*blows dust from keyboard* (alternate title: complaints about schoolwork)

That title is metaphorical, actually.  My keyboard is used everyday and is never dusty.  But my *new post* button would definitely be dusty if was actually real and not just a combination of pixels.   I'm not gonna apologize about not posting for ten days, so if you wanted to hear that you can just skedaddle.  It's not happening.

September is a really busy month, apparently.  I figured it would be no different from August, but I was wrong.  You know the saying - "good grades, social life, blogging, and enough sleep: pick two."  (Well, maybe it doesn't go quite like that....)  September seems like it's going the month of good grades and social life.  BUT, I am working on my first guest post ever, which is awesome and scary.  It's a proof of my lack of time, though, that I only get about two sentences written at a time before I remember that I really need to answer the study question for English 11 because I have to do that and English 12 before the end of May, or I haven't done American Government for three days and I need to catch up, or...well, you get the idea.  Whoever said twelfth grade was the easiest is a LIAR.  DON'T LISTEN TO THEM.  It's really, really stressful.  You're welcome. 

Well, I'm off to clean stuff and write some of my guest post and watch babies.  Happy feast of the Nativity of Mary, by the way.

Homeschool Tips from a Setonite

via pinterest

Since I've just started twelfth grade (woohoo!) and I know most of you are starting the school year about now as well, I thought I'd share some homeschooler's "helps" to get one through the agony.  I am by no means a whiz at schoolwork, but over twelve years of torture I've had time to discover some helpful little tips and tricks.  I daresay they're mostly common-sense, but since that particular quality is sadly lacking these days, I don't think anyone will notice.

• Music.  This doesn't work for everyone, but most people will find that there's maybe just one subject that gets done faster or more easily when they're listening to music.  Personally, I need music for subjects that don't take up much brainpower, because if my brain isn't occupied, I get antsy and am likely to just stop doing whatever it is.  I also need music for subjects that frustrate me and for things that I can hardly force myself to do.  (At this point you might be wondering what I do without music.  Wellll.....precious little.  A grand total of two subjects out of seven, to be precise.)  Now, I know tons of people already listen to music while doing schoolwork, but here's the thing: a lot of them listen to the wrong kind.  Face it, most popular music isn't going to help you think.  Sorry darling.  Now, of course everyone has their preferences, but as a rule, calmer music is better, and instrumental is always good.  That doesn't necessarily mean classical, either, though classical is a good choice.  Personally, I like Enya, Mozart, and string-quartet versions of more upbeat songs.   
• Location.  If you're easily distracted (like me), the revered dining-room-table method is probably the worst choice.  There are always people walking through, yelling in the next rooms, and talking to you when you're trying to work.  Not to mention that eventually your family forgets you're there and thus unwittingly lets you eavesdrop on various conversations.  NOT that I would know anything about that.  *whistles*  Ideally, I think the best thing to do is to change your position for different subjects.  If you always do a certain subject in a certain place, simply going to that place will make your brain prepare for the subject.  For instance, I do math and logic in the dining room (no, I do not follow my own advice), English on my bed, Literature sitting in my rocking chair, science on the couch, and everything else at my desk (which is really a dumpster table, but don't tell anyone).
•  Food and drink.  One, eat breakfast.  I never do (hate that meal) and then I'm sitting with a math book at ten o' clock about to faint.  It's not conductive to understanding or efficiency.   Two, find out if caffeine really helps at all.  I drink black tea every morning, but it's more to stop hunger than to help me work.  Caffeine can do more harm then good where school is concerned, because it makes you jittery and easily distracted.  Some people are still helped by it, though, so find out what it does for you personally.  Finally, I've discovered that a snack or drink in the afternoon really helps with that 3 o' clock slump.  I haven't tried it in the winter yet, so I'm not sure what would be best, but during the summer I would get a glass of iced tea, juice, a cookie, or some other little thing (often sweet) to nibble or sip while I worked.  It really helped, especially because I always feel a need to occupy my brain whilst I eat or drink.
• The black hole of procrastination.  I refer to the internet.  This is the biggest no-brainer ever, and yet no one can resist it.  If you can't use sheer willpower (and it's harder than it sounds), just disconnect your computer.  Then that little orange fox (or whatever, dependeding on which internet service you use) is no use, and you are forced to work.  If for whatever reason you can't do that, a lesser solution is to just visit all your pet sites at a stated time.  That way you've seen all the updates and you don't get that curiosity in the back of your mind to check what's new on Pinterest or see if there are any new posts on your favorite blogs.  This isn't a perfect solution because, besides the fact that you've given in to the temptation, you still tend to get lost in the intricacies of blog links or youtube videos and lose track of time, with often disastrous results.  Bottom line, you're gonna have to expend some willpower no matter what, but there are ways to minimize it.
• Bribe yourself.  "If I finish this essay today, I'll watch an extra episode of _________ later."  Or "I'll have a nice dessert after dinner."  Or whatever it takes.  I must confess that I have been known to give myself the reward even if I don't complete the task.  Don't do that.  Just...no.  It's ridiculous.  You only get the prize if you do the work. And, speaking of indulgence, celebrate your perfect scores.  I remember one of the only times I got 100% on a math test, my mom called my dad and told him, and he brought me back a little fairy craft as reward when he came home that night.  That was in....probably seventh grade.  Now, as a highschooler, you don't expect prizes, and I'm not even saying you should buy yourself something.  Just, tell your family, do a happy dance, and eat a cookie.  Cookies are good for everything.
• Tell others about what you're doing.  Seriously, this helps.  If you discuss your book analysis with your mom, a sibling, or anyone whom you see very often, you'll get more interested in it yourself.  Plus, they'll often ask you how it's going, and then of course you want to give a favorable answer, so you work on it more and make a better effort than if no knew but you.  If you're lucky (and it doesn't annoy you too much), you can convince someone to nag you about a despised subject or assignment till you do it.  I've tried numerous times to get my mom to force me to work, and she just WON'T DO IT.  Hopefully you have someone more cooperative.  *glares*

