Tuesday 9/22 and Wednesday 9/23 {Beginning of School!!}

It happened! School started! I wasn't really looking forward to it at first (for totally legit reasons), but I've actually really enjoyed it so far. Some friends of mine just started this year, so expect to see some new people in here often. :P My general policy is to use initials for those under 18, and names for those over, unless they've asked me to do otherwise. I'm using 1st and last initials for most people, except for C, who I've been calling that long enough that it would be confusing to switch now.

Tuesday!

1. I got up at 6am (ugh), took a shower, and got dressed and ready. I grabbed a granola bar to eat later (I get nausous when I try to eat that early in the morning.), and caught the bus to WCC. I was there early, so I got some tea from the Kulshan coffee cart, and then waited until I could go to my math class.

2. Math went well. It was mostly just the syllabus day. Almost the entire 50 minutes was spent talking about the schedule, grading, books, etc.

3. I had an hour off, during which I met up with JC (it was his first day at WCC), and helped him find his classroom. I then hung out for a while before heading to philisophy.

4. My Intro to Religions class was also good. I think our teacher is sorta crazy, but I like him. He seems tough, but I think overall it'll be an easy class. The grade is based off of take-home reading quizes and a few (3 or 4?) essays, two of which are more like outlines.

5. I headed to meet up with people in Syre. We hung out in the Interculteral Center for a while before moving to a bench down the hall where C and I spent a ton of time last spring. JC and HW were there, plus C and I.

6. JC and C both headed to classes, then HW and I wandered around for a while. We checked out the new gym (which is super fancy), and then I took the bus to Barkely.

7. My mom picked me up and took me to an appointment I had. After that, we headed for my dad's, where we had steak for dinner.

8. I came home, watched Lost, took a shower, read The Time Traveler's Wife, and went to bed, totally exhausted.

Wednesday!

1. Got up a little later (showering at night gives me that ability), around 6:20, then got ready and took the bus to school. I got to school even earlier (I took the 7:20 bus today, while I took the 7:35 yesterday), and sat around tiredly for a while.

2. Went to Math class. After that, I ran into Ken at the bookstore while I was buying pens. I then got tea at the cafeteria, and hung out with Lydia for an hour before Philosophy.

3. Philosphy consisted of watching a movie about this guy named Thomas Berry who believed that the age of humans is ending, and the age of ecological reconstruction must neccessarily begin, and that this is in part because of the Judeo-Christian tradition. It's complicated. You can google him if you want to actually know more about it.

4. Directly after that I had my first German class. It was a little weird, since I've never taken a foreign language class before, but it was fun. I think I'll like that class.

5. After class, I met up with C and JC and talked for a while til C had to go to class. I hung out with JC for a while and downloaded Hearthstone (which took 35 minutes to download on the school wifi).

6. JC left for parkday, and I read my philosphy textbook for a while til C's math class ended. At that point, I briefly saw him (I yelled at him down the hallway) and then Jake, who I've known since last year, and who is also in C's math class, came over to where I was sitting and hung out with me for a few hours. We chatted about our parent's divorces, dating, friends, our futures, etc. Normal stuff.

7. At four, I went to a WWU personal statement writing workshop. It was aimed mostly at transfer students, so a lot of it wasn't applicable to me, but there was some useful stuff.

8. Mom and Isabelle picked me up and we went home and ate tacos. I took a shower and did some math reading, then watched Lost, read The Time Traveler's Wife, and went to bed.

At the time of writing, not all of those things have happened yet, but it seems unlikely that they will not. If things changed, you will be duly notified. :P

August 30 - September 5, 2015

Sunday, August 30th

Sunday morning, we woke up and there was power! Yay! Mom tried to clean up the tree debris a bit, then we went to pick up my friend HW. Mom dropped us both off at NV's house. For a few hours, we played some games (including The Resistence!) with N and his brother and his brother's friends. Then the three of us hung out for a while and chatted about stuff. I love hanging out with them, but there were a few moments when I distinctly noticed the fact that I was the only girl there. It doesn't bother me to hang out with boys all the time, and most of my closest friends are boys, but there are rare moments where I feel a little out of place. 

