Hang Out and Post

[:)Doc]

-pokes thread- is it dead? Nobody seems to be talking... :(

 

Really? I don't get high school credits and all that mess. :laughingsmiley:

[Wembly]

NO! Don't die thread! *takes out cardiac paddles* CLEAR! Oh wait, I don't have proper medical training for this, I guess I should just post to try to revive it :rolleyes_anim:

 

In other news summer is almost here but sadly the summer weather is not quite here <_<

[Tedhaun]

There's no way that this thread would die. (:

 

Such a sunny day this morning, and it's 63 degrees out in the sky, perfect walking weather if I say the least. :yes:

[Spritzie]

In other news summer is almost here but sadly the summer weather is not quite here <_<

 

I know the feeling. On Wednesday, early morning, it was raining like crazy. By noon, it was actually snowing. <_< Now it's back to being fairly warm.

[Iona]

Iona, are you in HS, or college?

 

At my HS, the required English credits to graduate made it so you had to take an English class every semester of all 4 years.

 

I'm in HS. And I'm doing "Highers" which are the Scottish qualifications needed to get into University. (England's equivalent are A levels, and I'm never sure about the USA's system - but I don't want to start an educational debate about the differences, had enough of them *lol*)

So after I get the results for these exams I can start applying for University. :) I could leave school this year but I'm choosing to stay for one more year and get more qualifications before I go to Uni.

 

I don't know what you mean when you talk about credits, sorry!

English was a subject that was compulsory until the end of this year. Next year I don't have to take it again but I could take it again if I wanted to resit it (to improve my existing grade)... or take the next level "Advanced Higher" if I wanted a better qualification in it.

 

And you guys graduate from HS... we don't do that here. We just have prom etc in our last (senior) year.

 

We only graduate from University.

 

Oh and, I did my English exams. They were awful. :/

[Spritzie]

I don't know what you mean when you talk about credits, sorry!

 

Each school year is divided into sections. There's semesters. (2 a year, first half of the year, and second half) and each semester is broken into 2 quarters. (The quarters aren't really important.)

 

But each semester/half a year of a class, is considered a credit. So there were 8 credits required for English. So you either had to take a English class every semester of every year, or take more than one some semesters.

 

They required like, 11 credits of electives, 4 credits of a foreign language, 4 credits of PE, 6 credits of math, etc. And you could only graduate once you fulfilled the credit requirements.

[IrishLiz]

Mine was about the same, but we only had to take one year of PE. Oh and there are a few extra credit requirements if you want to go to the university. I think for university, they want 4 years of math (8 credits), 3 years of science (6 credits), 2 years of history, more electives, 2 years of foreign language, etc.

 

We do credits at the university too but they're added up differently. I won't get into that right now - it can be confusing! Plus some universities break up terms differently, so they do different credits. So even just in the US, it can be confusing. :laughingsmiley:

[rachiee]

I think that I have to take either two or four years of PE in high school. I looked over my brother's course listing book (he's a grade ahead of me and we got it in the mail last year) and the only times PE was mentioned was under 9th and 12th grade. I believe that in 10th and 11th grade, you do team sports, health or something of that nature. Not sure how many credits that adds up to, I think I lost that book...

 

The high school I'm going to next year only requires three years of math, and one year of foreign language. (Honestly, I'm not entirely sure about the "one year of foreign language" thing- my brother is considering dropping Spanish before he starts 10th grade unless he fails his Regents. Whatever, I'm still going to take four years of foreign language because I'm pretty good at it :P)

[IrishLiz]

I ended up doing three years of foreign language (because I liked it :)). The third year was a dual enrollment class with a local community college, so I got one year of college credit for it, which was great.

 

Man, that much PE stinks. I'm glad we only had to do one year. It gets really hot here, so it's hard to do PE at the beginning and end of the school year.

 

 

So... I'm home sick for the third day in a row. :/ I went in this morning and was told to go home. :laughingsmiley: I have a cold and it just got to the coughing stage... I had a coughing fit, and I've been told by many people that I sound like I'm dying when that happens, so... now I'm home! haha.

[Iona]

Each school year is divided into sections. There's semesters. (2 a year, first half of the year, and second half) and each semester is broken into 2 quarters. (The quarters aren't really important.)

 

But each semester/half a year of a class, is considered a credit. So there were 8 credits required for English. So you either had to take a English class every semester of every year, or take more than one some semesters.

 

They required like, 11 credits of electives, 4 credits of a foreign language, 4 credits of PE, 6 credits of math, etc. And you could only graduate once you fulfilled the credit requirements.

