Day: September 3, 2008

Last night Mom, Dad, Christian and I sat down to watch the Republican National Convention speeches. It is awesome what they can do with technology these days! The speeches were streaming live online for our viewing pleasure. I am very interested in politics (more than I should be at times I think) but I don’t know too much about them because I’m just a freshman. So don’t expect any profound or original thoughts from me, and if I say anything incredibly ignorant, just remember that it isn’t me. It’s hormones*. 🙂 However, here is my humble opinion of the matter:

I thought the whole thing was simply fantastic. The real highlight of the evening for me was Fred Thompson, one of the few people who didn’t seem to be highly dependent on the teleprompters. He told the story of John McCain’s POW experience marvelously. Some people may think that Senator McCain is playing the Vietnam card too much, but it is my belief that his war experience shows a lot of good things about his character.

Of course it was a treat to get to hear President Bush and the first lady speak. Because of the potential emergency of Hurricane Gustav, the president was not able to come to the convention. He gave his speech over some video talking doohickey. Technology is marvelous. There were also plenty of inspiring stories of bravery, strength, and selflessness. It was really great to watch.

What I really can’t wait to hear is Governor Sarah Palin’s speech. I am so psyched about her!!! I sincerely hope that she and McCain win.

*One of the advantages to being a teenager: everything can be blamed on hormones.

I am letting the kids sleep in until 7:30 this morning because we stayed up last night to watch the speeches at the Republican National Convention on the internet. We very much enjoyed, not only the speeches, but the whole ambiance of the convention with its theme of service. We made it through Fred Thompson, before we sent the kids off to bed. It was neat this morning to find that the very next of the posts from my old blog was about Christian’s famous second grade speech. It really was an awesome thing for a second grader. You can read about it here.

Yesterday, Kelly called me from the Trader Joe’s grocery store in Cary. She had gotten talking to a girl who works their as a cashier to help pay for her college education. The girl asked Kelly and Christian whether or not they had started back to school. When she found they were homeschooled she told Kelly she had been homeschooled through junior high school, but returned to government school for high school. She said is was so bad she only lasted a week. She begged her parents to take her out, so they put her into a private Christian high school. She went on to say that she started taking classes at the community college so that she earned an associate degree there at the same time she got her high school diploma. We were all inspired by the story. Kelly is looking forward to talking to her again when they go back to Trader Joe’s.

This all reminded me of why we decided to leave the government schools again and return to homeschool. We were living in Albany, Oregon at the time. We are still very grateful to the school system there because if they would not have been so monumentally bad, both academically and in the way they hardened the spirits of their students, we might never have left. I keep many, many pages of handwritten notes in our files that describe my conversations with the principal and with Kelly’s teacher with regard to all this. Some day, I plan to write those up and post them here. It has been over four years since that happened and I still get exercised over the whole thing, so I probably should wait a couple more years before I do that.

June 4, 2004 – Tony and Martha visit
June 7, 2004 – A quiet weekend