Tear Day

It seems that today is a tear day

One little thing set me down a path

Cleansed by salt water

Running down the cheeks

Over a six hour span

I'm spent

Yet refreshed

Authenticity accepted

Validated

Understood

From caring hearts

Outstretched over the telephone line

This Made Me Laugh This Morning

I'm a "Realist-Optimist" What are you?

The Delight of an Hour

I delight in the last hour

Talking to teenage sponges

About the effect of advertising

On the human psyche

Seeing the percent change

In their "mock stocks"

Explaining the function

Of an extensor tendon

On a big right toe

Progress made through

Sir Gawain's vocabulary

Eyes engaged - Love exchanged

Tea sipped from great-grandma's

English tea cups

A delicious hour

Savored until the last minute

Drops

Emergencies

One thing after another

Little emergencies and big

Isaac has an emergency appendectomy

Steve's dad dies suddenly

I cut my extensor tendon for my big toe

People rushing to care for their fellow man

The ebb and flow of this mass of humanity

With individual needs and fears

The mass becomes each lone heart

And we must care

We must touch

We must strive to go outside of ourselves

To hug the collective whole one heart at a time

Without this we die as a people

Annie Barrows | Borders Media

Annie Barrows | Borders Media

From my touch!

School and Dave Ramsey Finance Class

I love being more at home this year. Even though I am not constantly looking over my kids' shoulder during school, I am there when they need me. Sometimes they do not, sometimes they do.

Today they are taking the Dave Ramsey Finance Class Chapter 4 Test on debt. Michael already did it and got a 90%. Paul is still taking it. I REALLY like that class and highly recommend it to all home schoolers, AND their parents. I wouldn't let any kids graduate without this class. It is that important and probably the most practical class they will take.

http://www.daveramsey.com/school/

New Heights!

Carol Ann Weaver reports that Paul (almost 15) is 6' 4 3/4" and Michael Weaver (17) is 6' 5 5/8". George Weaver is ONLY 6' 4 1/2"! I come in a dismal 4th place at 6' 2 1/4".

St. Teresa of Avila Quote

Let nothing disturb thee,
Nothing afright thee.
All things are passing,
God never changeth.
Patient endurance
Attaineth to all things.
Who God possesseth
In nothing is wanting . . .
Alone God sufficeth.

The Holy Spirit Tingle

In the busy-ness of my life, I am suddenly aware that the house is totally empty because Paul is at Ultimate, George took Michael to watch Paul and walk home with him, and George is going to Faruz's house to help him move Khairol and Noorul's couch.

I really wanted to help, but I my back is whack again for some reason. Maybe it is so I can be home here all alone and yet not alone. I feel You within and around me.

Thank You!

Sunday Morning Muse

I woke up at 1:15 and could not go back to sleep. I had great time with God in Daniel 4. Now, I am listening to a Teaching Company audio about The English Language and Literature. I listened to a recording of "The Battle of Malden," and it made me wish that I could call my mom and tell her that Old English sounds so much like Swedish!

I know for the last couple of years of her life, she would have not really understood what I was trying to say, but it would have been nice this morning.

So, I thought I would muse on that for a bit.

I am tired, Lord. I had a very good Shabbat Retreat, and I was rested going into it and rested during it, but my lack of sleep last night has made me very tired. :(

So, hopefully, I will get a nap.

Teaching Textbooks is the BOMB!

I have had the Teaching Textbooks Algebra II for a year now, and I have been chomping at the bit to use it. It is so COMPLETE!

Michael took his first closed book exam, and he got a 92%. He was correcting some homework in Chapter 2 today, and I asked him how he compares it to Bob Jones University Math - Is is more or less work? Harder or easier?

His response: "It seems like it takes more time to watch the lecture and understand the concepts, but the problems are easier, and you get more out of it. Also, If you get something wrong, they explain the concept."

There are also less lessons overall with 130 for the whole year. At this rate, he will be able to finish it before spring break.

The switch was worth it then! I am going to have Michael retake the Algebra Placement Exam at LBCC when he is done with Algebra II. I know he will do better.

So, It is two thumbs up for Algebra II, and I think I am going to switch Paul to it for Geometry. I am excited!

I might even switch him to Algebra I right now!

Our Homeschool Year Shaping Up and Changing

We like it, but I gave the kids the option of not watching the Biography of America videos and spending more time in reviewing their US History through this wonderful site:

http://www.historyteacher.net/USQuizMainPage.htm

This is an awesome site for reinforcement and something I failed miserably at last year. I was trying to keep in step with Thelma's pace, and she was so slow through the "Early Settlement" phase of US History that they would not read for quite some time in their text. Then, we had to FLY through the last part because she spent very little time on that. So, we are reviewing everything they learned last year at an even pace. When they finish a period, they are taking the quiz. Biography of America was an excellent "color" commentary on the events, dealing more with principles, but it wasn't hard core fact reinforcement. I think this is what they need at this point in time. So, their time will be allocated more wisely with this.

