Archery

Have you seen the movie Brave? The one with Princess Merida?

My favorite part of that movie is seeing her shoot arrows. I mean, it's SOOO cool. Imagine being able to ride horseback and shoot targets backwards. Or vault over a log while releasing a volley of arrows at your attackers.

OK. I have weird ideas. But still.



Doesn't she look independent and brave and sporty and smart and GAHHH.

Archery is also a very different sport. You aren't part of a team (like baseball or basketball or football). You aren't directly fighting somebody else (like fencing, which I do). It's you against yourself. In a way, it reminds me a lot of swimming. While other people might be beside you, they aren't directly involved in your performance.

Archery is also a very old sport. It traces back to the Romans, and the bow and arrow have been the weapon of choice for many civilizations- including the Mongols.



Sorry. That's kind of a BASIS World History joke (my class has problems).

If you live in Arizona and you want to try archery, visit http://archeryhq.com.

It can be dangerous and tiring and frustrating, but then again, so can every other sport.

Archery is an exciting sport that I really want to try before I die.

Learn A New Language (or 5)

I'm assuming that most of my readers are American, and as Americans, your primary language is English. It may not be your mother tongue, and it may not be the language your father speaks, but for you, it's the most comfortable. Your first words were probably in English.

And sometimes, you want more. Don't you want to be able to travel to China and speak fluent Mandarin with everybody there? Or French in Paris? Maybe Hindi in India?
I myself barely know like 2 languages. English and 1/3 Latin and 2/3 Hindi.
I know, I know. I'm a failure when it comes to multilingualism.
But you don't have to be.

First of all, the facts:
Mandarin, Spanish, English, and Hindi are the top four most spoken languages in the world.
French, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese are the most romantic languages (in polls).
Arabic, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean are the hardest languages for English-speakers to learn.

Now my rant:
You know those spy movies or books? Or City of Bones? Where the guy and/or girl knows like a BILLION languages and wherever they go, they're able to talk to everybody. And you're sitting there with the other main character in the novel/movie (i.e., Clary) wondering what is going on and trying to use your limited knowledge of Latin and Spanish and French to decipher what's going on. And it's so hot that the guy (i.e., Jace) knows every language known to man and alien. And then one day he's having a picnic with the girl and he says something romantic in Italian and AHHHHHH.




Yup. That's basically my life.

If there were three languages I could master rigt now, they would be Hindi, Italian, and Russian.

Russian also reminds me of spies. And Nikita. And secret princesses.

Anyways, I wish you luck in learning a language. The top program to learn a language is Rosetta Stone. I used one for Hindi for like a month and I guess it was OK.