Well, hopefully something in that gave you some ideas.   Good luck with the school year!  Say a prayer to St. Thomas Aquinas when you're stuck.  He's the patron saint of scholars.

A Ramble-y Post on *The Scarlet Letter*

 People.  This book.  I thought I was going to hate it, but I don't.  It's full of interestingness and ideas and STUFF, which I will now proceed to ramble about.  Oh, and I must put out a major spoiler alert.  Don't say I didn't warn you.  You won't understand what I'm talking about, if you haven't read the book, by the way, because I'm not going to explain who or what I'm discussing.  I have to do that all the time in real life, and I very much dislike it.

First of all, The Scarlet Letter made me very grateful to be a Catholic.  Catholic confession would have been the saving of Dimmesdale!  He wouldn't have had to struggle with all that guilt and hypocrisy, because his sin would have been cleansed by the sacrament of Penance.  But no, he was a Puritan, and so he had to struggle with his guilt and try to avenge it on his own.  I do feel very, very sorry for him, even if he was a spineless jerk most of the time.  But shame is a horrible thing to bear.  It's not even explainable, it's so ghastly.  So I feel for Dimmesdale, and I wish I could hop in a TARDIS or something and bring him a Catholic priest.  (Do TARDISes go to fiction?  I'm not very well-versed in Who-ology.)  I did like that the author had confession (in a general way) be essential to Dimmesdale's redemption.  Hawthorne didn't just have him say "oh, in my heart I'm sorry for this, and that's all it takes so everything's fine now.  Glory hallelujah."  Also, the author didn't make excuses for the sin.  I mean, the whole book is about the consequences of a couple's adultery.

Random point #2: Pearl scares me.  I know she's supposed to be the living incarnation of her parents' sin and their punishment, but the girl is freaky.  You have no idea how relieved I was to find out that she was "humanized by sorrow" and eventually married and had a child.  I would have liked to see what she was like after her "transformation."  Too bad Nathaniel Hawthorne is dead.  A Pearl-centered sequel would have been interesting.

Speaking of weirdness, I was a bit confused by all the mentions of witchcraft.  Did Hawthorne mean to imply that all the flying about in the sky and whatnot actually happened, or was he just giving  the local opinions?  Very strange.

I found the characterization to be very good.  All the characters were three-dimensional: no one was  all good or all bad, yet the division between good and evil was very visible.  Even revengeful old Roger Chillingworth had his sympathetic moment in the beginning of the story, when he admits that he was wrong to marry Hester.   One almost feels sorry for him at that point.

Well, I'd better wrap this up.  It's nearly dinnertime and I'm too hungry to think anymore.  But I shall make this into a proper review by giving The Scarlet Letter 7 stars out of 10, a PG-13 movie-style rating (for mature themes), and recommending the book for readers age fifteen & up.

Note: I did not give the "mature readers"/"ordinary readers" distinction because once a reader is old enough for the mature themes, he/she is already old enough to be comfortable with the style.  Hope that makes sense. 

If you've read The Scarlet Letter, what did you think of it?  (Seton students, my eye is upon you.  I know you've read it because it's required for 11th-grade English, so I am expecting your comments.  Muahaha.)

She Who Loves Required Reading.

Yes, I am odd.  I get so excited when I get to read new things for school!  As weird as it may sound, I am truly grateful to Seton for providing me with such awesome literature, such as:

 
The Scarlet Pimpernel.  This is now one of my all-time favorite novels.  My mom read it immediately (and I mean immediately) after I finished it, and she loved it as much as I did.  Now I'm reading Petticoat Rule by the same author - only, I'm using Project Gutenberg, because it's out of print.  *insert guilty glance at the Pledge to Read the Printed Word  button in sidebar*  But anyway, this is a really awesome book.  Please don't just see the movie instead: it's rather different from the book, and it has some quite inappropriate parts.





