Final Reflection:

I think the presentation on Tuesday was a success... more or less. I was a little disappointed that the majority of my spectators were vegetarians, it made my meal a bit of a bust, but I'm glad Arthur's dad liked them.
I feel like I've really learned a lot, maybe my presentation didn't show it but that's just because I get so flustered up there, I just forget everything. I learned a ton of simple Russian survival phrases and dinner manners but I completely forgot to hit on the way to order. UGH! Spasibo Day-tree mne pelmeni >> may I have some pelemeni. I also learned a lot of Russian dishes, I'll probably end up making ploshka sometime this summer, and really I am interested in visiting sometime. At least I would be if it wasn't so cold all the time.
Demonstrating what I have learned has been a problem from the beginning. I know the words and I know I've learned a lot but I don't really want to stand up there are rattle off a bunch of phrases so I don't and it looks like I've learned nothing. Quite a conundrum. I feel that if you talked to David he would tell you I was speaking it well, even if my vocabulary was somewhat lacking. I think I learned to speak it so well because I heard it in all the music and movies I listened to and watched. Even if I couldn't really understand the words I could hear the sounds and then mimic them.
As much as it pains me to say this I really would deny future independent studiers the option of studying a foreign language, I just don't see it as feasible. The distractions are too many and the rewards to few for a foreign language study to be done independently.
The most difficult part of this study for me was that I never really knew how well I was doing. I learned words but I could never really use them, I learned phrases but I had no idea if they were colloquial speech or cave-man talk. I guess thats the way it always is though, you never know how well you are speaking until you actually go to the country and speak to the natives.
On the presentation itself I really think I deserve no more than a B. I think I showed that I had learned a little but I did a bad job of showing that I had learned a lot. On the study itself I really can't say. I wish I had focused my study earlier, I wish I had bought a workbook earlier... I guess the study of studying would be an A. It was a lot harder this semester than last semester because I was less interested in this study but I think it was good practice for all of the things I will be forced to study in college.

I'd like to thank you for these last two years, you've been a really great teacher and have made me into a much better writer than I could ever imagine. Creative writing was a blast, both times, and my independent studies were fruitful because of your flexibility and help. Here's a link to my most recent bit of writing: http://jeremiahtaylor.blogspot.com/

Have a nice summer break and hopefully my brother will get a teacher as good as you when he goes through high school, he sure needs one.

on to new and different things,
Ben

Though I would like to be able to conjugate Russian verbs on my own the simple fact is that it is really hard to do and has been very time consuming up until now.
Thankfully the endless world wide web has supplied me with yet another tool to aid in my studies.

http://www.freetranslation.paralink.com/#

This is a free translator that includes in it a stickies like program that will actually say the word that is typed in. I showed this site to Arthur too since it includes a chinese translator as well.