School subjects make for fun conversations.

I was at a late start-of-the-school-year homeschool picnic all day -- the one that was scheduled for the day hurricane Ike hit. I ate my fill, played volleyball and cornhole a bit, and overall had a good time. What I enjoyed most, though, was chatting with some other teens -- about school. We discussed science (one girl was working on biology homework at the time), teachers, languages, etc. When the topic of Latin classes came up, and we were complaining about the memorization of what declensions do what, I was able to share the creation of the phrase "Latina avibus est," which translates to "Latin is for the birds." (I gave up on learning Latin shortly after my dad came up with that.) I talked a bit about Mr. H's classes (theology, logic, philosophy, and ethics) and how they come together, the past knowledge getting better and clearer when you take the next course. For the laughs, I mentioned how I gave him the answer for something once and he asked how I knew it was true, to which I replied, "You told me." His response was, "Oho! This is philosophy class; that won't work any more!!" That led to the discussion of teachers, their personalities, and so forth. So many people don't enjoy school, but I find it to be a great subject for ice-breaking conversations.