Welcome! I took both Latin and French back in High School. I was having major trouble with first-year Math and took another language class in my Sophomore year, concentrating on Elementary Algebra by itself in the following summer. I've studied Irish (Gaeilge) informally with a local study group, but the group has disbanded. I don't think I'll be able to make progress by myself, so I'm looking for another study group.
ETA: I don't know that I'm a "very discriminating" fan of science fiction, but I often get bored or turned off by the frequent violence. There is so much that could be written about besides interplanetary warfare, although that topic certainly has possibilities for stories. (Then again, maybe interspecies warfare would be more like something Carl Sagan(?) once said: two species from different planets would probably be so far apart technologically that, if warfare DID occur, it wouldn't be a contest. One episode of "Star Trek: Next Generation" actually did take this view: Data convinced the humans who had mistakenly colonized a planet in a more advanced race's territory that they had only two choices: 1) leave, or 2) be exterminated. And in another episode of the Original Series, the highly-advanced Organians finally got tired of the Federation and Klingons squabbling in Organian territory, and basically told both races that they'd be sent to their rooms if they didn't learn how to behave. YYYYESSSSS!)