 

Oh okay. That makes sense.

Thanks for the explanation XD

[Spritzie]

I never liked the credit system. You really had to plan ahead. And I was very against the foreign language one, mostly because the languages they offered were limited, and they didn't offer sign language.

 

While ASL isn't technically a "foreign" language, most people would get so much more use out of it after school, than the others, except Spanish (Spanish is the second largest language group here) or if you planned to travel somewhere where you would use it. My sister took German through out grade school, middle school and HS, and she's never used it.

[Iona]

Sign language would be an interesting one.

 

My dad's fluent in German, haha. I do Spanish and French at school; and I also go to Mandarin Chinese lessons on Saturdays. I love foreign languages and plan to continue with them at Uni.

[Spritzie]

I loved sign language. I taught myself most of it in 6th grade, because we had quite a few deaf kids in my grade, and I had 1 or 2 is most of my classes. I wanted to be able to talk with them.

 

I'm a visual learner though, so sign language was super, super easy for me. I tried learning Spanish, and it didn't go well at all. I just don't learn as well when something is so verbal.

[rachiee]

My school only offers French and Spanish, and the high school has Italian Club. That's pretty much it as far as I know of. :/

I really do want to learn other languages though- specifically, Italian, Spanish, Mandarin Chinese and ASL (if that counts). c:

[Iona]

Aww that's lovely, Spritz :)

 

A couple of Chinese people came to my school and couldn't speak a word of English. That's what motivated me to start going to Chinese School again last year. But I lack the confidence to speak it. I did try speaking to the Chinese girl who came to my school this year, but she just stared blankly at me with an awkward smile. According to the teachers she's really shy, for obvious reasons. I wrote her a note in Chinese instead and gave it to her. Now we just smile awkwardly in the corridors, she never wrote me a note back haha. She's a few years below me but I feel so sorry for her as she has nobody to talk to and no friends. I'm too embarrassed to talk to her now. My friends don't make it easy for me. They always point her out to me and demand I talk to her. Once they even tried to shove me into her so that I'd have to apologise....

[IrishLiz]

I took French, and I liked it a lot. I went to France, so I got to use it a bit, but when I was in Paris, as soon as I started speaking in French, I would get responses in English. I did have to use it in northern France though. The funny this is, now I need to know Spanish for my trips in central america.

 

I think asian languages are really difficult, because the structure is so different.

 

Spritzie, I wish I knew some ASL - I teach a kid's choir and I think it would be neat to have them do a song in sign language.

[Iona]

I took French, and I liked it a lot. I went to France, so I got to use it a bit, but when I was in Paris, as soon as I started speaking in French, I would get responses in English. I did have to use it in northern France though. The funny this is, now I need to know Spanish for my trips in central america.

 

I think asian languages are really difficult, because the structure is so different.

 

Woo, I've been to Paris too! Several times. ^^

Yeah, they get so many tourists so their English is usually awesome and they like to speak it, haha.

 

Good luck with Spanish! It's a lot easier to speak than French, in my opinion.

 

Yep. Though in some cases the structure is a lot simpler. (in a grammatical sense)

With Chinese, I find the hardest thing is that you can't guess how to say a word because the characters don't symbolise certain sounds. Unlike with the NATO phonetic alphabet which English uses, you cannot guess how to pronounce a word by simply looking at it.

[Spritzie]

I've always thought ASL was such a beautiful language. A girl I've known my whole life (her mom and my mom worked together before my parents had even met) started going to a sign language church a few years ago. I went with her a few times. It was really a cool experience. And now she's married to someone she met there who was an interpretor. (She actually got married almost exactly 6 months after me.)

 

I haven't actively used sign language in over 10 years, and I still remember a lot of it. (It helps that it's very visual, like how the sign for Cat is where you act like you're straightening whiskers.)

 

And it's been 12 years since I left middle school and even now, I'll run into some of the deaf kids I used to talk to, and they still remember me and invite me to do stuff with them.

[Tedhaun]

I never really took a lot of language classes, only had Spanish and Portuguese (and French, I think) in middle school, that's it.

I may want to learn how to speak Malay and Vietnamese someday, since I have Neofriends that reside in Malaysia and Vietnam.

[:)Doc]

Each school year is divided into sections. There's semesters. (2 a year, first half of the year, and second half) and each semester is broken into 2 quarters. (The quarters aren't really important.)

