Good-Bye to Misadventures of a Homeschooler

So, I officially finished 8th grade yesterday.

There wasn't any fancy graduation, or any real feeling of finality to it.  My aunt and cousins came over to hang out and we had pizza, but it wasn't for me.  And I'm totally okay with that.  You know I'm not one to be in the spotlight :)

I just wanted to say a few things:

One, thank you.  For reading, for following, for commenting, for encouraging.

Two: yeah, I'm a little nervous for high school.  New friends, new teachers.  Luckily I still have my constants.  Like family, and crazy best friends.

Finally, yes!  I've finished working on my new blog!  Here is the link, and I hope to see you there.

I love you guys very, very much.

Happy Homeschooling :)

She Sees

Part One

She runs
And runs
And runs
Never stopping
Until
Suddenly
She realizes
The beauty
The sky
The ground
The day
So she stops
And she looks
And she sees

Part Two

Little things
Like peach fuzz

Or shadows

The colors

Of the flowers

The flawless

Blue

Sky

How tall

Are the trees?

How bright
Is the sun?

She looks
At
Delicate whiskers

Veins of a leaf

Poisoned beauty

And finally

She sees.

She Sees, an original poem by Miss Education

I was outside and started noticing all the little things, so I took some pictures, which in turn inspired this poem.

Happy Homeschooling!

Putting Off

So if you were wondering about the Draw My Life, my camera died and my "startup disc is full".  I should know by now that video projects never get done haha :)

Anyway, I've been putting off blogging here because of a few reasons.  One, I really don't have much to say.  All we've been doing is wrapping up school.  I am finishing my Latin project though, which I have to wrap up today.  When I'm done I'll take some pictures (and I figured out the family tree, Granna!).

The other reason is that somewhere in my mind, I think that if I don't post here, the end of May won't come and I won't have to leave this blog.

But alas, it's already halfway through and I only have two more weeks left of school.  Then things will start up at the new blog (which currently is called Freshman's Desk but will probably change).  I'm also trying to think of a URL, which is proving to be a challenge.

Unfortunately, (and I cannot believe I am saying this) the end of school is coming a bit too fast for my liking.  Not that I'm dreading summer--definitely not!  But after that is high school, and even though that's exciting, it's also rather terrifying.  However, I have the assurance that the student store sells really good cookies and muffins, and that it's "actually really fun".  So it seems as though everything will be okay.

I'm working on a blogging schedule for my new blog, seeing as I'll have to balance it with schoolwork and--hopefully--a social life, as well as a few other things (theme design and such).  But June 1 will be my first post on *new blog* and hopefully you'll see at least one post per week there.

Until next time (and there will be a next time on this blog, still),

Happy Homeschooling!

I may have discovered Photoshop

No, not this one ;)  But it's a good video!

So I have long been a fan of Adobe Illustrator, where you can digitally draw and make graphic designs and stuff.  Not that I've ever done anything big, but it's pretty fun.  And last night my dad showed me the wonderful world of Photoshop.

Now I can take my doodles from Illustrator and color them in Photoshop.  Which is probably very dangerous because, let's face it, I love

a.) drawing

b.) digital media

c.) new ways to use both of the above

In short, he has created a monster.  A monster who draws chibis.  Here are my doodles from last night (which I finished coloring this morning).

They're very sketchy (Illustrator tries to "perfect" your lines, which can be kind of annoying) but not bad for my first time!  I'm actually somewhat happy about how they turned out.  Anyways, I just wanted to share what I've been doing :)

Happy Homeschooling!

Heard Back from High School

You may or may not know that I had my interview for admission to the private school I applied to last week.  It was pretty nerve-wracking, because I got asked a lot of questions, but overall, it seemed as though it went pretty well.

And I guess it did, because on Saturday I received a letter that said I have been

The number of exclamation points that escaped my mouth are too many to list here.  But if I could, they would probably fill several long blog posts.

This was literally pretty much my reaction.

High school, here I come!!!!

Thought I'd share this exciting news with you :)  Much love and as always--but sadly, not for much longer...

Happy Homeschooling!

