Christian will have his first guitar lesson today with his new teacher Alex Gorodezky. You can see a short biography of him on this page. Lorena, Kelly, and Christian met him last week at his home in downtown Raleigh. It will be great for Lorena and Kelly, because Christian’s lessons are within walking distance of the North Carolina History Museum and the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences as well as lots and lots of shopping. Mr. Gorodezky got his music degree from the Gliere Music College, a very prestige school in Kiev, Ukraine. We will probably need to get a nylon string guitar as that is what is best for the classical and flamenco music on which Christian will work. The lessons have increased now from a half an hour with his previous instructor to an hour, so that will be a good change, too.
Year: 2009 Page 8 of 15
Our homeschool has always been very goal oriented. Every year so far, we have surpassed most of our goals by a lot, but fallen short by a week or two in one or two minor areas. In the summer, I like the kids to have a few little things to do. The first couple of years it was fifteen minutes Mavis Beacon Typing per day. After that it was always always Rosetta Stone Spanish. We did art, too, but that kind of did not count because it was too much fun. So, every year I get the idea in my head that the fifteen minute per day thing should be used to make up for the one or two minor areas where we fell a little short on our goals. It usually takes me a week or two to remember that it absolutely stinks to have to work on hard academic stuff all summer long, then return to full time homeschool in the fall with a high level of enthusiasm. It took a day and a half long road trip to come to my senses this summer (Thanks to the Steljes Family!).
After meeting I sat and corrected a bunch of Christian’s math. I realized that it was time for a break for a break. Both the kids will still continue with their math, but at a much lower key than I had originally planned. I was going to have them start French as well as continue with their Spanish this summer. Well, this weekend, we saw the kids playing with all their friends and realized that homeschool is not just about academics. The heavy academic stuff can wait until fall. Right now, we are going to concentrate on swimming, art, a visit or two to the beach, a visit to see friends and family in Oregon, some music, maybe a play or two, a barbecue or two, and generally just a lot of hanging out together. The funny deal is, we will probably be way more recharged in the fall and will benefit academically, too!
Well, I am making a little progress using Troy’s (via Steve) suggested running method. I think that if I am patient, I can defeat this shin splint thing. Two minutes of running followed by two minutes of walking for thirty minutes for another week, followed by a week or two of one minute of walking followed by three minutes of walking will be the plan. After that, I will see where I am and try to go forward that way. I am going to try to get the entire family to run a 10K this fall. I think it would be a lot of fun. My weight has actually started to come down again, but I think that is due to eating discipline as a result of not having time to eat because I have so much work to do.
In the meantime, lots of summer projects are off to a start. Kelly, of course, is reading like crazy. She has discovered that Agatha Christie was just one of four “Queens of Crime”, the other three being Dorothy L. Sayers, Ngaio Marsh and Margery Allingham. She is now in the middle of a Sayers book, but has big plans for reading the other two. I do not want to steal her thunder, so enough said. Christian, in the meantime, has decided to design a new mono-space font. Very cool. They should start in on their t-shirt design for the big Betty Blonde t-shirt give-away for her one year anniversary coming up once per month starting as soon as the shirts are designed and we have them in hand–stay tuned. Lorena works on her reupholster job as she has time, but time has been at a premium this last little while with swim team starting, new guitar teacher finding, a weekend trip coming up, and that sort of thing.
As for me, all I seem to have time for is our read alouds and my programming commitments. It is a good thing that those are the perfect summer projects for the likes of me.