Carolyn picked H and I up and dropped me at the house where I was babysitting. For the next three hours, I played with the kids, then the dad dropped me off at my house. When I got there, Lydia was there! The Winslows still didn't have power, so she was staying at our house.

Monday, August 31st

I got up and didn't do much for most of the morning. I did some random chores around the house, read, played some games on the computer. Lydia and I went to the library to volunteer at 3. When we were done there, we walked downtown to get drinks at Cafe Adagio, then took a bus back to Haggen, where mom picked us up. Because the Winslows still were out of power, Lydia stayed another night.

Tuesday, September 1st

Again, a pretty boring day. Lydia left in the early afternoon. 

Wednesday, September 2nd

The morning was pretty slow. I went to park day, where there was a torrential rain storm, thunder, and lightening. That was exciting.

Thursday, September 3rd

The morning was again rather quiet. In the afternoon, we went to our dad's house for dinner. We had some left over cake, since it was our step-brother's birthday on Wednesday. 

Friday, September 4th

We spent the morning cleaning up all the debris from the tree. We hauled a bunch of stuff in our neighbor's trailer to a place the city had set up for people to dump storm debris. We went to Boomer's for lunch, then came home to do stuff around the house. Mom and I went to WCC to buy books before realizing they aren't open on Fridays in the summer (augh!). None of us were at all hungry for dinner, so we just ate popcorn while watching Lost.

Saturday, September 5th

The guy who was doing our carpet came back to finish. I was at YARC, where we had pizza and cake, because it's our one year anniversary! Mom couldn't come pick me up til the carpet guy left, so I had to wait for another hour and a half after the meeting ended. On the bright side, I read 135 pages of the book I got! It's super fantastic.

Wednesday August 5, 2015 {Rainy Frozen Yogurt}

1. In the morning, we had Latin class. My students are making a lot of progress, which is exciting for me to watch. :)

2. We translated a few more sentences of Harry Potter back into English. It's been tricky to balance that to make it interesting for my students, without having it be painfully slow, which, to be honest, it pretty much already is. I know it's helping my Latin a lot though, and I can see H and I picking up vocabulary and grammar, even if they do find it boring some of the time.

3. We were dragging our feet going to park day, cause it was cold and rainy, so after texting several of my friends, and realizing only one of them was going to go, L and I decided to skip park day and get frozen yogurt instead.

4. Hanging out with L was great. I haven't been hanging out with any of my friends all that much since school ended, so it was great to catch up. We discussed the biggest pieces of gossip from the Bellingham homeschool group, and talked a lot about random stuff.

5. I went home, ate dinner (fried rice), watched Gravity Falls, read Frankenstein, and went to bed.

July 14-20 {Another Catchup post}

This is becoming a theme lately... Hopefully it won't continue too long. Here is what I did this week:

Tuesday 7/14

We had homeschool academy week 2 this day. Grace and I taught Geology together, then Spencer did math, Grace did Improv, and I did Irish dance. I took or taught all the classes this week, which was honestly a little too long of a day. Next week I might take a break for a while in the middle somewhere.

Wednesday 7/15

On Wednesday, I took the math placement test at Whatcom. I didn't end up getting into Precalc, which means I have to take Math 99 (intermediate algebra) in the fall. It's kind of disappointing, because we have to pay for 99 because it's below college level, but it is what it is. After I took the test, we went blueberry picking with Carolyn, and then went to park day.

Thursday 7/16

In the morning, we went to WCC to change my schedule. As a Running Start student, I can't register online like other students can. RS students have to go into see a RS advisor to register and to make schedule changes. To fit Math 99 in, I ended up having to drop all three classes I was in, and add three totally different ones. Now, I'm taking Intermediate Algebra (Math 99), Introduction to World Religions (Philosophy 140), and German I (German 121). In the afternoon, we were at our dad's house for dinner.