Untitled

My new, under-construction blog has yet to be Titled (with, of course, a capital T).  However I have received one suggestion and come up with two of my own that I like well enough, so here they are:

1. Turn the Page (much thanks to my Granna for this one)

2. Freshman's Desk (may be changed to Sophmore's, Junior's, Senior's as needed)

3. Castles in the Sand

Let me explain the last one.  There is a song that I came upon while searching the magical land of Google called "Four Years" by a guy whose name I don't remember.  The song itself didn't do much for me, actually.  It wasn't overall a great song...at all...but there was a line in there which didn't even make sense in context, but I liked, and that was castles in the sand.

I guess it does kind of make sense, because the point of the song seemed to be "be whoever you want to be because it's only four years, live life to the fullest etc etc".  And your popularity or whatever is as fragile as sand-castles.  It's not my favorite of all of them, admittedly, but I do like the phrase.

Right now I'm leaning toward's Freshman's Desk because that's where a lot of stuff gets done, whether it's reading, writing, homework, phone calls, blogging...it's my second-favorite thing in my room (first being my bed).

I'm gonna try to add a poll to my blog, allowing you to vote on the three names.  It may or may not have much of a difference in my decision, but unless a big stroke of inspiration comes around, these are my final three choices.

Happy Homeschooling!

Happy St Patrick's Day!

Hello there!  Happy St. Patrick's Day :)  Hope everyone has been having a good month, mine has been very up-and-down so far.  Or I guess you could say, down-and-up, as the beginning of this month was kind of rough and now things are settling down.

For today, I was thinking that I could share some of my writing with you.  Currently, I'm taking a writing class and learning a ton!  A month or two ago I shared one of my poems called "Behind the Scenes", which is probably my favorite thing that I've written from class.

Here's a few paragraphs from the fiction I'm working on right now :)

As we load the boxes into the moving van, I spot Erica running down the street. 
“I’m gonna go somewhere really quick,” I mutter to my sister, Courtney, and take off towards my best friend.  “Erica!” I holler.  “Erica, wait!”

She turns and beckons to me, then keeps running.  “Come on, Aurora!” she yells back.  I know where she’s headed--the abandoned playground where we used to hang out after school last year.  It’s the only place where we’re sure to have any privacy.  Reaching into my pocket, I rub the five string bracelets I’ve made for her.

“I thought you’d never get here,” she giggles as I duck under the slide and scoot towards her.  But then her ever-present smile collapses and it’s suddenly obvious how hard she’s taking this.  How hard the move is going to be on her, too.  “Why do you have to go?” she whispers.  “What am I gonna do without you?  The school paper, Aurora.  All our plans, gone!”

It’s too much, and then we’re holding each other and crying, and without any words we know how much we’ll miss each other.  “I’ll email you every day,” I promise.  “And you have to sign up for the school paper!  One of us should.  Here, these are for you.”  I hold out the friendship bracelets, each of them woven with a blue string among the others, a blue string to match the one in each of my bracelets.  “Because we’re different, and we’re going to change, but we’ll always be friends,” I explain.

We slowly walk back to my house, grabbing mint-chocolate ice cream cones even though it’s cold out.  It usually is here in San Francisco, but ice cream on the first day of July is an Erica-Aurora tradition that goes back to elementary school.  When the moving van comes into sight, she grabs my hand and holds it tightly.  “Aurora!”  I hear my mom yell.  “Come on, we’re making lunch and then we have to leave!”

Then, somehow, I’ve said goodbye to Erica and May, my 20-year-old cousin who has been helping us pack, and we’re on the road to Hollis, California, our new home.

Please keep in mind that this is my first draft that still needs editing, and is not by far the end of the story!  It's a work in progress :)

Hope you enjoy it, constructive criticism is appreciated!  And I'm still trying to think of a name and permanent URL for my new blog, so leave any suggestions in the comments or just email me!

Happy Homeschooling!

Random Ramblings: Springtime, Sleeping Habits & High School

I haven't done a Random Ramblings post in a year, and there are some things to update you on.  So here we go...

Be prepared for a long, crazy post

1.

The weather has been really nice here, and I've been spending a lot more time outside.  This means I get to wear shorts and short sleeves!  Woo-hoo!  My poor arms and legs have not seen the sun in months!