The school year ended for us on Monday of this week. We had a great school year, our sixth full year since we started. Here is a brief list of some of the things each of the kids accomplished:
Kelly’s Freshman year of high school
- Finished Geometry and got a good start into Precalculus
- Received college credit through CLEP tests for Sociology (3 hours), Psychology (3 hours), U.S. History II (3 hours), and Spanish (12 hours). She will take Biology on June 10 which should bring her grand total to 34 credit hours which would make here a college sophomore
- Completed her tenth year of piano lessons with a great teacher (Brenda Bruce) very encouraged to continue through college
- Established a routine to systematically measure improvements in exercise performance while planning and maintaining a health diet
- Finished memorizing Matthew 6, 7, and 8 to be video taped this summer for posterity
- Read all the Sonlight literature and history books for the year
- Completed Apologia Biology
- Continued working through the second year of Rosetta Stone Spanish
- Received a very satisfactory score on her first attempt at the ACT college entrance exam
Christian’s seventh grade year
- Finished Algebra II and got a good start into Geometry
- Received college credit for his first CLEP test in Freshman English Compositon (6 hours)
- Completed his third year of guitar–we have found him a new and very accomplished teacher about whom I will write more later
- Established a routine to systematically measure improvements in exercise performance
- Finished memorizing Matthew 6 and 7 to be video taped this summer for posterity
- Read all the Sonlight literature and history books for the year
- Completed Apologia Physical Science
- Completed his two year survey of World History
- Continued working throught the second year of Rosetta Stone Spanish
- Received a high enough score on the ACT college entrance exam as part of the Duke TIP testing to receive a state award
- Assembled a Ham radio (needs to be tested and tuned to get it to work).
Both of the kids continued work on a variety of craft and art projects including knitting, crocheting, drawing comics, etc. It was a super year that we enjoyed very much. This summer both of the kids are going to work on their math and Spanish at about half a normal schedule. They will also both practice their instruments through the summer, swim for the swim team, go to visit relatives, and to two or three church conventions. Schools out for summer! I will write a little bit about the plan for next year, but that can wait until next month.
Aaron Burr was the grandson of the famous Calvinist theologian Jonathan Edwards. That he killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel was not the only trouble he caused in his lifetime. It seems he stirred up a lot of people and caused a lot of problems. Still, he appears to have been a genuine war hero earlier in his life. John Adams seemed to be the most morally upright of the founding fathers, but was argumentative and had an abrasive personality. Benedict Arnold was a traitor, had been a courageous leader and appeared to have been very much under appreciated by George Washington. We enjoy our read through A Patriot’s History of the United States every afternoon.
Yesterday during a pause in the reading, Kelly noted how the founding fathers were just regular people. We read that Jefferson went against one of his strongly held principles about what government had the right to do when he made the Louisiana purchase. John Adams, George Washington, and others made similar compromises over the course of their public lives. My thought in reading this was that I have wrongly (and rightly) compromised my own principles, too. The circumstances surrounding the decisions we make have a huge impact on how we are judged by history. How would Benedict Arnold now be judged if England had won the Revolutionary War? How would he be judged if Washington had showed him a little more respect? How would Aaron Burr’s life had been different if he had chosen to shoot wide of the mark. So many small decisions we make have what seems to be an inordinate amount of impact on the direction of our lives.
My first thought was that I want to be very careful about even the small things. My second thought was that I need to show more kindness to those who make spur of the moment decisions that have deleterious consequences on their entire lives. All this makes the noise and posturing of the rich and powerful to assure a favorable historical legacy ring hollow. Our read through this book has made me more grateful that our judge is a merciful and omniscient God.
We went into Costco on Saturday and signed up for another couple of years of service with our provider by getting new cellphones for Lorena and I. It is amazing how good they are. We have never gotten a cellphone that was nice enough to suggest that we might have actually paid for it, but with my new, Dave Ramsey mentality, I am almost embarrassed to pull this new phone out. This is also the first time we got phones that were not the clam shell style. Even though the economy is in the tank–well, maybe, especially because the economy is in the tank, it is cool to have new stuff. Even more so because it is shiny.
Today is the last day of school for the 2008-2009 school year. I will detail some of the things we accomplished for the year in the regular, first Thursday of the month update. This weekend, we talked about some of the fun things we plan to do this summer. We will start it of with a bang by running over to Charlotte for a get-together on Friday night with a bunch of kids from church who are the same age as Kelly and Christian. After that, we will be heavy into the summer swim season until mid-July. We hope Lorena’s brother Jorge will come sometime in late July or early August. One way or the other, we plan to do some more site seeing around North Carolina and then head off to Oregon to spend a couple of weeks with Grandpa Milo, Grandma Sarah, and all our friends out there. In the middle of all that the kids plan to continue with a minimal (an hour and a half to two hours per day) amount of homeschool. They will do a little Spanish/French, Math, reading, and guitar/piano practice. We also plan to continue our read aloud/comic drawing sessions every evening. I want to sit with Christian and develop a C++ program for our project with North Carolina State University. Christian will also work on finishing the cat tower and, hopefully, get the ham radio going. Kelly plans to knit, read, and draw. One of the main goals, though is to swim EVERY DAY. I think that is not a bad summer plan.
