be doing is figuring out how this whole blogging thing works, so bear with me as I stumble around...