Friday 7/17

We didn't to much in the morning. In the afternoon, Isabelle went to a friend's house, and Mom and I watched Lost.

Saturday 7/18

Another relatively boring day. Went to the grocery store, watched Lost, and that was about it.

Sunday 7/19

We didn't do much in the morning again, but in the afternoon, we went blueberry picking again, this time with another set of friends.

Monday 7/20

I volunteered at the library in the afternoon, and then went to Chocolate Necessities and then to Irish dance. Gelato of the week: Lemon and Green Apple.

July 6-12 {Catch up!}

Monday

I went to the library to volunteer, to Chocolate Necessesites, and then to Irish Dance. It was the first day of the summer session. Gelato flavors of the week: chocolate, strawberry, and lemon. We've had a number of wildfires in the area, and early this week, the smoke was really bad. Monday in particular, I could really feel it effecting my breathing. It looked like we had full cloud cover Monday and Tuesday, but really it was all smoke!

Tuesday

This was the first day of Homeschool Academy classes! I got there around 1:30 and helped Spencer set up before his math class, which went very well! I then taught a literary analysis class in which we dissected the song American Pie, and then I had an Irish dance class. The dance class was a little underwhelming, but the rest went quite well!

Wednesday

I taught a Latin class and we did some Harry Potter translating, and then we went to parkday in Lynden. Grace and I did some planning for our Geology class we're teaching and then we hung out for a while with Hailey.

Thursday

Thursday was pretty quiet. I mostly did schoolwork that needed doing and read, and played a bit of Don't Starve. That game is really fun, but also endlessly frustrating. My best score so far is 17 days, and in that last one I was killed on Day 17 by a spider I was trying to kill because I had forgotten to put on my armor. Gah. If you don't know what I'm talking about, google "Don't Starve." It's pretty great. Mom went out for dinner with friends, and Isabelle and I made a pizza, and hung out.

Friday

Another low-key day of school, reading, and such. Mom, Isabelle, and I took a walk around after dinner.

Saturday

I had a YARC meeting in the morning. It was another very quiet meeting, and another where all (three) of our boys were gone! That makes two in a row. In the evening, I babysat some kids, and ended up watching the neighbor kids for part of it as well, making for 5 kids under 10!

Sunday

It was my dad's birthday, so we went to breakfast with him and my stepmom. When we got back, we headed to my grandmother's house for her 80th birthday. Both my aunts and all my cousins were there, and we had lunch/dinner, and hung out for the day, which was fun. Two of my cousins are going to college in the fall, and one is going to the University of Edinburgh. She'll be home for Christmas, but we probably won't see her before then and it was weird to realize that the next time we'll see her, she'll have been living in Scotland for a few months already!

Wednesday July 1, 2015 {Latin and Park day}

1. Got up, and did some math and history.

2. I made some worksheets and such for the day's Latin lesson. I always tell myself I'll do lesson planning some time other than mere hours before the class, but that never happens. :P

3. Walked to Gloria's house for Latin. We had our class, then had a Harry Potter Latin meeting, both of which were fun. I do need to figure out a way to change it a bit though, to make sure everyone is interested. I think the two younger girls tend to get a little lost when Spencer, Grace, and I are able to handle more of the grammar and such than they are. That is something I need to figure out for future weeks...

4. We went to park day, which was just down the street. It was quite hot and not super interesting, though my friend L. showed up, which was great!

5. We went home, had dinner, watched Doctor Who, read Sense and Sensibility, and went to bed.

Wednesday May 27, 2015 {Lots of Rocks}

1. I woke up at 6, very tired and very sore.

2. I got the bus to school, and was early as usual for Geology.

3. Geology was fun today. We got our tests back from last week, and I was plesently surprised with my grades, particularly the lab test. We then had the opprotunity to do some more lab work for bonus points. The lab was just IDing more rocks, which I really like doing. We also talked a bit about the field trip this weekend.

4. C. and I hung out on our usual bench. L. was there for a bit, and we talked about her weekend, and then C. and I talked about the current goings on for a while before we both had class.

5. At English, we talked about connotation of language, and did some fun exercises related to that.

6. After class, I met up with C. and L. again, and then played a game on my iPod for a while and ate lunch while C. was in class. After he got out, his mom and sister picked us and we headed to parkday.

7. Parkday was strange this week with two of the main families absent, and C., G. (who is home for the summer) and I spent most of it on a bench, observing some interesting kites.

8. We left pd, and headed home to eat dinner, and then I did some math and stuff.

9. Watched Doctor Who, read Jane Eyre, worked on a blog post for the main blog, and went to bed.

Wednesday May 20, 2015 {Geology Midterm}

1. Got up at 6am, got ready to go, and took the bus to school.

2. From 8am to 10am, we had an exam in Geology. Half of it was an 80 question multiple choice test based on lecture material, and the other half was a lab test, in which we had to identify 10 rocks. The two combined are worth 190 points out of the 540 possible this entire quarter! This exam is worth twice as much as the final.

3. Once that was done, C. and I hung out for a while. L. joined us for a bit, and we discussed the nature of our lives.

4. C. had to leave to make some changes to his fall schedule, and L. and I hung out for a little while, then walked to class.

5. In English, we did peer review work on the drafts of the background sections of our research papers that we had just turned in.

6. After English, I went to find C. at our usual spot, but through some bad luck we managed to again miss each other.

7. I went to the Co-op to eat lunch, and then my dad and Isabelle met me there and we drove to park day.

8. Park day was beautiful! The weather is so awesome right now. I lay in the sun for a while waiting for people to get there. When C. got there, we talked for a while and then started walking in laps around the park. We estimate we probably walked multiple miles over the afternoon.

9. We came home, ate dinner, and then I wrote the post for yesterday and started in on this one. I wrote this post for my other blog, and then did some math.

10. Watched Doctor Who, read Jane Eyre, and went to bed. I actually feel asleep around 10:30, which is the earliest that's happened in ages. I was really tired.

Wednesday, April 22, 2015 {Earth Day}

*Quick note: I am going to be using initials to refer to various people in here if I'm not sure whether or not they want their names on my blog. If you don't know all of us, this might be a tad confusing, but it should at least help me in writing these, and will hopefully make the sentences clearer to read. If I'm referring to you as a letter in here, and you don't mind your name being out, let me know. My plan is to use initials to refer to kids, and use names for adults for the most part. Anyway, feedback appreciated on that one.

1. Woke up, got ready, and ate a hurried breakfast on the way to the bus. Caught the bus to school.

2. Went to Geology. The topic of the day was sedimentary rocks. I must say that I like the igneous rocks better so far. Much more neat and orderly in their identification.

3. Hung out with C (who is a friend of mine who is also in my Geology class) for an hour and a half. Watched him play mini-golf on his phone, played some mini-golf myself (I probably shouldn't have downloaded that app, but I did), and helped him with his Interpersonal Communications homework. And by help, I mean that he read the questions he had to answer out loud, and I looked slightly confused, and mumbled some things, and was generally useless.

4. Went to English. We were discussing an essay called "Lest We Think The Revolution is a Revolution" by Cynthia Selfe about the tech revolution (it was written in 1999) as it relates to teaching and schools.

5. Met my dad and Isabelle for lunch at the Co-op.

6. Park day! It was a nice day, and I mostly hung out with E, H, and C. We talked about being a feminist (I usually call myself one, but C was arguing that I shouldn't because of the negative . connotations that word has nowadays. He was saying that I should call myself an "equal rights activist" instead), and various other randomish things.

7. Came home, ate dinner, and wrote a 700 page informal paper, still on the topic of religion in the homeschool group. This is turning out to be a really interesting topic, but I'm a little worried about how well it's going to translate into a longer essay. I like most of what I've written so far, but what is looking like it's going to be my thesis is depressingly broad. Must fix that somehow...