Update: I put in for my first audio book request. Actually, I asked for two audio books, both by Thomas F. Madden, but the first had two people in front of me so I do not expect to get it for awhile. The one that should come in first is titled Empire of Gold, A History of the Byzantine Empire. I hope I get it this weekend in time to listen to it during next weeks workouts.
It takes me 30-35 minutes to drive each way to work each morning. Most of the time, I just listen to the radio, but I am looking for a better option. Books on disk are very cool, but also very expensive, so I have only listened to them on long trips. I just went to the Wake County Public Library website and found they have 4844 Audio Disk titles. Some of them are music disks, but it looks like the bulk of them are novels and non-fiction books. I check out the audio CD’s whenever we go to the Holly Springs Library, but their selection is not so hot. Today, I found that I can request them to be sent to the library of my choice online. I have to get a PIN before I can do that, so that will be at the top of my priority list. This is really great because, at this time in my life with the kids, work, and a million projects, I just do not have much time to get any reading done. The other thing for which I think this will be great is when I am doing my workout in the exercise room at work. They have a TV in there, but the two guys that get there before me always have the stationed tuned to The Price is Right. I can feel my brain cells committing suicide before they are co-opted into the Borg from watching that show, so I am hoping I can drown it out with a good audio book while I am on the treadmill.
On the way to work yesterday morning I listened to James Dobson interview one the employees of Focus on the Family. The talked about a book the employee had written about Paul Harvey titled Good Day! The Paul Harvey Story. Paul Harvey sounds like a good guy and the book might be a good candidate for Christian, Kelly, and I to read aloud together. The thing that caught my attention, though, was comments that were made about how how Harvey had not really given a lot of time to his son as a small child. Rather, he had dedicated his time to advancing his career. I have thought about that a lot. Really, our little family has always spent a lot of time together. I go to work, come home, and virtually all the rest of the time we spend engaged with each other on some level or another. It is the “some level or another” thing that I work about. When I am not careful, the level of engagement, even when we are in the same house can be very small. Dobson told a story about a boy whose father had come home from work every night, gone into his home office, shut the door, and stayed there to work the whole evening. The boy remembers sitting on the floor in front of the closed door when he was three or four with his hand down by the crack, wiggling his fingers with the hope that his Dad would see them and say something to him. It made me truly want to be there for my entire family in body, mind, and spirit–not just the kids, but for Lorena, too.
The problem with exercise planning is that it is not exercising. The problem with exercising itself is that it is exercising. I am starting back today on a program of exercise on the treadmill in the workout room at my work. I would really like to run outside, but it is way too hot in North Carolina during the summer for the likes of me. It takes me an hour and a half to quit sweating. I have been pushed to this by the fact that I have gained a ton of weight back since my big weight drop last year. I did not gain it all back, but I can see where this is going if I stay where I am. One of my weight loss death match partners, Lyle is making huge inroads and I have to do something to get back on track. To make things worse, the kids are swimming hard every day now as they get ready for their first swim meet in a couple of weeks. Hopefully, some of this effort will result in some weight loss on the chart.
Update: Woo-hoo! My first workout is out of the way. I found I could only run five minutes after a five minute walking warm-up because my shins started tightening into a shin splints. I finished my workout with some more walking and elliptical work. I will try to build up to running the whole time without getting shin splint; something I do not know whether is possible.
Good food turns into great food when it’s been in the refrigerator for a day or two. Take mom’s grilled salmon. A delicious and nutritious fish, drizzled with lemon juice and garlic and grilled to perfection. It’s wonderful when you eat it with some rice and asparagus, but it is even MORE wonderful when eaten cold. There is nothing like cold salmon. I think it might even be my favorite food. Other good cold foods are pizza (#1 favorite breakfast food) and oatmeal. Cold oatmeal has a slimy, lumpy sort of texture, but it is one of the best cold snacks out there IMHO.
