Trip to the Pacific Northwest

I can't even begin to put into words how much fun we had on our trip to Portland/Cannon Beach/Seaside/Manning/Vancouver. Robin, Rylee, Ren, Jared, Sierra, Jalen, our family + Kev's friend, Sara, all went. It was the first time we've all been together in four years.

The trip started in Portland with us and Robin and Rylee for three days. We explored the downtown area, went to Voodoo Doughnuts (several times), Saturday Market, Oregon Zoo, and lots of eating. The weather was in the 70's/low 80's the entire time so we got some sunbathing in down by the river also. Ren and three of her four children flew in on Sunday night, our third day there. On Monday morning we rented two vans and headed over to Tillamook Cheese Factory and then on to Cannon Beach, ending at Seaside.

We then went to Manning to visit Grandma Bidwell and my Aunt Carol and Uncle Ed. We celebrated Ren's 40th birthday there and explored Grandma's 45 acres and played with Carol and Ed's dogs. It was odd being there without Grandpa around anymore (he passed away a few months ago).

After Grandma's we headed up to Vancouver for the Life Is Good Unschooling Conference where we had the time of our lives. Ren and Kev both had talks there, Amy Steinberg did a concert, there was a barefoot boogie dance, and lots of other fun activities. We met lots of wonderful, joyful people!! 425 unschoolers!! It's always so refreshing to be around so many people who share the same philosophies and desire to live joyful, respectful, trusting relationships with their children. There was so much JOY just swirling around us for five days.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention......................When we were at Grandma's we were all sitting around talking and Jared says, "I wish I could go back to Alaska with you." And I replied, "You wanna?" The boy asks, "Really?" Next thing you know we are booking his ticket and he is now in Alaska with us! We get to have him for the entire summer, so exciting! Unfortunately, the last two days since we've been home it's been raining so we haven't gotten out to do anything yet but him and Tristan seem quite happy to be playing the XBox. We are going to take the motorhome up to Fairbanks in a couple weeks so that's something to look forward to. We have all kinds of things planned. I hope the weather cooperates:)

Here are some pictures of the highlights:

Creative marketing!

Tristan attempts the doughnut challenge- didn't quite make it but had fun trying.

Ren's 40th.

Family picture at Grandma's with my Aunt Carol and Uncle Ed. Jalen didn't want to be in the picture so we snapped him as he was walking away.....

He'd just had enough for the day.

My aunt and uncle's boston terriers got plenty of attention!

Hiking Gram's property.

Posing at the Tillamook Cheese Factory.

Cannon Beach.

Happy, lively, joyful people and energy at the Life is Good Unschooling Conference.

Amy Steinberg concert. This was the highlight of the trip for me!

Partying at the Amy Steinberg concert.

Amy cuddles. With Ren, Diana, and me!

Kev's talk at the conference. He did very well.

Ya think they are a little pooped out. 12 WONDERFUL days later!

Yesterday I was visiting with a friend about unschooling v. public school. This particular individual is extremely supportive of unschooling so we were just discussing pros and cons, the way the government thinks and designs, etc. Tristan was listening to the conversation so Sharon asked Tristan if he was going to join Kev at the highschool next year. Tristan responds with, "No thanks!! I can learn right here!!" As he proceeds to show me all these different kinds of spiders he was looking up.

I love unschooling!! But I also love that my kids are capable of making their own choices and that their choices are very different to fit the uniqueness of their lives. It would be torture for Tristan to be stuck in a classroom all day. This is a kid who thrives on being outdoors, building, working hard with his hands, rollerblading, hiking, biking, throwing a football. I can't imagine a worse scenario for him than public school.

Swine Flu Panic

"Using new and improved statistical models, CDC scientists estimate that an average of 36,000 people (up from 20,000 in previous estimates) die from influenza-related complications each year in the United States. In addition, about 11,000 people die per year from respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), a virus that causes upper and lower respiratory tract infections primarily in young children and older adults. "

And why are we freaking out over a handful of deaths from the swine flu? And the above stats are just for the US!

I think the media just loves to see everyone panic.

I know I'm having a terrible time lately keeping up with my blog, just been busy I guess, other priorities. So I'm sure you will all laugh when I say....................I'm going to try really hard to get my vegan blog back on regular postings. I posted today and will make an enormous effort to post something every week:) There is a new post today so for anyone interested in healthier, vegetarian fare come visit.