2. 

This is called a lapbook.  It's essentially a collage folder and my brother made one for his science unit on deserts.  Mine is on fashion, just for fun, but I'm going to make one for my next book report instead of writing an essay.

3. 

I may not have the, ah, best sleeping habits.  As in, I stay up much too late listening to music and/or reading amazing books such as:

and

It's becoming a real problem.

4.

Somehow I doubt it will be like this.

High school.

I only have three more months of school (including this month).  That means I'm only going to be a middle schooler (and homeschooler) for three more months!!

That's scary.

So because there are only a few more months left before I officially break free of the confinement of middle school to be free for three months before I enter the confinement of high school, we have to send in many papers and transcripts in order to find out which high school I will be admitted to for the next four years.

That's being done and almost everything is in order, so hopefully that will be done soon so I don't have to think about it too much over the summer (which I undoubtedly will anyways).

5. 

STAR tests!

Notice I have the star and it says you tried because who ever does that well on these, really?  Well, alright, I got a good grade on both my tests last year but this year I have FOUR.

FOUR TESTS.  Not just two, no.  In addition to Math and English, I also get to worry about Science and History!  So instead of focusing on studying for only two tests, I have to work twice as hard and fast on all of my subjects and hope I know everything that will be on the tests.

Not to mention that the history STAR test is on everything I'm supposed to have learned from sixth through eighth grade, meaning somehow I was expected to remember ancient history,  renaissance, reformation, and US history from all of middle school.  Honestly I only remember the highlights, because I wasn't thinking about memorizing it all for a giant test at the end of Jr. High.

Just kill me now, it would be less painful.

The only things keeping me going at this point are the promise of summer, awesome remixes, and my writing class (I'll post some of my work here soon, right now we're working on fiction)!  But of course, everything will turn out fine and I'll have a great summer :)

If you read all the way to here, congratulations!  I'm pretty sure my ranting was pretty tedious haha.  But thanks for reading and as always,

Happy Homeschooling!

Tahoe

Hello!  So the story behind this post, in a nutshell, is that I went to Tahoe with my youth group on President's Day weekend, and took all these awesome pictures with my brand-new camera, and then blogger wouldn't let me upload said pictures.  And finally, TWO WEEKS LATER, here is my post about Tahoe.  *Sigh*

We stayed in Zephyr Cove, and the church conference center was super pretty!  All these pictures are from where we stayed.

Here's the dock.  There was a protected little swimming cove (right) encircled (ensquared?  haha) by the two docks and then the open lake was out to the left.

This lovely boat came around the lake with some tourists aboard.  They waved to us, seems like they were having a good time :)

Looking out from a rock near the docks onto the lake

Here is the swimming/beach area...it's probably used more in the summertime haha but the water was super clear, some kids jumped in!

Our winter retreat was four days, Friday through Monday (the first and fourth days were spent driving).  We got to play in the snow, hang out in our cabins, and go sledding!  It was super fun!  Some other things we got to do:

-Polar Bear Plunge (I didn't do this, but it's pretty much where you jump off the dock into the ice-cold lake.  Fun?)

-Marshmallow Olympics (A series of competitions involving marshmallows.  Included trying to eat a full bowl of ONLY the marshmallows from Lucky Charms; Chubby Bunny; Marshmallow Creme Santa Beard; and Marshmallow Field Hockey.  Our team lost haha!)

-Epic High School vs Middle School snowball fight...which I missed most of...

We had an amazing time and I'm definitely planning on going again next year!

More posts coming soon, now that Blogger has its picture-uploading problems fixed :)

Happy Homeschooling!

Lately

Life's been really busy lately...though I couldn't tell you what I've been doing!  You know that feeling?  Where you've been doing so much but you don't know what you've been doing?

Anyways, here are just some pictures I've taken over the past month or so...I got a new camera so soon I'll have pictures that I took with that!!! :D

Mmm, food...

Testing out the *night* setting on my video camera (this was before I got my new camera)

I was doodling last week and ended up with this ^  I don't know, is it any good?

