(Arguably Professional) Experience

Bane of the cross country team

Hi! If you're viewing this page, I'm going to guess that you want to know a bit about what I've actually done.

You've probably viewed the other pages of this webpage, and thought, "Does he have any redeeming qualities?" The answer is, I hope you'll find, a resounding YES! Below are some of my experience/achievements, arranged into categories.

Classes

Below is a table that lists many of the classes I've taken in school. Italics indicates that I will be taking the course next semester, and underlined courses are courses I plan to take in the coming years. Bold indicates that I am currently taking the course.

Math Science English History Foreign Language
Pre-algebra 7th Grade Science 7th Grade English 7th Grade History Spanish I
Algebra I 8th Grade Science 8th Grade English 8th Grade History Spanish II
Geometry Biology English I World History Latin I
Algebra II Chemistry Newspaper Journalism Civics and Government Spanish III
Precalculus Newspaper Journalism II Spanish IV
AP Calculus AB Newspaper Journalism III AP Spanish V
English II

Computer Experience

I've had a bit of experience with computers, as have most Shodor apprentices. I began learning the BASIC programming language when I was nine years old from a book called "Beginning Programming for Dummies". I have created various applications in BASIC and in C++, such as the Sudoku solver pictured below.
Sudoku solver

Foreign Language

I enjoy learning foreign languages, and have recently been working on four of them. The table below shows my progress.

Language Description Method Progress Status
Spanish Until this year, I was learning Spanish Spanish, but now I am learning Latin American. School -- I'm in my 5th year of Spanish classes. I'm doing well--I can read novels in Spanish (with a dictionary) and can hold simple conversations. I still need work with my listening comprehension. I'm taking Spanish III this semester.
Chinese I am learning Mandarin Chinese. The pronunciation and tones are hard, but the grammar is surprisingly simple. There are no conjugations or any word form changes. You just string the words together in a sentence. At first, I used Pimsleur. Now I am using the Foreign Service Institute's course, "Standard Chinese", available from this website. I can say basic sentences with bad pronunciation. I only have a small vocabulary. I am still learning Chinese, but is has been put on hold for a while because of school...
Latin The dead language...what more is there to say? School -- I took Latin I last semester. I learned a lot about grammar, but cannot speak Latin without translating in my head first. Reading is hard, because the way Latin is taught, you have to look for the different parts of a sentence, identify their noun declensions, etc. before figuring out what it means. I stopped taking Latin classes in January.
Esperanto The "universal language". Made in the 1800's by a Pole, it now sports about 2 million speakers worldwide. Lernu.net, a website for teaching Esperanto. They've got great courses there to help you get started (and finished) learning Esperanto. It's such a simple language, that after a few hours of study and a dictionary, I could hold a conversation with a man in Denmark over the internet. The grammar was designed to be easy. I can still read pretty well, but my Esperanto has deteriorated due to lack of speakers to practice with.

Biology

Under Construction

Happy Month of March!

Alex Lew