Everything I post are things that I make on a regular basis and most of the recipes are not complicated. I don't post recipes either unless MOST of my family rave about them. If you try any of them I would love your feedback about how you and/or your family enjoyed them.

http://veganforamonth-snavleys.blogspot.com/

The address comes from the fact that when I first started the blog I was trying one month of veganism. I went on a few months later to live six months being vegan. I now am back to lacto vegetarian- I only do eggs if they happen to be in a baked good and I try to limit my dairy so it's not every day. All of our dinner meals, for the most part, are vegan as I always seek to honor my children's choices (Kev is vegan).

Enjoy!

This week has been a very interesting week for me- a week of reflection and some deep digging from within. I was "caught in the act" of doing something that did not jive with the spirit of joy and cooperation that I have worked so hard to create with my children and in our home life. I am lucky to have people in my life that love me and walk beside me through our unschooling journey and who are honest enough to tell me when they see me reverting back to using old tools, tools that I thought I had long given up and replaced with better ones. My mothers voice was loud inside my head this week and I couldn't get it out until someone who knows that voice well (any guesses?) was able to snap me out of it. And I don't mean that as disrespectful to my mother- we had a wonderful relationship once I was an adult but we struggled often when I was growing up and she didn't always use tools that led to cooperation, joy, and a healthy self-esteem.

This "digging" has shown up in interesting ways in my yoga practice but that is a whole 'nother blog. It's just interesting that about the time I think I have it all figured out and my life is perfect the Universe lets me know I still have things to learn and there are still ways I can make my life better and more joyful. It's been a letting-go-of-ego week for me to say the least. But that's what my yoga practice is all about so it's all good:)

Because of all this schtuff I've been dealing with I've been getting online and reading more blogs and trudging back to the basics of unschooling and what brought me to this path in the first place. I just wanted to share these two things that I really enjoyed this week.

A little snipet from John Gatto at a blog I visit every now and then:

http://fourlittlebirds.blogsome.com/

And a piece of an interview that Sandra Dodd posted on her blog recently in regards to showing other parents how to unschool:

"What it takes is the parent has to change. The parent has to learn to see the learning in things. And that's hard. School trains that out of people. School tells you that you need teachers, and you need books, and you need someone to tell you what you need to know, and you need to have proof that you know it by taking a test. I don't think anyone has been to school and taken tests can remember......very little, of the actual facts. And a lot of the facts changed anyway. They changed their minds about this and that, scientifically, and words have changed, and Tanganyika and Soviet Union are no longer worried about.........."

Anyway, not that these things are necessarily directly related to my week of "digging" but connected, as all things are. Good reading though:)

Namaste'

This is a quote I came across in one of my yoga books, Meditations From the Mat:

The human individual is equipped to learn and go on learning prodigiously from birth to death, and this is precisely what sets him or her apart from all other known forms of life. Man has at various times been defined as a building animal, a working animal, and a fighting animal. but all of these definitions are incomplete and finally false. Man is a learning animal, and the essence of the species is encoded in that simple term. George Leonard

This is exactly what we, as unschoolers, deeply believe- that we were born with an inherent desire to learn about the world around us. We don't need force and coercion to learn the things we need to know to move us through this journey of life. The only thing that compulsory learning does for an individual is zap that natural curiosity right out of him. There are a few individuals who can survive it unscathed but not too many.

There has been a lot of talk lately about the high level of high school dropouts and how do we remedy that? More testing! Ludicrous! They are dropping out because they are bored to death and they are tired of people telling them how to live their lives, as if all the adults in their lives know better than they do what they need for their own, very personal journey.

The kids that drop out are actually the smarter kids! They know when they are being fed bullsh** and decide to run! Yay for them! The government has convinced everyone that if you don't have a high school diploma that you will never make anything of yourselves, yet look at the most successful (based on salary and money making businesses) people in this country and you will see that a LARGE amount of them are high school or college dropouts.

