Today the inevitable happened: my dad found my secret pile of English and French books!

Alright so I know it doesn't sound like a big deal, but the thing is I've been buying English books and French dictionaries + short novels to review what the word I know for about two years now, and I had been hiding them behind a box of clothes in my closet. Turns out while I was gone shopping with my mom my dad cleaned my closet up and found the pile of books!

When I entered my room and saw my dad with the books, I knew I was in for a long speech on spending too much or not saving money or whatever my dad wants to accuse me of. Instead, dad asked:

"Could you recite a bit of French for me?"

I was surprised. "Really? But why?" I found myself asking.

My dad looked at the French books and then back to me, and there was a strange new sparkle in his eyes. "You never told me you were learning French on your own. Could you talk in French for me?"

And so, I spent the next thirty minutes spouting random french sentences to my dad. He explained that even if my mom's first language was French, it had been years since he last heard her speak the language. As I translated sentences such as 'Her dress is red' or 'There are plates of bread on the table', an amazed smile graced his face.

My father is not the type to show his emotions on a regular basis, and so as my father listened to me in an awestruck manner, I felt like all the weeks I've spent pouring over french vocabulary paid off just to have this moment.

I then showed him the duolingo site, and he watched as I translated more sentences from French to English and the other way around (I am now 17% fluent in French, which for me is pretty darn awesome; constantly doing duolingo to reach at least 300 XP is really tiring!) and after a few questions he patted me on my shoulder and smiled at me. I could only guess that he is beside himself with joy at the thought that instead of me hoarding porn magazines or surfing the dark web, I'm trying to teach myself a foreign language.

"Will you tell mom?" I asked him.

He shook his head. "Let's wait until you reach 100% fluency before we tell mom," he said cheerfully. He then ruffled my hair and left the room, a bit of a bounce slightly evident in his walk.

Often I turn to duolingo whenever a bout of depressive thoughts hit me, but recently I've decided to try another anti-stress method: drawing on my bedroom wall.

Some weeks ago I was feeling rather down when the usual thoughts of my dreams never coming true would fill my mind and lead me to a dark spiral of bad thoughts. I was about to open my computer to go to duolingo for distractions, but then I noticed the blank wall. There are a few picture frames on the walls and one poster, but other than that it was painfully bare. The next thing I knew I had a marker in my hand and I was drawing on the wall.

– Luka, 14

Uploaded: January 13, 2016