Lay Siege to Heaven. The story of St. Catherine of Siena, this was very inspiring for me.  I actually wrote the book analysis for this one (as opposed to my BA for The Scarlet Pimpernel, which I never did....) and though I didn't grade too well on it, it made me think about the story more deeply.  It's beautifully written - much more like a novel than a biography.  I can't wait to read Louis de Wohl's other novels, like The Quiet Light and The Living Wood.  Definitely try this one!





The Screwtape Letters.  Okay, so what if this is for eleventh-grade English and I'm still stuck with tenth-grade English?  I couldn't help but "preview" it, and it's so very good - amusing and scary and lesson-teaching, all rolled into one unusual story, which takes the form of letters from a devil to an under-devil.  Weird, right?  I was skeptical too, but now I'm converted. (No pun intended.)  Hopefully I'll get to read Lewis' other works soon...I'm especially interested in Till We Have Faces.  If I ever get to read this, it may mean another literature feature for my lovely (and long-suffering) readers!





A Tale of Two Cities.  Charles Dicken's famous, well-beloved, and well-hated novel.  (HOW COULD YOU HATE THIS BOOK, PEOPLE?)  I don't believe I can write very coherently about it, especially without giving Important Things away.  Suffice it to say that it's a beautiful tale of love, injustice, and sacrifice.  And it'll probably make you cry, unless you are one of the above-mentioned haters.


 Well, that's all for now.  Now tell me:  have you read any of these books?  Did you like them?  Got any suggestions for the bibliomaniac?  Tell me everything!  I'd love to hear from you.


PS - Would you happen to have anything that you'd like me to post about?  Let me know, if you do!

Homeschooler

I've been homeschooled my entire life.  I have never set foot in a public school, and, truth to be told, when I see them I shudder.  They look like gaudily-painted prisons.

When I was stubborn or uncooperative about my schoolwork, my mom used to threaten to send me to public school.  Luckily for me, I have only one year of school left, so I think I'm fairly safe.

My mom has many reasons for homeschooling me, and I have many reasons to appreciate it!


First, there is the matter of religion.  Of course I want to preserve my faith, and I feel that I can do that much better at home.  I have significantly less temptations, and very little peer pressure.  I study out of predominately Catholic books, and since my parents and I are in control of what I learn, I get to explore alternative views of things like history and science.  Instead of being taught evolution, I was presented with the hypothesis and the refutations of it and allowed to draw my own conclusions.  (Obviously my book - Exploring Creation With Biology - is against evolution, but it was not dogmatic about it.  That book is really good.  My biology-major dad loved it.)
I mentioned peer pressure.  Obviously that has a large bearing on religion as well - being homeschooled, it's easier for me to choose who I want to be around, and of course I choose people who are like me.  My friends don't put pressure on me to wear tight jeans or dye my hair pink or act impurely or anything like that, because they themselves would never do those things.  I'm not saying that I refuse to be friends with somebody who doesn't share my views, but as it stands now, most of my friends do.

Another reason I like being homeschooled is that I feel that I'm getting a better education this way.  I'm not trying to brag, but there are statistics showing that homeschooled children do consistently better on tests like the ACT.  (If you don't believe me, look it up.  You can start here.)  Really, I'm not trying to be a snoot.  I'm only sharing my personal experience (and the test results).  I know that there are public-schooled people who are eons ahead of people like me in intelligence.  Only....I haven't met too many of them. 

Homeschooling, if done right, increases one's self-discipline.  This is very important, because in today's world, self-discipline is the last thing on most people's minds.  It's all about gratifying ME, and instantly, too.  We can't restrain ourselves - we're not taught to!  And so we're morally weak - lots of times, physically weak as well.  With homeschooling, most of the time you have to do it yourself.   You're not herded from class to class, your mom isn't going to walk you through every lesson and every subject, and it's oh-so-easy to stop taking that Religion test and start blog-hopping instead....
Now, I am by no means perfect in this.  Far from it.  I've struggled many times (including now) to keep up with everything.  I may be way ahead in some subjects, but I'm still doing a couple subjects from last year, too.  But nevertheless, I'm working on it, and learning from all my responsibility.  I'm very much involved in my schoolwork.  I feel like this way I'll be much better prepared for the responsibility of an adult than if I were public-schooled, being spoon-fed my information and having everything tidily taught to me.

I know that one of the most common objections to homeschooling is that homeschoolers are "anti-social".  You hear it all the time: "Homeschoolers have no social life!  Those parents are depriving their children of normal interaction and therefore forcing them to become shy, socially-unskilled recluses!" *insert glare of righteous horror at homeschooling parents*

I could go on and on and on about this.  As a matter of fact, there was much more that I wanted to cover in this post - but I'm kind of running out of steam now.  Perhaps I'll do a "Part II" sometime, if I remember what else I wanted to say.  Anyway, this post is getting rather long and seeming to get more confused the longer I go, so I shall end presently. 

If you have any questions about homeschooling, comment and ask me!  I'll be happy to answer them - perhaps with another post.  Homeschooling is rather misunderstood, on the whole, and I'd be glad to help clear up the confusion.

What do you think of homeschooling?  I'd love to hear your opinion.

Picture not mine - unfortunately I don't remember where it came from.