Some other crap that the government is trying to feed our kids is that they NEED college to have successful lives. We tell OUR children that if college will get them to where they want to go, great! Go to college. If there is a different or easier way to get them to where they want to go then do that. College does NOT guarantee a bigger salary and it does not guarantee success. What it does guarantee is a big fat student loan, unless you are lucky enough to have someone else pay for it, and even then they've spent how much? It's ridiculous. And what is success anyway? We measure success on how fulfilled and happy our children are with what they are doing. Unfortunately, most people measure success on how much money a person is making even though so many of those people are pathetically miserable in what they are doing.

My husband has almost always made a very large salary and he only did one semester of college. And beyond the salary, his happiest years were when he was doing something that wasn't making that big of a salary but was doing something he loved to do.

Anyway, just a little venting on my part. I wish the country would wake up and see what we are doing to our children. It makes me sad that from 5 years old most kids are spending their days doing things that they are barely tolerating, what an awful way to live your life. It brings me so much joy and satisfaction to see my own kids living the life I could only dream of at their age, to see them happy and fullfilled, full of zest for living, and so excited about learning new things! They are living the life that THEY are choosing to live, not what someone else is choosing for them. We are not perfect parents, nor do we live perfect lives but my measuring stick is "how happy and healthy are my kids? And how healthy is my relationship with them?" and the answer is almost always the same- they are healthy and happy, and we have a very good relationship with our kids (which always comes first by the way, regardless of what anything else looks like) what more could you ask?

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On another note today:

Have you all seen Yes Man yet? Great movie! I just love this whole idea of saying "yes" to everything! Of course there is a happy medium, which the character in the movie discovers. The whole lesson in the movie though is that most of us say "no" to life far to often and when we say "yes" to opportunities we really start living life.

I have found myself saying "no" to opportunities WAY too much so I've set an intention today to start saying "yes" to as much as I can! When I am inclined to say "no" I'm going to start saying "yes" just for the hell of it and see where it leads. I will post on those things as they present themselves.

One tiny example lately is our weekly homeschool swim session. Usually, I tread water for the entire hour so I can stay warm and still say I went swimming with the kids I guess. They usually don't really want me to do much because all of their friends are in the pool with them so I'm not particularly important at that point but they do like me to be there. Well, the other day Calista asked me to jump and dive with her off the side. Not really my thing, I think in some ways I've temporarily forgotten how to be a kid, I go through waves of that. But on Wednesday I was like "what the heck, sure I will jump and dive off the side with you" It was so much fun! Except for all the water in my ears, but no biggy. It felt good to just play. So my intention is to do more of those things!

So come join me and start saying "YES"!

It's been a crazy fun-filled week! We got to go to Fairbanks for a few days and stay with the Hajduk's and see all of our wonderful Fairbanks family members. I helped Sheli get some of her house painted and we did some yoga. It was full moon and shining right into her living room window where we were doing yoga so the living room is Heidi's Full Moon Yoga Studio:)

Martin's sister, Jenette, is up visiting. We haven't seen her much so hopefully this next week we will get to see more of her. Lois (Martin's mom) and her have been coming to my Saturday Hot Yoga class and we have had a couple of coffee dates. Everyone is coming over for dinner tomorrow night and we will celebrate my dad's 66th birthday, which is actually today.

We are still working on organizing and cleaning the house after pretty much finishing our remodel project. Martin put countertops and shelves in the home office, which allows him to be a little more efficient. He is working at home so the home office is pretty important.

We had a great Easter at my sister's with a treasure hunt AND an egg hunt and delicious food.

Have I mentioned lately that I love my life?!


And, as promised, pictures of the remodel. This room used to be Tristan's, it was red and now it is four different bright colors and is Calista's room.

And this is Tristan's new room. This used to be one half of a garage. The other half is Kevin's room but I didn't take any pictures as we are in the process of re-painting after adding a closet. We finished his room last year.

This area is in front of the boys room, was part of the original garage also. The back wall is open concrete block so I'm going to put some faux brick wallpaper up and let the kids grafitti all over it.

Dying easter eggs at my sister, Robin's, house.

Kevin displaying his first paycheck! He thought it so strange of me wanting a picture of this. Mommies are just strange that way:)

Betty and Veronica. They got three fun-filled days together but, of course, it's never enough time. Best friends since birth and it's so fun to watch them in action.

