Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, everybody!

Things I learned in 2008, one for each month:
I can write in French.
I can write in Spanish.
When you are given a life jacket, put it on.
Rejoice in your small victories.
Public school is not private school, and it is definitely not home school.
People don't know much about home schoolers.
The strangest things make you friends with a person.
Reading for fun is what is going to make me continue to enjoy reading.
NaNo is an even crazier mission than I thought.
Ask the seniors; they generally know what's going on.
I no longer have a buzzer phobia.
There are a lot of problems with the public school system.

I'm looking at those, and I realize that though I say there is one for each month of the year, most of these I learned within the past four months -- the four months of school that I have had. Actually, the only one not from those months is the first. That I learned in June.

I'm sure I learned something in the first half of the year, and I'm sure they were important lessons. Things like "you have to choose" and "working hard pays off" and "the unexpected that sounds bad can be the best possible thing to happen" and "goodbyes are hard but necessary." And -- oh yes -- "New can be good," in reference to the new NaNo regulars. But these past four months have been so interesting that 11 of my 12 had to come from there.

So, with that thought...
Merry Christmas, everyone.