One cold food that is not very appetizing is macaroni. There’s something about cold macaroni that is very, very unappealing to me. Just made macaroni is wonderful though, especially if it’s made at convention. 🙂
Why all this food talk? Because that’s what’s been on my mind lately! Friday night, the neighbor kids came over and we made all this:
If you’re interested, Jenna, Nathan, Christian and I made Baked Mac and Cheese (Joy of Cooking book), Salad (Lettuce and Tomatoes), Salad Dressing (Taste of Home), Green beans (Frozen), Biscuits (Bisquick), Pink Lemonade (Mix), and a chocolate cake (from a box, but we sprinkled coconut on top to make it look more homemade). We had lots of fun doing that!! Then on Memorial Day, Christian and I made shish kabobs!
The shish kabobs were the real deal this time, except for the pineapple (it was from a can). They had meat, mushrooms, pineapple chunks, tomatoes, red bell peppers, and onions on them. We served those with rice and a salad. That was also very fun!
We also went down to the history museum to check out the Knights of the Black Flag exhibit. It was very interesting. Of course the whole pirate thing is really romanticized so I was expecting a bunch of stories that would shatter my stereotypes. Well I can say that some of my illusions were shattered, but most were based in truth (if in fact the entire exhibit was not romanticized, but well researched, which I have no doubt that it was) Pirates were a dastardly, uncouth sort. They did dastardly uncouth things, and liked to wear red sashes and put up black skull and crossbones flags and other pirate-y sort of things.
We encountered a couple of pirates there, but I expect they weren’t the real thing. Their heads were much to small 🙂
We went to the North Carolina Museum of History yesterday. We parked a couple of blocks away and, as we walked down the mall between the History Museum and the Museum of Natural Sciences, we saw there was a Memorial Day celebration taking place in front of the North Carolina State Capitol Building across the street. We got there in time to watch the Marine Honor Guard march and listen to the National Anthem. It was very nice. There is a pirate exhibit at the History Museum that we wanted to see. When we went to the Outer Banks last year, we found that North Carolina was pretty much pirate central during the 1600’s and 1700’s. Blackbeard sailed his pirate ship Queen Anne’s Revenge along the Carolina coast for a good number of years. We learned lots of interesting things about how pirates lived, their insurance programs ($ for the loss of a limb or an eye), what they ate, how they came to be pirates (often because there were no legitimate sailing jobs when the world was between wars), and all kinds of other minutiae. There were lots of artifacts including what they believe was the silver plated skull of Blackbeard that was used as a drinking mug by some rich folks after his death. From one list, we saw of those sailors for which there is a record 1718 was a very bad year as many seemed to have been hanged that year.
On the way home, we decided the kids might like to make dinner for us so we stopped off at Food Lion to pick up some beef and veggies. Kelly and Christian made a whole mess of sheeshkabobs. They were awesome. After I ate myself silly and took a nap, I did some serious reading to Kelly and Christian from A Patriot’s History of the United States while they worked on their Betty Blonde comics. In the mean time, Lorena decided to reupholster an old chair we had from my college days. She got it about half torn apart and got a little discouraged with the project, but I think it could be really great. I talked to her this morning and she is back on track. I will try to take some before and after pictures of the chair as she works on it.
We went to Red Robin for lunch yesterday after Sunday morning meeting. Kelly wanted to do some research for her latest Betty Blonde story line on eating out. After that we went to the Barnes and Noble down the street to just look as some books and hang out for awhile in an air conditioned room. We will start studying Rosetta Stone French in a week or two. Rosetta Stone Spanish has served us well, but we already speak Spanish and mostly just used it as a way to work on vocabulary and to get some assured daily practice. We are not sure how well the French program will work with a wholly unknown language. At any rate, even though we plan to augment our French learning, if we can afford it, with a semester of French immersion, I thought it might be good to wander over to the French section to learn what I could learn.
