Community Chat

[CANDLEQUEEN]

Algebra for sure.. I think schools would have been better off teaching, how to balance a checkbook, how to save money-basic banking skills!

[River Song]

I took four years of French and barely passed as I am not blessed with an affinity for languages.  After high school, I went to Germany for a month with my family and took a crash course in conversational German as nobody in Germany spoke English, at least where we were.   Never did use French although I can still count to ten in French, lol.  Now living in Florida, I sure wish I had taken Spanish!

[River Song]

I really liked Home Ec classes.  My Mom started teaching me how to knit, crochet and do needlework at a very young age.  Then she started teaching me to sew and I already knew how to use a sewing machine by the time I got to Junior High School.  I made all my own clothes in high school.  When I was small, my Mom made all my Easter outfits including the coats.  

I also learned to bake, cookies first, then cakes and pies, then bread.  In our house, there was always a dessert after dinner.  I learned to cook by watching my Mom.  When I was in high school, my Mom got a job at a department store selling sewing machines and giving sewing machine lessons.  So, I would start making dinner when I got home from school because I got home earlier than she did.  Learning to cook was a necessity if we wanted to eat dinner at a decent hour.

[qualitygal]

Science, never had occasion to have to cut up a frog in this life.

Or soap carvings, come to think of it.  LOL

[SandySparkles]

@Elodie2 

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@Elodie2 wrote:

@SandySparkles  I took 2 years of high school French and have forgotten much of it.  We had a great teacher  who said mon Dieu a lot.  She made it fun.

A la bibliotheque has always stuck with me for some reason.

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I can certainly relate.😁

~~~All we need is LOVE💖

[Kitty Galore]

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@CelticCrafter wrote:

Algebra.  Barely eeked by and that was with the help of a tutor.

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@CelticCrafter  oh I hear you I that one ,  same here !

[KatieB]

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@eadu4 wrote:

@KatieB @I have a degree in journalism so I'm quite aware of the connection of words and their Latin origins.  I thought it would come in far handier but it never really did.  Even when I took Mass Communication Law.  And the Christmas carols I definitely had zero use for.  There have been zero karaoke versions at any Christmas party I went to.  😂

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@eadu4    I really don't even know what you're talking about unless you're referring to yourself singing some kind of Christmas carol in Latin, which made no sense to me to begin with.   Many legal terms come straight from Latin.  Knowing Latin definitely came in handy for me, but I didn't use the language to sing Christmas carols.

[sunshine45]

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@KatieB wrote:

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@eadu4 wrote:

@KatieB @I have a degree in journalism so I'm quite aware of the connection of words and their Latin origins.  I thought it would come in far handier but it never really did.  Even when I took Mass Communication Law.  And the Christmas carols I definitely had zero use for.  There have been zero karaoke versions at any Christmas party I went to.  😂

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@eadu4    I really don't even know what you're talking about unless you're referring to yourself singing some kind of Christmas carol in Latin, which made no sense to me to begin with.   Many legal terms come straight from Latin.  Knowing Latin definitely came in handy for me, but I didn't use the language to sing Christmas carols.

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@KatieB 

@eadu4 

oh we definitely learned some christmas carols and songs in other languages and sang them in music class and for holiday concerts...... adeste fideles (latin), o tannenbaum (german), frere jacques (french).....i am sure there were more. i was a music person and enjoyed it!

[LuvSoCal]

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@spumoni99 wrote:

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@EastCoastGal wrote:

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@spumoni99 wrote:

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@EastCoastGal wrote:

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@spumoni99 wrote:

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@EastCoastGal wrote:

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@spumoni99 wrote:

Pascal programming, I don't think I used Cobol programming either.  I guess I learned the concepts of programming but never used those two languages.

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@spumoni99 ... l had to look up both of these because l never heard of them. You learned these in high school? ( l forgot if Pezzie said high school.)

You must be a lot younger than I am. I'm 75...

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No these were college, but it didn't specifically say high school.  I'm surprised you haven't heard of Cobol?  It was used a lot when I was working, just not my job.  I did use fortran which ironically I didn't learn in college. Cobol just sticks out in my mind because my teacher was so tough and I remember spending entire weekends in the computer lab at school, my husband bringing me food because I didn't dare leave my station, someone else would take it.

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@spumoni99 ... In high school l learned typing on a manual typewriter. Didn't use a computer until the 20th year of being a secretary! I didn't go to college because l lived in a small town and the city was an hour away.

I remember my business teacher when l was a senior wanted me to go to business school but l explained to him what l just told you. He said verbatim "You're never going to get a good secretarial job unless you go to business school." When l was getting ready to leave to go to my 20-year reunion, my Dad said "If your business teacher is there...tell him who you work for."

He was at the reunion and l reminded him what he said to me and l told him I was the secretary to the second highest man in the school district... the Director of Secondary Education...and he requested me to transfer to his office because my high school reports were always perfect !! All this teacher said was "Well that's good." Raspberries to you teacher!! Told my Dad and he laughed. 

Like l said, l didn't go to college and I'm 75 so l still don't know what Pascal and Cobol programming are...even after googling them. Never even read those names anywhere. I was a Senior Stenographer in a school district so l didn't have a need to learn them.

Actually, this is the first time I've ever heard these mentioned !!

You also mentioned "Fortran"... Never heard of that either! 

l retired 20 years ago at age 55... worked 36 years. 

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I just retired this past December, I worked with mainframe computers, those languages were kind of specialized to that.  My mom was a secretary and she did stenography and short hand, I remember she went to night school to learn short hand.  I think its very possible to have a good job without college, I worked for the government and a degree was a requirement for advancing so I went back to school while working.  We tried to have kids for 9 years to have kids so I had the time.

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@spumoni99 ... Yes. Your line of work was very different than mine. No wonder I never heard of those programmings! I think because I really wanted to be a secretary and took all the courses in high school, my secretarial jobs came very easy to me. I remember in shorthand we started out with a large class but only 19 of us lasted! Very Strict teacher. When we had a brief forms test we either got 100% or zero! 

Mine was a state job... New York state tier one. I was really lucky to be on that tier. I received the best benefits. 

How many years did your Mom work as a secretary?

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My mom worked for the state of CA and so did I.  I think she must have worked for at least 25 to 30 years, she retired a bit early because she had really bad arthritis her entire life, she would walk on crutches to the bus stop to ride a bus downtown.  I really appreciate that now, didn't so much when I was young.  She passed away in 2019 at 71.  I retired after 37 years with the state.  My mom had rheumatic fever as a child and had rheumatoid arthritis, my dad helped out a lot with the harder physical things around the house, I started cooking dinner in sixth grade.  She never asked me I just enjoyed cooking and wanted to help out.

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@spumoni99 I retired in 2015 after 38 yrs with the state of California (mid-management with one of the larger agencies). How fortunate are we?

I'm sorry your mom's life was so challenging from such a very young age. 

[eadu4]

@sunshine45 Thank you!!!  yes we did.  It was her way of trying to make learning Latin "fun".  So she taught us Christmas carols in Latin.  Doing declensions in Latin was long and boring.  So on the holiday she tried to make it more fun.   I'm not sure what @KatieB  did not understand about that.  And yes we thought it was weird, but we learned them, because it beat doing the declesions. 

       The OP asked us to name something you learned that you had no use for.  Latin was one I had.  I never had the opportunity to "sing" those Latin Christmas carols she taught.  I am glad someone "used" Latin in their life.  I did not find it helpful.  I'm sure if I went on to become a lawyer or a doctor I might have found the Latin I learned more useful but in my life I did not.