Those smiles are at me!! This is Porter who was born 7-8 weeks prematurely. This is my cousin, Jason's, little boy. They were in Anchorage at the Providence Hospital Neo-natal Intensive Care Unit for 54 days!! I got to visit him every week while he was there but now he is a totally different baby than the one that was in NICU two months ago. So fun to hold him, without all those wires and tubes, and to interact with him. He is just yummy!

I think I sat just like this for about two hours. I would have been quite happy to be there all day!

Wow, almost an entire month since I last blogged. We've had lots going on this last month; finishing up our remodel project, three birthdays, the Japanese language contest, and a few other things. I just haven't had the chance to sit down and blog.

Since there is far too much to blog about I think I will just post a few pictures:) So here goes:

I haven't taken any pictures of the finished remodel so I will take some and post those in a few days.

This kid is on a funky schedule and is known to fall asleep in the strangest of places. On this particular day he was rolling around with the dogs and the next thing you know he is asleep on the dog bed.

Martin with his buddies on his 40th birthday. We had a wine and cheese night with a bunch of friends and family. Sadly, I only took a couple of pictures- I guess I was just having too much fun.

And Suzanne's 36th birthday.


Debbie and Suzanne on Suzanne's birthday- St.Pattie's Day style

And Debbie's 41st birthday! I told you we had a lot of birthdays!

Debbie on her birthday.

Out my living room window a few mornings ago.

Typical day at the Snavley house:)

Our goofy bird, Bandit.

He thinks he's human. He pulls himself up on the glasses with his beak. Crazy bird!

On his new playground that Martin and Tristan built for him. Doesn't he look happy?

Calista's black eye that Tristan accidentally gave her when he chucked a sled in her direction. Whoops!

We've been feeding the birds and they have been flocking. They are so fun to watch. Reminds me of my momma, who used to spend about $60/mth feeding the birds.

Watching the birds from the living room window and ........................lights out!

Kevin's new haircut. I don't think his hair has been this short since he was a wee one.

Kev got the job!!

Kevin applied for a lifeguarding position with the borough about three months ago-it's a government job and we all know how efficient government employees are (wink). He finally got an interview a couple of weeks ago and then they called this morning to tell him he was hired. So exciting!

Next week he takes the Water Safety Course, which will allow him to teach swim lessons at the pool. That means his starting wage will be $11.60/hr - not too shabby for a 16 year old.

Tristan also got a job! My friend Debbie has a paper route, actually a few, that on some nights takes her quite a while to get through. So she hired Tristan a few weeks ago to go with her to roll and wrap papers and sometimes get out of the car to put them in the boxes. She pays him $20/night. A couple of months ago the boys and I subbed for her and it took us 6 hours! I thought it was the worst job in the world, especially since it is during the night and I'm not one to handle the lack of sleep too well. Tristan, on the other hand, thought it was the best job in the world and thought it suited him well, being that he is up all night anyway. So Debbie hired him! He usually only goes once a week with her, the night that she has the most papers, but since it's been snowing for over 24 hours here and the roads are terrible she thought she might appreciate his help tonight so he will get an extra day in this week.

I'm really proud of my kids! It's so much fun to watch them grow and become independent; each one of them living the life of their choosing- doing the things that make them happy and fulfilled.

Meditation from Dr. Judith Orloff

"Thank you, home, for allowing me to live within your walls. Thank you for giving me shelter, warmth, and security. Thank you for allowing me to live my life in your womb, for staying strong and sturdy, for supporting me, and for your beauty.

Thank you, earth, for the land that I live on and for allowing me to steward life with you. Thank you for allowing me to walk upon your soil, cultivate you, and live in partnership with you. Thank you for supporting my home and my family.

Thank you, plants, minerals, and animals that dwell on the land that I steward. Thank you for allowing me to experience your beauty, share in your wonderment of life, and for the honor of living with all of you on this earth.

Thank you for the wisdom and joy you bring to humanity.

I honor you."

Pictures of my mom, the day after the anniversary of her death. We noticed later that the candle had a heart shape on top, just from the way it was burning, very cool!

Enjoying our M.O.M meal:) Saucy dogs, oh ya!

Our veggie version of saucy dogs. They don't look appetizing but we think they are oh so yummy.

Making boxes for their Valentine's.

Sara and Calista making Valentine cards.

My nicely organized room that used to be the dumping grounds for anything and everything. Just a weird addition that doesn't have a lot of usefulness but it's great for the dog kennels and all the mess of craft stuff.