When I got there, there was a middle age woman sitting smack dab in the middle of the narrow aisle right in front of the French section reading a book. I tried to look on either side of her without being too intrusive. The woman did not move. After about five minutes, she saw that I was not going away and that I really DID want to see the French language books. So she moved one leg a little and asked me, “Have you ever learned a foreign language?”
I said, “Yes, I have.”
She said, “Do you know of a program that is really good for learning a language.”
I explained that Rosetta Stone had been very good for us in our Spanish, but that we mostly already spoke the language when we started using it. We were planning to start French with Rosetta Stone with the hope that someday we would be able to spend a summer of immersion in Quebec.
She said, “Rosetta Stone is really bad for anything other than a supplement.”
I wondered why she had even asked the question, but the answer came fairly quickly. She explained to me that she homeschooled her children and they were all on their third or fourth language. She then asked me what English program we used. I told her we used Sonlight in conjunction with some supplementary materials. She told me that what we were doing was really bad and that I should use program “X” (I forget what it was). She said, “We have a friend who is a Literature professor at Johns Hopkins and he says most students coming into his Introductory Literature class do not even have the rudimentary skills to perform basic Shakespeare interpretation.”
I knew I was in for it when started railing on the evils of our local school system, stating that the schools where she came from in Maryland were monumentally better.
I said, “Well, it is a good thing you homeschool so you can teach your kids the way you want them to be taught.”
She said, “Well, I don’t because I want my kids to compete in the Olympiads.”
She had really not been homeschooling for quite awhile. She had her kids in one of the local government charter schools. She felt that they had to have a record of winning in academic competitions and recognized volunteer work if her kids were going to have any hope of getting into “one of the Ivy’s.”
I told her our kids were probably not going to go to one of the Ivy’s. I thought I was gracious in not saying that they would go to one of the Ivy’s over my dead body, which is my ususal comment in these kinds of situations.
She said, “Oh”, and walked away.
I got called back into work yesterday to find a bug in a program that needs to be released today. It was very enjoyable to work friend at my desk for several hours. I have always said that if I do not have to come in for a few late night sessions on my job, it does not feel like I am making any progress. We fixed the bug, had a nice talk, and drank way too many soda. I will get off at noon today for the three day weekend. We should have a fairly leisurely weekend at home. The kids will probably go swimming on Saturday and/or Monday. We will have Troy and Youngin over to help us move the new China Cabinet into the dining room and to inaugurate the new (to us) dining room set with some grilled beef, chicken, salmon, and/or sausage. We might try to make it to the North Carolina State zoo somewhere up near Greensboro. I am sure we will have a session at Barnes and Noble. I am really looking forward to it all.
I do not know whether it is because the kids are a little older, but we seem to be accelerating our activities as we move into the summer. It always seemed like we slowed down during summer break. We had more time to go to parks, the library, the beach, and places like that just to relax. This year, though, life seems to be going faster and faster. The swim team has started, we are making plans for piano camp, a get-together in Charlotte, we will buy tickets for a trip to Oregon in August, Christian and I plan to help Troy install a server computer and camera in the Ag Engineering lab at NCSU, we have ordered Rosetta Stone French from Sonlight to start in the next couple of weeks, and on it goes. We plan to keep reading aloud through the summer as that as when the kids work on their comic strips. On top of all that, to meet our goals, Kelly and Christian both will continue with a couple of subjects each through the summer. It will be a lighter load, but still, it takes time. Christian has Geometry, Spanish, Guitar, and a little bit more History of Western Civilization while Kelly has Spanish, French, Precalculus, and Piano. They should be able to finish all that up in 60-90 minutes per day and they want to keep going, so I do not feel bad about that at all. At the same time, I want us to have some time to take a breath and get reinvigorated by doing nothing for at least a little while this summer.
Note: Kelly did great on her Sociology CLEP test. She is now a college sophomore.