They just might feel confident enough to take the CLEP exam at the close of the review, but Paul may be too young, and Michael really lacks confidence. I will pray for him in all of that.

BRITISH LITERATURE

I don't think all this American History review will be in conflict with our moving on to British Literature. I spent HOURS this weekend working on the course that starts tomorrow. I am sure that it will get much quicker once I get into the swing of editing Thelma's lectures for our use.

She got the wrong lecture up for the second half of the class. So, I had to wait for her to get it out later last night. So, I am working on editing that last 56 minutes today.

I am thinking I will need to have my Mondays during the day be reserved for class prep since we will have TOAG ministry on Monday nights now (at least that is what we are leaning toward).

Here is our reading list for British Literature:

Pilgrim’s Progress, John Bunyan ISBN: 0486426750

Everyman, Anonymous ISBN: 0486287262

The Imitation of Christ, Thomas a Kempis ISBN: 0486431851

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, editor Jessie Weston ISBN: 0486431916

As You Like It, Shakespeare ISBN: 0486404323

Much Ado About Nothing, Shakespeare ISBN:0486282724

Complete Sonnets, Shakespeare ISBN: 0486266869

Selected Poems, John Donne ISBN: 0486277887

She Stoops to Conquer, Oliver Goldsmith ISBN: 0486268675

English Romantic Poetry: An Anthology, ISBN: 0486292827

The Kreutzer Sonata, Tolstoy- (translation) ISBN: 0486278050

Favorite Father Brown Stories, G.K. Chesterton ISBN: 0486275450

Non-Dover titles:

Beowulf: A Verse Translation, Frederick Rebsamen ISBN: 9780060573782 (old editions okay)

Paradise Lost John Milton –– Norton Critical Edition ISBN: 13: 9780393924282 (old editions okay)

One novel of choice from this selection: Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe (1819); Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (1813); or Cooper’s The Last Mohican (1826) ; other titles by instructor approval. This novel is not needed until March 2010. Students may delay making their choice or check out a copy from a local library.

They will have 8 quizzes, 4 papers (3 for Paul), 2 exams, 4 study guides, 2 vocabulary sheets, and 1 explication worksheet. It seems more straightforward than the American Literature class with less that last year's 17 writing assignments, 20 quizzes, and 4 exams (no study guides last year). The exams are both open book and take homes whereas last year's were all closed book exams. So that is very nice. :)

I am so into this. It is a TON of work, but I really like it! Maybe someday, I will develop my own literature courses for homeschoolers. I think I would do well at the lecture part of it. I am still learning, but I have learned much over the last two years through The Well-Educated Mind reading and Thelma's classes.

Musings

It is hard to believe it has been eight days since I posted, but I am going from summer to school mode. So, it means less time for TWEM books but still time to educate my mind. After all, this whole blog started as a way to express what we were learning in our schooling!

So, what are we learning?

HISTORY

Review of last year's US History because I did a horrible job of quizzing them as they went along. The American Literature and American Government classes at Co-op took so much of our time that we just read without proper review. They remember everything from Thelma's American Literature, and I realized that it is because they had their reading reinforced by lecture, discussion, quizzes, writing, and exams.

We are daily doing history in an interactive way for at least one hour, four days a week. Since they did all the reading up through reconstruction, we are simply reviewing the AP US History Flash Cards. We are reading twenty a day. Then, they split the cards up and quiz each other on the contents. Every two days, I am having them take quizzzes here:

http://www.historyteacher.net/USQuizMainPage.htm

Fabulous website with interactive quizzes! Love it.

Doing 20 cards a week, we can finish our review by next month and continue with our regular history that involves listening to this:

Joy Hakim's History of US on cassette

In addition, we will continue with Biography of America

SCIENCE

I bit the bullet and switched to Apologia Biology for Paul

I still think the BJU Biology is much more rigorous, but it was too dry and tedious for Paul last year (Michael dutifully did every single study guide question and excelled on the test, but I don't think he particularly enjoyed it). I have heard that BJU is the best, and I got it for $5! Yet, I also had to buy the tests and answer keys and lab notebook for probably more than the $35 I spent on all of those things for the used Apologia plus I got a multimedia CD with it. In addition, I found a website with much of the book vocabulary lists on flash cards! So cool:

http://quizlet.com/1018306/apologia-biology-module-1-edition-2-flash-cards/

I just wished I had switched him last year when the co-op class was doing Apologia Biology Lab! I was just so overwhelmed with starting a new co-op with all these people I didn't know and had been together for a long time. It was a pretty miserable start for me all around. People didn't really reach out to me or my kids except the Biology lab teacher, Sheri! So, it was a relief to drop that and just do government even though I clicked the most with the Biology lab teacher. But I digress (which I can do on this blog!)

So, I really love it, and I think that Paul loves it too! I love the CD. I love the emphasis on the Lord, and who gives a rip if it isn't as rigorous?