My awesome buy this week, from Debbie's mom. It is an old paper shelf from an old printing shop. It organizes our crafts quite nicely. Especially with the fun orange paint job I did on it.



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Wow, I think I've just been spending so much time on Facebook, catching up with old friends, that I forgot about my blog. It's been so fun to reconnect with people I haven't talked to in YEARS!!

Let's see, February started out with the anniversary of my mother's death. Our family got together with my sister and her family that first Friday and made some dishes that my mother used to make us when we were young, all the way down to desert- frozen yogurt pie. We had chicken enchiladas, saucy dogs and oriental coleslaw, of course all modified to be vegetarian:) We also reminisced over lots of pictures. It was a very sad week for me, as I just miss my mom more and more as time goes by. The horrible, painful, heart-hurting grief is not there anymore but it has just been replaced by a constant sadness for the void she left behind. I dream about her a LOT!

I made a promise to my kids that I would try and make all the holidays Grandma Cheryl-worthy this year. So for Valentines we spent the week making homemade cards and boxes to put the cards in. My sister and I got the kids a couple little presents and we made lots of pizza. Mom usually made an entire heart shaped meal but we didn't feel like doing that. Since pizza is everybody's favorite that's what we did. Our friends, Debbie and Ryan joined us that night and we had a good time. Sara, Kev and a few other friends ended up going to see Coraline and then on to a Rave so it was a little quieter than normal. I woke up that morning to a card attached to my fridge from Sara, Kev's best friend. On the front it said, "My Favorite Place" and when I flipped it over it said, "Snavley family, thanks for letting me hang out at your house and eat your food and all that good stuff! Happy Valentine's Day! Love, Sara". We love her and I hope she is always in Kev's life!

Kev had an interview at the pool on Tuesday, for a lifeguarding position. He thought he did pretty good. He should know if he got the job by next week sometime. The people that interviewed him were the same people that supervised his volunteer time so they know him- that's a plus. He also has several friends that lifeguard there- another plus. So cross your fingers for him!

We are down to the wire in getting this remodel project done. The music room and area in front of Tristan's new room are done except for the trim and Tristan's room is down to sanding and getting the primer on. The craft room/dog kennel area is also done and organized, thanks to an awesome deal that I got from Debbie's mom- an old paper shelf from an old print shop. It fits all our crafts perfectly and they are all organized. We forgot some of the stuff we had. It's an area that used to be the drop zone for anything that we didn't know where to put. You couldn't even walk in the room. Now everything is organized and there is space. It's a breathable area:)

I start a workshop tonight and it will go all weekend. Tonight is our study of the Bhagavad Gita; tomorrow is an Asana practice, experiencing the energy of the chakras in movement; and Sunday is about Bhakti Yoga, exploring the history and practice of the path of devotion. I'm really looking forward to it, as these workshops always feed and uplift my soul.

Today is a beautiful day! Yesterday was cloudy and gray and it snowed all day. This morning, on our way to coffee we realized that there was a circle of dark gray clouds all the way around our little town of Wasilla but in the middle was sunny and blue skies. As the day is progressing that circle has gotten bigger and bigger and it is now a beautiful sun, shiny day. The trees are all frosted and snowy from yesterday and it just uplifts the spirit!

Kev's Essay

Okay, so I am posting this again. This is Kevin's edited version of his essay that he wrote last summer. He has gotten quite a few comments lately on his grammar so, rather than have him endure any more, I will post this. I'm sure there are still a few grammatical errors so if you are going to comment on the grammar please offer some constructive criticism that will help him be a better writer, rather than rude comments that just hurt feelings.

Education From the Free Eye by Kevin Snavley

All my life I have unschooled; that was just life, how things were. The only thing that could be considered school is the year of pre-school I attended; of course that's all fun and games. Regardless of how good life was I always wondered in the back of my head what it was like to be in a school building all day. Is it really horrible? Do you sit there for hours on end being lectured by crazy teachers and doing hours of homework? Or is it fun, with lots of cool people and what you really "should" be doing with your life? Somewhere in between these thoughts and the influence of my public schooled friends I got worried about "catching up" and being on par with the rest of society. For a while, around age twelve, I always wanted to be on-track with the kids at school. It was probably because I felt less intelligent than them, which really wasn't the case. They just knew more meaningless facts than I did. They knew more of what our SOCIETY deems as "common smarts". It took me until last year to fully understand that and to truly understand the joys and philosophy of unschooling; the things that make it so much better than public school, the key to genuine learning.

For as long as I can remember the only friends that I had went to public school. If they didn’t go to public school, they were usually strict homeschoolers. The only true unschooling friends I have are my cousins, who live over 4,000 miles away. So in a sense I've grown up with hybrid thinking; one side struggling to decide if public school is bad or good and then one side completely supporting unschooling. My parents have always told me the reasons why public school is not ideal. Not only that but I've heard my Mom debate it numerous times. Of course I couldn't understand it like they did. I hadn't had the same life experiences as them. So inside I continually battled with myself. It was slightly neurotic, because I wouldn't care for a long time and then suddenly I'd have a small panic attack and decide I needed to catch up.

In my mind I always had horrible writing abilities. I had bad hand writing (still do!) and really the only people that ever read my writing were my parents or close friends. Which didn't really help a lot because most of my close friends are really good writers as well and my parents are my parents, you know? I guess because I had never been to school I felt slightly inferior and probably had bad self esteem. It took me until I was fourteen to finally decide I needed to see into this unknown world so I could figure everything out. Why is public school widely considered a necessity? Why do my parents and unschoolers everywhere say it's so wrong? And why is unschooling so much better? Can I REALLY survive 21st century America without it? I got all of my answers.

I would be lying if I said I went for one hundred percent personal reasons. I had one friend in particular who was pro-school and thought I was wasting my life. In a way, I wanted to prove to her that I could do it, in turn becoming a reliable resource to say if school is a waste of time or not. To be honest, up until I started writing this I forgot about that completely. I kind of kept the fact that this whole thing was an experiment in the back of my mind. While in school it does feel nice to be "normal". But is it best? For the sake of writing this I'm going to skip through the school year and spare you the details of explaining the entire nine months. School was most of what I expected, the whole face of it anyway; it wasn't quite as horrible as my parents said it was, the days went by fast most of the time, it wasn't intensely boring, and I got to see my friends. However, I noticed how little socialization time there is. I'd expected a lot more because everybody always says, "I get to hang out with my friends!!". This is definitely not my definition of hanging out. It seemed like a stupid reason to want to be there; still, understandable enough.

After a few weeks of school I quickly started to realize who I am; I wasn't stupid, not even close. If anyone was stupid it was the other ninety percent of the kids there. Everybody loved my writing, my Honors English teacher included. I did great in every class despite never having formal lessons. That's when I realized the irony; the kid that an average adult would deem to be stupid due to "lack of education" is doing better at the school game than most of the students in the entire building. It's just funny how much weight is put on something so ridiculous. If I can get good grades without ever being officially taught something, SO CAN EVERY OTHER KID OUT THERE. Grades mean nothing. School means nothing. I'm not trying to sound condescending, because at the time I felt anything but, it's just a simple realization and proof that school is unnecessary.

My favorite classes were Jazz choir, Japanese and English. I looked forward to those every day. Though something I really began to hate about the school day was waking up at 6:30am, staying there for six hours, and then swimming for another 2 hours before going home to do meaningless homework. It felt like a waste of life, time and energy. If I had it my way, I would be there for 3 classes and swimming, so towards the end of the first semester I got pretty lazy and ended with a 3.3 GPA. Still, better than most kids, but not really my best. If I was going to be at school all day long for nine months, I was definitely going to prove to those school nazis that on America's education scale, I am not any less intelligent than anybody else. Second semester I ended with a 3.8. Throughout the whole year I couldn't stand the fact that I was surrounded by unmotivated, stupid (not the academic way, but in the general manner they acted) people. Another trend I noticed was the word "can't". EVERYBODY uses that one - “I can't become this”, “I can't do that because I'm not smart enough”, “I don't have the looks for this”, etc.

I learned why a lot of the kids there are unmotivated, immature or annoying. Most of it is due to loss of motivation, and the fact that they've lived in this world (public school) practically their whole lives. I finally came to the realization that if I had to endure that nonsense for nine years, I probably wouldn't be the person I am today. Friends have told me that I would have been the definition of an honors student, I say, “no”, I would have been a lazy bum that wanted nothing more than a couch and TV in life. I might add that I've learned a lot from TV, but you get my point. The thing that has made me a responsible, smart and motivated human being IS due to my unschooled life. As stupid, annoying, unmotivated (whatever a huge portion of the public school kids are), you really can't blame them. There are some people that can relate to me and a few in school that get annoyed with the same stuff I do, but they don't completely understand either. You never really can unless you have lived a free life. Also, I noticed that my friends were coincidentally some of the lesser annoying people in the building, friends I made BEFORE going to school. Some personalities are strong and can endure twelve years of school plus college, most cannot. Between some teachers telling them they're not good enough and wasting years of their life on something that doesn't really matter, they get fried. Most of the time it goes unnoticed too and you just kind of... evaporate. I started to feel the same thing happening to me in just those short nine months. Every thought you have, dream you want to fulfill, inspiration that strikes you, it all goes on the back burner because you're slammed with everything else, and eventually you just forget how to live any other way altogether.

The whole nine months all in all were good for me though, negatives and positives. I learned that with unschooling you can learn MORE than most public schooled kids do. I learned that the things my parents have told are not complete heresy. I experienced something that I had never done before. The mystery was gone. Best of all, I can now defend the unschooling philosophy without any doubt in my mind, while being credible in my accusations against the system.

Would I recommend sending a kid to school their entire life? Absolutely not. It's much too easy to lose your way, too easy to become just another drone without that spark; dreaming of "success" and money but failing to be creative in achieving it. One thing I would advise though is to find fellow unschoolers because support is important. I'm a perfect example. Would I recommend a current unschooler attend school? If it's going to do them good as it did me, sure. If they want to see what it's like, sure. Otherwise, it's going to seem like a shit hole, plain and simple. It would be beneficial for everyone to see what it's like, but not everyone can go through it with the same view point. So like everything else in our unschooled lives, it's up to us to make that decision.

I can't say I had a bad experience, probably the opposite. Like I said before, I learned a lot about myself and the philosophies I'm submerged in, negatives and positives. But it's also great to feel like you're a part of something. There's this building full of 1200 kids that will be there right alongside you, people to relate with, interesting and amazing people as well- some you might never meet otherwise. It's fun occasionally and there ARE opportunities. And of course, the classic "my friends are there". At this point, I think it would just be easier if I moved so I could break all of my attachments. As ridiculous, unneeded and meaningless as school is, parts of it tend to grow on you. So here I am, the year I thought would never end completed and I have to decide what I want to do for the remaining three years. Over the last few days I've really been reflecting about what I truly want. Is it to finish high school, deal with everything I don't like and benefit from the things I do? Or stop, maybe go straight to College, and just start focusing on what I want to achieve in life? That's something I'll be thinking about for a while.

A few days ago it was -20 degrees. Currently it is pouring down rain. Strange to live in a place like this, coming from the far north of Fairbanks, Alaska where it is frozen for six months with no chance of anything warmer than about 0 degrees. Unfortunate for Martin and about 20,000 other commuters that live here and travel the 40 miles into Anchorage for work. I have a feeling that Martin will be working from the home office tomorrow.

My computer is finally working again. The fan went out a few weeks ago and I had a heck of a time getting the part here. I could only get on the computer for 10 minutes at a time to make sure it didn't overheat so now I'm catching up on all my favorite blogs.

The last two weeks have been pretty uneventful. It's been pretty quiet around here and we've gotten to be pretty lazy. We had a three week cold snap that kind of zapped the energy right out of me. We don't often get sub-zero weather but we had -10 to -20 for three weeks. All I wanted to do was sleep and I did a lot of it! I'm anxious to get out and walk the dogs again. They have a bit of stored up energy in need of an outlet right now and so do I.

Tristan and I are starting a little project- a playground for our parrot. I will post pictures upon completion; could be interesting:) Bandit gets a little bored so we are trying to remedy that with a playground that keeps him entertained. We couldn't really find what we wanted so we decided to make it ourselves. Tristan loves to build things so this is right up his alley.

Well, I don't have anything inspiring today...............sorry. I'm just not feeling too inspired. I'm sure as the light returns and the weather stays warmer I will come out of hibernation and find inspiration again.