Kelly enjoys drawing her Betty Blonde comic strip very much. Up until yesterday, we only owned the bettyblonde.net domain name. A couple of days ago I got an email from a guy wanting to sell me the bettyblonde.com domain name for $195. That was the second time something like that had happened. I think the previous guy only wanted $95. That got me to thinking. I went to my internet service provider and checked to see if bettyblonde.com was available. It was! The guys who had written me the letter had not gone to the expense of actually buying the domain name. They would have done that had I responded to them. So, I bought it. Now you can get to Betty Blonde through bettyblonde.com AND bettyblonde.net. Very cool. It would have made me quite sad to have to pay $195 or $95, so paying $11.95 was very cool. Some other ISP’s are a little cheaper, but mine has been so great over the years, I would never think of going anyplace else. The name of the ISP I use is echristianwebhosting.com. They have provided highly responsive service, a very flexibile and easy to use control panel, and great prices. I highly recommend them.
Kelly is scheduled to take her Introduction to Sociology CLEP test today at Johnston Community College. I will report on the results and any comments Kelly has about how she prepared tomorrow. She only has one more, Biology, for this year on June 8. Christian will probably take his Western Civilization test on June 8, too.
The kids went down to the YMCA last night for the first meeting of our local YMCA swim team. Some of the kids from last year were missing, but many of them were back. Both Kelly and Christian love just about everything about the swim team. It is a great social thing for them because they get to see a bunch of kids every day with a two or three hour chunk of time during each of the swim meets that mostly consists of hanging out with the other kids intermixed with a fifteen minute warm-up and several two or three minute races. The exercise is their favorite kind of exercise. They get to work on their tans. It is all good. It is even good for Lorena. While the kids practice, she does her workout at the Y and then sits in the sun and gossips with the other parents while they wait for the kids to finish. I am sure we will be hearing about this in Betty Blonde.
This weekend, I finished the last weekly homeschool schedules for the year. This was the last year I will have to do schedules for Kelly. Next year, my role for her scheduling will be more of a consulting role as she prepares to go to the community college full time the year after that. Her main, structured subject areas will be Math, Science (Chemistry), and French. She plans to take CLEP tests in Precalculus, Micro and Macro Economics, Chemistry, Analyzing and Interpreting Literature, History of Western Civilization I and II, and Financial Accounting. In addition to that, she will prepare for PSAT and ACT tests, do a lot of writing and, as of this weekend, a lot of piano practice. I have two years of schedules left to do for Christian, so I will not be moving cold turkey away from scheduling. Christian’s CLEP load will increase some next year, too. I think it is good practice for them to manage their own test preparation, so all I really do for that is watch over their shoulder so we can make the best effort possible to cover all the bases.
Yesterday after Sunday morning meeting, we went to Kelly’s end-of-year piano recital. There were only three non-Asians who played out of about a couple of dozen students. The last three were absolutely amazing. I had not realized how much Kelly has advanced in her piano playing (She was not one of the last three.). I am incompetent when it comes to music. Lorena is much better than I, but still not great. We were only fortunate enough to get Kelly a slot in her current teacher’s schedule because Mrs. Hickenlooper, Kelly’s teacher from Oregon, made a big effort on her behalf. She called many people in North Carolina until she found just the right teacher. Even then, I think the only reason she accepted Kelly as a student is because Kelly is homeschooled and could come to piano lessons during the day. We are glad she did. Kelly made amazing progress. We were thinking Kelly might end her lessons after next year to concentrate on only academics. That all changed yesterday. We are very much encouraging her to continue–through college, if possible.
A couple of small events prompted us to notice a very interesting phenomenon yesterday. The first was when the young Asian girl seated beside Kelly heard that Kelly is homeschooled she said, “So you have a life?” The second was, at the end of the program, the teacher said that three of her students had been accepted at the North Carolina School of Science and Math (NCSSM). NCSSM is a highly selective residential high school for gifted students with a strong work ethic. It requires public service as well as a high level of academic performance. Acceptance at that school requires an amazing level of time and commitment. Add to that the time and effort required to play the piano the way they played and there is not much time left in the day for those kids to have a life. Still, on the whole, they seemed to be very nice kids. These kids and their families form a subculture that is not unlike that of many homeschoolers. I think a significant difference might be that homeschool tends to be less regimented.
Note: I finished the Old Testament today in my read through the bible.