 

But each semester/half a year of a class, is considered a credit. So there were 8 credits required for English. So you either had to take a English class every semester of every year, or take more than one some semesters.

 

They required like, 11 credits of electives, 4 credits of a foreign language, 4 credits of PE, 6 credits of math, etc. And you could only graduate once you fulfilled the credit requirements.

 

Ohhhhh! That never made sense to me until I read that.

 

Sometimes you just gotta dumb it down for me people ;)

[IrishLiz]

Woo, I've been to Paris too! Several times. ^^

Yeah, they get so many tourists so their English is usually awesome and they like to speak it, haha.

 

Good luck with Spanish! It's a lot easier to speak than French, in my opinion.

 

Yep. Though in some cases the structure is a lot simpler. (in a grammatical sense)

With Chinese, I find the hardest thing is that you can't guess how to say a word because the characters don't symbolise certain sounds. Unlike with the NATO phonetic alphabet which English uses, you cannot guess how to pronounce a word by simply looking at it.

Oh thanks! The thing is, I can't roll my r's, so they were teasing me about that the whole time I was there for my last trip. They also do a single rolled r that's similar to how we do a "d" in English... I can't do that either. XD It's interesting because their Spanish has a very different accent from the Northern Mexican accent I'm used to hearing here in Arizona. My other problem with Spanish is that I think of the French equivalent first and then have to wrack my brain to remember what it is in Spanish. o_O

 

I've always thought ASL was such a beautiful language. A girl I've known my whole life (her mom and my mom worked together before my parents had even met) started going to a sign language church a few years ago. I went with her a few times. It was really a cool experience. And now she's married to someone she met there who was an interpretor. (She actually got married almost exactly 6 months after me.)

 

I haven't actively used sign language in over 10 years, and I still remember a lot of it. (It helps that it's very visual, like how the sign for Cat is where you act like you're straightening whiskers.)

 

And it's been 12 years since I left middle school and even now, I'll run into some of the deaf kids I used to talk to, and they still remember me and invite me to do stuff with them.

That's really neat! A friend of mine has a sibling that is deaf, so everyone in her family signs. I think it can be really beautiful. That's neat that you can still remember it. I used to go to a church with an interpreter because there was one family that went there that was deaf. I think it's neat that they had an interpreter for just that one family.

[Spritzie]

That's really neat! A friend of mine has a sibling that is deaf, so everyone in her family signs. I think it can be really beautiful. That's neat that you can still remember it. I used to go to a church with an interpreter because there was one family that went there that was deaf. I think it's neat that they had an interpreter for just that one family.

 

I still find myself signing certain things, like to certain words of songs. I used to do that a lot.

 

My dad wanted to learn sign language because his hearing is going. He had a lot of ear infections when he was a kid, so his hearing was damaged and now, if he's somewhere with a lot of background noise, or a lot of people, he has a hard time, and resorts to lip reading. But for it do any good, me and my mom would have to do it as well, otherwise he'd lose what he learned.

 

I've meet some really amazing deaf people. One woman from my friend's church was partly deaf and blind. So to help her at meetings, she'd sit right in front of a TV screen. (They had TVs through out the church so that everyone could see if they weren't close enough to see the people actually signing.) And then there was one man that was totally blind and deaf, so he had his own interpreter that would sign under his hands. And one woman had actually lost an arm, so she could only sign with one arm.

[Lemur]

I still find myself signing certain things, like to certain words of songs. I used to do that a lot.

 

My dad wanted to learn sign language because his hearing is going. He had a lot of ear infections when he was a kid, so his hearing was damaged and now, if he's somewhere with a lot of background noise, or a lot of people, he has a hard time, and resorts to lip reading. But for it do any good, me and my mom would have to do it as well, otherwise he'd lose what he learned.

 

I've meet some really amazing deaf people. One woman from my friend's church was partly deaf and blind. So to help her at meetings, she'd sit right in front of a TV screen. (They had TVs through out the church so that everyone could see if they weren't close enough to see the people actually signing.) And then there was one man that was totally blind and deaf, so he had his own interpreter that would sign under his hands. And one woman had actually lost an arm, so she could only sign with one arm.

 

I've always wanted to become fluent in sign language. I've learned some songs in sign language though and that has been kind of cool. I think the sign language used in Australia is quite different from in American though :-(

[Wembly]

The only sign language I know are things that would not really help to have an actual conversations with like random words such as "giraffe" "prison" "baby" "rotten" "bug" "skunk" :whistle:

[:)Doc]

I know two sign language gestures and neither are really appropriate :rolleyes_anim: