Choices

Homeschooling is a choice. You don't have to home-school. It is a privilege to be home-schooled. If you have a bad day, try to think about what it would be like at school. If there was a teacher you didn't like when you were in public school, think about how lucky you are at home to have a teacher who you love. Sometimes homeschooling is a bore, like when I have to read my Social Studies textbook for an hour, but MOST of the time, regular school is a bore. Think about what good things you have, while you still have them. For instance, if I went back to public school I wouldn't be able to take guitar lessons, I wouldn't be able to go to Tae Kwon Do three times a week, and I wouldn't have half of the knowledge that I have now. When you graduate from home-schooling, you will realize what a tremendous impact home-schooling had on your life. I don't know about you, but I am grateful for my mom who is willing to take the time to give me a good education. Appreciate home-schooling. It's a choice.

Entertainment.

Sometimes you get really bored and you need to entertain yourself. For some reason, it seems that lately our house has been infected with boredom. Whenever I have free time, there is nothing to play. We rarely watch TV, play on the computer or play video games in our house. Mom saves those activities as a special reward for when we do something great. Normally, there are really only three things I can do for fun. Either A. play K'nex, B. go outside or C. read. After a while, playing K'nex isn't fun anymore. I can always go outside, but I don't really like the weather this time of year. It isn't snowing yet, and it's too cold to play with squirt guns and water balloons. Luckily,there are books. It is never too hot or too cold to read. I think the book was the best invention ever invented. It is better than the wheel or the computer. You might say, well, it is not really an invention. I'll bet back before Christ, people thought the book was an amazing new thing. I guess my advice on this blog is to entertain yourself by doing something useful instead of playing video games or watching TV. Read a book, play K'nex or build Legos. Do something constructive, even when you're playing.

Mentos and Coke.

I tried to post a video of my math/science tutor and I doing the famous Mentos and Coke experiment, but I can't get it to work. This is what happened. My math tutor and I explored the science behind spraying Coke using mint Mentos. The Mentos HAVE to be mint. This is because the mint type has a harder and more rough texture. This reaction occurs when the Mentos react with the carbonic acid, the aspirate, and caffeine in the Coke. Carbon dioxide is created, spewing the Coke very far.

I love it when college kids are my tutors. They are fun and motivated. I love my tutors. I think having tutors is a big part of home-schooling. For instance, Mom doesn't know Chinese. Who is supposed to teach me then? That is when a tutor comes in handy. Sometimes, Moms can't teach us kids all by themselves. They need to branch out sometimes. Having tutors is awesome!

Negativity/Motivation

Two huge things that I haven't gone over yet is motivation and negativity. You need to stay motivated. In school, the teachers give you candy or recess to motivate you. Homeschoolers need to motivate themselves. Give yourself rewards too. The only reward I can think of is getting my work done. I think you should try giving yourself a thing that you normally wouldn't have. For instance, eating chocolate. You might say to yourself, "Hmm, if I get this question right, I will give myself a piece of candy. If I get it wrong, I will not get candy next time, even if I get it right." Then there is temptation. You might need to ask somebody to hide the candy, and check your answers for you. At the end, you get the candy. We don't use candy as a reward in our house because my mom is overly careful about what we eat. Instead, the reward is playing on the computer, or watching M.A.S.H on television.
Now, the other part of this post was about negativity. If you are always negative, no one will get along with you. My brother seems to have an illness called negativity syndrome. Don't let it happen to you! If you are negative all the time, you won't enjoy home-schooling. That is a big part of homeschooling. You need to stay focused and optimistic. But, on the other hand, if you are too happy, you will get too sure of yourself. Try to stay positive, but don't get overly sure of yourself.

Keep Cool

One thing that gets me really frustrated is that everyone thinks I don't do anything. For instance, sometimes I go to a friend's house, and he only wants to watch TV. When I ask him if we can do anything else, he says, "No. I am tired. I went to school all day." People say things like that as if I didn't go to school. In fact, I am in school right now. It is 4:52 and I am still doing work. Yesterday, I was in a lab at University of Rochester doing science experiments all day. I hope people will respect home-schoolers a little bit more. We are busting our butts, trying to do work, when other people just play during school. I just want to say, "Well, if you were in school, where was I?" This really upsets me, but it is best to keep cool because you represent all home-schoolers. People will judge home-schoolers by your actions.