I am in the middle of Pilgrim’s Progress right now and I am enjoying it immensely. All the characters are named after their overarching bad habit, trait or virtue (Help, Obstinate, Mistrust, Piety etc. etc.) I got to thinking about this. Wouldn’t the world would be much simpler if everyone had one name that described them completely? Imagine the possibilities:
“How do you do Mr. Peaceandgranola?”
“I’m groovy, thanks for asking Mrs. Busybody! How’s your son, Nobelt Baggypants?”
“Oh he’s doing well enough. I’m afraid he’s gotten into a quarrel with the neighbor, Mr. Callous, though I’m sure I don’t know what Nobelt has done to upset him. And you know how Mr. Callous is! Always so insensitive and cruel! Not to gossip, but I hear he once threw a rock in Mrs. Rapscallion’s window because he was so angry at her.”
“Not cool dude! Sounds like he needs a little love.”
“I believe so! Oh dear me I’ve got to run. Say hello to your wife, Mrs. Braidsandhemp!”
Wonderful isn’t it? Imagine how convenient it would be. I could avoid all the mean and annoying people in the world just by knowing their name! I could surround myself with nice, beautiful people all day long. I wouldn’t have to go through the long and time-consuming process of getting to know them and becoming their friend and all that. Life would be easy.
It wouldn’t be very fun though. I don’t think I would actually have very many friends either. After all, no one is perfect. Everyone has their ups and downs. A more accurate name for the typical person might be Miss Usually-nice-except-in-the-mornings-when-she-hasn’t-had-breakfast-is-also-envious-sometimes-but-very-honest-unfortunately-often-slothful.
That’s not to say I wouldn’t appreciate the occasional help. For example, When I’m (relatively) old it would be very helpful in finding a nice husband. Also, some books would be a lot easier to understand if there were a Mr. Antagonist and a Mr. Cannon Fodder and a Miss Femme Fatale instead of Frank and Bob and Lucy. Since that’s usually not the case, I am greatly enjoying and appreciating Mr. Bunyan’s work.
The conversation on this blog and in our household right after Luke wrote about the Marketplace of Ideas (and Eric added his comments on his blog) has been stellar. While all that was happening, Michael Egnor wrote an absolutely amazing and serious blog post about the evil of eugenics and and the intolerance toward “opinions on ethical issues that derive from religious traditions” amongst those who hold to “a narrow leftist-atheist ideology”. That was followed by another amazing and absolutely hilarious blog post by Richard Sternberg on the myth of the commonality between chimpanzee and human DNA. Both of these men have a gift. They are obviously very bright men who worked very hard to know what they know. They appear to be very passionate about what they do. The thing that sets them apart is that they are both gifted writers. I literally cried at Egnor’s piece and I laughed out loud at Sternberg’s piece. I was so irritated that comments are turned off on the Evolution News and Views blog, that I sent them an email.
It said, “If Richard Sternberg remains “Expelled”, he could easily make his living as a writer. Even some of Mark Steyn’s pieces are not as Steynesque as the chimapanzee post. That is the best praise I know to give. Kudos Dr. Sternberg!!!”
Kelly and I talk about how to prepare to take part in the public discourse. We want that to be a part of our homeschool. Of course Kelly writes her daily comic strip, writes letters to the editor (and to World Magazine), and posts on this blog. Christian keeps his own blog. That is all good and well, but those are just mechanisms to practice in their media of interest. We think it is great to be able to write well, but not that helpful until one has enough knowledge to know about what to write. Even if there is something about which to write and even if that something is very important, it seems futile unless the writer has a passion for and knowledge of the subject. Maybe too many writers have a passion for writing more than a passion about an important subject.
That is why I loved these two articles so much. The writers hold profound knowledge and have great passion for the things about which they wrote. The profound knowledge, I think, comes from intelligence and hard work, probably with more of an emphasis on hard work than on intelligence (not to suggest that these men are not off the charts in terms of intelligence–it is just a lot of hard work to get to where they are in life). I think probably the passion comes from what one choses to love. That and the hard work required to learn to write well puts this into the realm of the doable for many people. It is possible for young homeschoolers to work on all of these things.