8. Watched Doctor Who, wrote this, read Jane Eyre, went to bed.

Homeschool Fridays: Stereotypes

Seriously. We aren't. This post will be a list of annoying stereotypes that most homeschoolers hate. Some of these stereotypes are true for many homeschoolers. They just aren't true about me, or my family. Well, I might add a few that do apply, just for fun. :D Can you think of any other stereotypes? Let me know and I'll do another one of these posts.

1. Homeschoolers are all super religious, wear denim jumpers, never cut their hair, or wear make up. We also have huge families.

Um, no. I know homeschoolers like this. I know that their are lots of homeschoolers who are like this. I am not. My friends are not. Actually, no one in our homeschool group is like this. Well, there have been a few people like this who have come to park day a few times, but I think maybe we scared them away. :)

I do know several large families (7-14 kids), but most of our group has 1-4 kids. There's just two of us kids in my house.

2. We are ultra hippie, with kids with crazy names, who don't approve of modern society or learning, and homeschool to get away from all the rules.

This is like the opposite of #1. Also, SO not us. I have known a few homeschoolers who are most certainly like this. We are NOT. As for crazy names, some popular names in our group are Henry (we have two!), Isabelle (2 or 3), and Sarah (at least two). Those all sound like normal names to me. :)

3. We never leave the house, or see other kids. We never watch TV, or listen to popular music, or read popular books.

This may just be the exact opposite of me. :) Some of my favorite TV shows include Lost (I am only in Season 2), Downton Abbey, Eureka, Earth 2, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Roswell. I listen to music constantly. I love popular music, though I generally go for a more indie-rock mix. :) As for books, well, I have had free reign at the library since I was seven. My parents have never censored what I read. I read a lot, and I love it. Of course, if you have read my blog at any length, you already know all of this.

As for never leaving the house, Here is a look at my week: Monday, clean books at library with two friends. Tuesday: Host American History class (includes about 17 kids). Wednesday: Park Day, which probably has close to 40 kids some weeks. Thursday is currently my day off, where we don't go anywhere and I catch up on school work, though soon I'll have a stained glass taught by a friend's mom. Friday, Isabelle has soccer, and I usually go hang out with a friend who also has siblings doing soccer, or I talk with some of the moms, though recently I have been staying home and doing school. Weekends are usually errands and activities all day long, including Irish Dance and Choir with some friends. Don't ever socialize? I don't think so.

That's all for now. I know these aren't many, but if you think of more, let me know, and I'll do another one of these posts. 

Homeschool Fridays: Park Day

If you followed me here from my old blog, you might recognize this as a repeat from there. It was the first Homeschool Friday post that I did, and I think that it introduces the series nicely.

Park day is the thing that, as homeschoolers, makes my family who we are.  Park Day is a group of probably close to 30 families who meet each week at a different park in town. Since we have dozens of parks, we have lots of variety. :)

We started going to park day eight years ago, the summer before before we started homeschooling. Back then, it was a relatively small group of 5 or 6 families. All of those people, including us, still go, and we have become the core group of homeschoolers. When I refer to our homeschool group, these are usually the people I am referring to, though some families have joined out core group over the years, expanding in to 10 or so families.

At park day, there are usually games going on that the kids have organized such as Capture the Flag, Banana Tag, or Zombie Tag. I will try to write up another post soon describing some of the games we play, if you guys are interested, most of which we have made up ourselves.

We have hardly missed a Park Day in all the years we have been going. We have never not gone, unless one of us is sick, though in that case, the other kid usually gets a ride with some one else, or we are out of town. Most of the other "core families" have also missed very few park days, which means you can always expect to see us at any given park day.

The other thing that is unique about our Park Day group is that, unlike many homeschool organizations, we have no religious affiliation.  Most of our participants, including my family, homeschool in a secular way. Though we have some people who are religious who come, and we are open to those people, nobody really refers to religion at all.

Do you have a question about homeschooling that you would like to see answered? Post it in the comments, and I will answer it soon. Depending on how long the answer is, I will either make an entire Homeschool Friday post about it, or I will compile it with other questions into another Q&A post.