To Begin...

I am someone who is deathly afraid of not being taken seriously, of not being heard because I sound insincere or trite. This is the reason I don't usually share what I'm thinking. I also don't share my thoughts because they seem to contradict themselves quite a bit. I believe this is because I'm still figuring things out...something I'll be doing for a very very long time to come.

I've done a lot of growing up the past couple of years, and realized a lot of things. Life has jaded me quite a bit, and I'm better for it, but maybe also bitter. I feel too young to be bitter, but at the same time, it fits. I'll move out of it though. I always do. There's always more.
I've changed in a lot of ways, in that I don't go so much for appearances anymore or try to keep up pretense. I've realized that there are some things that just don't matter anymore. There are some things, though, that matter a lot. My family is one of them. Jamie is another. Then there's
learning and literacy. These two things are my major pursuits in life. The two differ in that learning is taking in information, literacy is retaining and using it. These are my passions. The way I access them is through books, one of my great loves in life. I discontinued taking university courses because they didn't suit my learning style. Now I am pursuing a degree by learning at home by myself with my books, until I learn the material to the point that I can test out of it. I've always loved reading and taking tests, so this is the perfect way for me to get where I want to be! It will take some time...but less money in the long run really.

Another one of my passions is language. I'm currently learning Latin, which, purportedly, is a good language to start with because all of the Romantic languages spring from it. The next language I would like to learn is Italian, then Spanish. I have a whole long list of languages to learn. My desire is to learn the primary language of every country I plan to visit. I think this desire sprang from living in Yosemite. See, many people come here from all over the world, and everyone that I've encountered knows at least a little English, but the majority of people are fluent. This impressed me a great deal, seeing that if I went to a Spanish-speaking country, I may be able to get by, but barely. In any other country(except England), I'd be absolutely, hopelessly uncomprehending and inarticulate. The fact that almost every other major country in the world takes time to learn English and teach their children spoke volumes to me and made me realize that I should pay exactly the same tribute to these other peoples and their languages. So thus was born the resolve to learn the language of every country I ever plan to visit...which is, naturally, all of them lol. Not quite, but pretty much. I'd like to visit at least every continent but ideally MANY countries within. This is because people fascinate me beyond words. Well, I'm a little disenchanted with Caucasian Americans as a whole, but that's probably because I've been around so many for so long, and as far as I can tell, most are pretty predictable. The culture seems somewhat static from place to place. This may also be true of other countries and peoples, but I want to experience them first-hand just to be sure. Another thing, accents have endless appeal to me. A person is automatically more interesting to me (shallow though it may be) if they have a British, Irish, Australian or Scottish accent, not to mention German. I think accents of this nature are sooo catching. I have the dream of someday aquiring an Irish accent. I plan to live a year or two in Ireland at some point, essentially just for this purpose. But, then again, my plans for travel are endless. I just hope there's enough life for me to do it all in.