The Big Brag Theory

Tim says these blogs are just brag forums. Okay, accepted. This is William, at Christmas, reading 'The Mad Scientist Club' book he got from Mummi Kay and Eno Brad. When the American teacher tested him in March, she had to find a different class for him to go to for reading. Apparently, it is important for peers to share books, and talk about them. She said he whizzed through first, second, and third was no problem, he is at a fourth grade reading level.
William loves his globe. He also loves his atlas. Although he called it an altas for a long time. He reads better than his knowledge, so we get fun pronunciations sometimes.
He also loves to play games. Cards, Mille Bourne, here it is Monopoly.
At one point, he had almost all the flags of the world done and on his bed with tape. Then, he took them down to put the country's name on them. Well, paper, tape, tangling... disaster to his self-motivated project. He just loves to read facts and look at the flags. He did get Thailand and Yugoslavia mixed up once. I sure wouldn't bet against him. I wouldn't go on that 'Are you smarter than a 5th grader' show, either!
He loves lists, and loves making them for me. Here, he is helping Tim pack up with his list.
William always has paper and colored pencils, crayons and markers. I have no idea where he got the idea from, but here's what's left of 'the cockpit.' Mom making the bed... okay, DAD making the bed (it's at height, and my arms aren't long enough) tore some of them down. Actually, I got a few TRYING to straighten his bed.
Oil gauge.
Direction and speed, I think.
Fuel gauge.
William at one point became obsessed with making money. He wanted to teach English to Japanese, just like me, so he could make money. I told him he had to teach things he knew.
ABCs, word class...
He even posted his prices!

He wants to go to all the countries in the world.

I suppose some of the brightness is mitigated by the fact that he would watch TOP GEAR non-stop if I let him. He's a bit obsessive.

To put this in perspective, let me tell you a story. A friend didn't want her children watching Sponge Bob at our house (that was William's last TV obsession) because she felt it was a bad influence. There's nothing like being told your taste in TV is sub-par. I've never minded Sponge Bob. I find him a pretty good friend and silly. A little lame, I'll admit, but I deemed it harmless. So, we spoke to him about cutting back on Sponge Bob. Then, William started popping up with French sayings, and words I'd never heard him use before. I wasn't sure where he was getting them from. This was before he was in American school, so I knew he wasn't getting them from Japanese school. I asked him, "Where did you learn that?" He said, "Sponge Bob, mom! I like watching Sponge Bob because I get new vocabulary from it!"

Now, I wasn't sure if that were true, or he is just smart enough to realize that we would trade new words for brain-dead TV.