Multitasking

Multitasking can sometimes be good, and sometimes bad. Multitasking is good when I am typing my blog. I am learning how to type, how to write, grammar, and computer programming all at once. Multitasking is a bad thing when mom is cleaning and burns the garlic bread at the same time. (This really annoys me). I am learning more from typing this post than from any typing class would teach me. If you multitask correctly, it helps a ton, but... if you burn the garlic bread, that is a waste of good food. I always hear mom say that only girls can multitask. I disagree. I think that if anyone tries hard enough, they can figure out how. Well, to wrap this up, a lesson learned, multitasking is a very useful tool, but the results depend on how you use the tool.

Text box writing.

I am going to be talking in this text box today. You can erase it if you want. Today one of my tutors canceled. I have extra work because he canceled. Now, I have two extra hours of time to do extra work. My list today consists of computer programming, typing, writing, reading, geography, SAT prep, Chinese, and math. I finished the SAT prep, I am writing, and doing computer programming right now. That leaves me with typing lessons,reading and geography. My math and Chinese is with a different tutor, later this afternoon. Don't you think it is cool that I can type in html? If you want, you can erase what I have typed, and type in anything you want. The next time you come to this page, it will show what I typed. Pretty neat, huh? A big problem about homeschooling, is that sometimes you finish all of your stuff really quickly, then you just play for hours. To fix this, you need to schedule your to do list with times,by estimating how long something will take. For an example, your list might be: math, science, Spanish,lunch, then writing. I would make my list similar, to this: math from 8-9, science from 9-10, Spanish from 10-12. Then lunch from 12-1 and writing from 1-2. This helped me because you might say to your self. I want to end at 3. I need one more subject. It helped me. I think it will help you too.I just realized that you can't use more then 1 html tag inside my text box. How strange.

Me, Rambling.

I am just rambling, but soon my advice will come to me. Sometimes you need to just empty your feelings. Just say what you are thinking. This is happening to me right now. I just went to my grandma's yesterday because my mom works. I really appreciate all of Mom's students giving me new ideas and support. I love it when people comment. I would like to start a band with all of my friends, but none of them seem to play instruments. Music is an important part of our life. It gives you ideas and really gets you thinking. It would be nice if everyone in the world could play an instrument. I just learned a new song last week. Every Wednesday I go to guitar lessons at 2:15. I also have Tae Kwon Do before guitar, and horse-back riding after guitar. What a busy life I lead!
A downfall of homeschooling, is that it can sometimes be hard stay in contact of your old friends from school. For instance, I have two REALLY good friends. One is home-schooled, the other is in public school. I can see the home-schooled friend whenever I want. He is coming over tomorrow to sleep overnight. My friend who attends public school, on the other hand, can only come over on the weekends. My friends that are just acquaintances, can never see me anymore. That is one thing that I don't like about homeschooling. If I really wanted to keep in touch with my old friends, I could call them or send them emails. But I've found that I really only need two or three best friends. That is all humans need. If you have a 20 regular friends, you can't really tell them your feelings or feel close to them. A way to fix this, is to, similar to me, get a few best friends. This makes life easier, and it saves you from typing 200 emails a day like my mom.

It just gets harder.

This year I think I have pushed myself a little too much. Between doing computer programming 5 hours a week, and Tae Kwon Do 12 times a month, things get chaotic. I should have planned it a little more carefully. It is funny how things never get easier, only harder. I had some trouble with my online classes, and that led me to writing today. I think I am trying to grow up too fast. Ten year old boys don't need to have college credits already. Well, I am stuck with it now; I am going to try my best to push myself. It is just like running. It just gets harder. Try to push yourself, but not until you are worn down to nothing. Homeschooling takes great patience, and patience is a virtue. Plan carefully and use all that I have taught you, my young Padawan. Lead your life to its fullest, and be the best you can.

Procrastination-Elimination, More About Procrastination

When you're home all day, and you want to play, get your work done. Procrastination is a bad illness. Once you do it once, it repeats itself. If you want to play or do something, you think, well, I am home all day, I will do it later. But the problem is, you won't. If you do all of your stuff, you will have time to do all the things you want to do. Right now is school. If you were in the middle of school, would you just get up and walk outside? No! Of course you wouldn't. Why is it different for homeschooling? It is not. You need to fight the temptation to go outside to play. Use the reward of going outside as a tool to get your schoolwork done. You will get your work done faster if you get to do something fun after. Look at your to-do list, get it done, and then you can play. The trick is, to go into a different room than your toy. Once that is done, the temptation is gone. Don't think about it. One time, my mom gave me a list: History, Typing, Computer programming, Math, then read. She then went to workout and run errands. I started eating my breakfast, and I read my book at the same time. I finished my breakfast, and continued to read all morning. After awhile, Mom came home and found that I had done nothing except read my book. My list took me until 7 o'clock that night! I learned my lesson that night. Do not procrastinate!