Michael is going to finish out this:

The Cornell Bird Biology Home Study Course.

He read the whole book last year, but to get the certificate, you must pay $200 and complete ten open book exams, but we were so uncertain about our finances with George having just lost his job (another reasons why the Co-op was just too much for me). In retrospect, we probably could have afforded it! So, I wished I had done it then. He is going back through the chapters he already read and completing the exams. I bet he retained a ton though. So, it shouldn't be too much for him.

When he completes this, I will have him do Human Anatomy and Physiology. Possibly through the community college.

Speaking of Science, I have to go on to that for the kids! To be continued tomorrow.

My life in Poems

It was a fun journey through poetry. I am coming down to earth, but I tend to think in poetry these days. Claudia said yesterday at lunch that she has written poems all her life. She does this more than journaling.

Then I got to thinking that I have written songs, and they are poetry. The nice thing about poetry is that you don't have to think up a tune.

Light bulb.

So, I am looking at my day to day in poetic terms.

Off.

Poet 16: T.S. Eliot

Yippee!

Sixteen poets in eighteen days plus a Shakespeare play for good measure.

I concluded with T.S. Eliot. by listening to a recording of him reading "The Wasteland" on YouTube! (the internet can be such a blessing)

T.S. Eliot wrote "The Wasteland" prior to his conversion and when he was going through great problems in his marriage (loveless and something he jumped into before he knew the woman). It speaks of his thirst, and this was all part of his process in coming to find the TRUE living water of Jesus!

I will conclude this adventure with a YouTube video of a wonderful narrator reading "The Journey of the Magi" which is through the eyes of one of the wise men. It was written after Eliot became a believer.

Enjoy!

Poet 16: T.S. Eliot

Yippee!  Sixteen American Poets in fourteen days with a Shakespeare play thrown into the mix!  

No place of grace for those who avoid the face 

No time to rejoice for those who walk among noise and deny the voice

From Ash Wednesday

Poet 15: Ezra Pound

Background: Ezra Pound was born in 1885 in Hailey of the Idaho Territory. He was a leader of the modernist movement in poetry. He advanced the work of Americans like Frost, Williams, Hemingway, and Eliot in addition to Irish writers Yeats and Joyce. He had radical political views, supported Mussolini, was a critic of the US involvement in World War II, and an anti-semite. A colorful character by all accounts! He was even arrested for treason but aquitted and determined he was insane!

Now, to his poetry . . .

I thought he might be like Gross Ginsberg (forever will be my name for his creepy poetry), but it was very well-crafted and beautiful. I just didn't understand a whole lot of it! LOL! He uses many Greek illusions, and I am glad I have a bit of background in this. He promulgated Imagism which borrows from classical Japanese and Chinese poetry.

Though I didn't always understand him, I liked him.

This poem got the most comments on AmericanPoems.com:

In a Station of the Metro

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;

Petals on a wet, black bough.

Poet 14: Sylvia Plath

When Sylvia was eight, her father died, and she declared, "I'll never speak to God again." It is obvious from her poetry that she did not. She wrote over 274 poems in her 31 years of life. Her last one was written six days before she took her life in the dead of the coldest winter in England since 1947.

She was spoke early and was writing complege poems by the age of five. John Dryden once said,

"Great wits are sure to madness near allied,

And thin partitions do their bounds divide,"

Here is one poem that she wrote eleven days before she died. Her poor children!

Child

Your clear eye is the one absolutely beautiful thing.
I want to fill it with color and ducks,
The zoo of the new

Whose name you meditate --
April snowdrop, Indian pipe,
Little

Stalk without wrinkle,
Pool in which images
Should be grand and classical

Not this troublous
Wringing of hands, this dark
Ceiling without a star.

P.S. Here is a website on neurotic poets I found fascinating.

Poet 13: Langston Hughes

Whew! After Adrienne Rich's poetry, it was refreshing to read Langston. He hit my heart with the African-American experience. That is one thing I have appreciated about Susan Wise-Bauer: she has included many works by African-Americans that have opened my eyes (Invisible Man, Native Son, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Song of Solomon, Up From Slavery, Paul Laurence Dunbar and Rita Dove poems).

Here are some favorites:

I, Too

I, too, sing America. I am the darker brother. They send me to eat in the kitchen When company comes, But I laugh, And eat well, And grow strong. Tomorrow, I'll be at the table When company comes. Nobody'll dare Say to me, "Eat in the kitchen," Then. Besides, They'll see how beautiful I am And be ashamed-- I, too, am America.

Still Here

been scared and battered.
My hopes the wind done scattered.
Snow has friz me,
Sun has baked me,

Looks like between 'em they done
Tried to make me

Stop laughin', stop lovin', stop livin'--
But I don't care!

I'm still here!

I like selections from Montage of a Dream Deferred

Dream Deferred (now I know where the title of the play comes from)

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?