I know this is a horribly off-topic post and it's really because all we've been doing lately is routine things.  But my youth group is going to the snow this weekend so hopefully I'll have some pictures of that next week (and that day in the life video...and other things...so many ideas that don't seem to turn out)

Happy Valentine's day and as always...

Happy Homeschooling! 

Sneak Peek

Hello! :)  Anyways, maybe you remember--or maybe you don't, haha--back a few months ago I promised you a Day in the Life video.

Well that got filmed and I started editing it but then it got forgotten and I recently re-edited it and tried to upload it privately to youtube but it wouldn't work...or so I thought...

HOWEVER the trailer I uploaded DID work so without further ado here is the sneak peek of the video that was promised months ago and hopefully will actually get uploaded in a few weeks!

Here is the link!!

Happy Homeschooling!

Field Trip to the Estuary

Behind the Scenes

Behind the Scenes

Pretty, smart, funny
Lots of friends, always has plans
Her life seems so
Perfect

I know a secret
She might seem amazing
But she's really
Not

You only see
What she want's you to see
Under that she's
Hiding

She's like a movie
Stuff goes on behind the scenes
Things can be
Messy

She works hard
For those A's in school
It's not so
Easy

I bet she can't tell
Half those friends
How she really
Feels

There may be nobody
Who she can trust with
All of her
Secrets

So next time you see
The girl who seems
To have it
All

Remember that she's not
All that different
She's just like
You

-Original poem by Miss Education

I wrote this for my writing class.  My tutor thought it was good, and I decided to post it because maybe it could make a little difference in someone's life.

The idea came from the fact that so many girls want to be someone else.  Sometimes I do, too.  But then I realized that someone might want to be just like me--my cousin, maybe.  And my life seems pretty amazing.  It is!  Sometimes it doesn't feel like that, though, and people don't always realize that even if that girl you want to be seems perfect, her life is just as tough, maybe even harder, than yours.

I hope it can remind someone that nobody's perfect.  Not me, not you, not that girl who seems to have it all.  You only see the finished production, not behind the scenes.

Happy Homeschooling!

Two

2 can mean a lot of things.  Seconds, inches, centimeters, weeks, gallons.

For me, it means years.

Yesterday was the 2 year anniversary of Misadventures of a Homeschooler!  It's pretty ironic that I didn't have time to blog about it yesterday because I was visiting a potential high school.  But then again, it's also fitting, in a strange way.

I just wanted to say thank you to all of the people who read my blog.  When I started Misadventures, I was in sixth grade.  I wanted to blog, and homeschooling seemed like a good topic.

Maybe this blog wasn't exactly how I pictured it then, but it's more than just a place where I write stuff about my life.  It's a way to remember, and learn, and be creative.

I love you so much, thanks for reading my blog whether you check it every day or just once in a while.  The fact that someone would take time out of their day to read what I've written means a lot to me :)

Happy Homeschooling!

Visiting

Yesterday I went to visit the private school we've been looking at.  Let me say, it was AMAZING.  I want to go there so badly now!  The teachers were really nice, the principal was so welcoming, and they have a lot of different extracurricular activities and electives (sports, drama, choir, art, computers, etc).

It seems like an awesome school.  One of my friends goes there and loves it, and I really want to as well!  It helps that most of my friends are going there, but now that I've visited and seen the school, there's a lot more to want to go there for.

There's not much else to tell, really.  We had worship, got to hear the choir, watch the advanced drama club perform a skit, toured campus, and watched a pep rally.  Our student tour guides said that even though classes can be difficult, the teachers are great and it's lots of fun.

Only five more months of middle school!  Ahh!

Happy Homeschooling!

Tomorrow

Tomorrow I'm going to the private school visitation day, which I'm super excited about!! I'll tell you guys all about how it went after I get back :)

Other than that, it's school as usual. Leave comments on what you think I should name my new blog, I'm still drawing a name blank.

Happy Homeschooling!

Announcements Part 2

Yesterday I posted "Announcements Part One", if you missed that here is a summary:

I'm not homeschooling next year.  I will be a high school freshman, and my mom and I both agree that it would be best for both of us if I attend a public or private school instead of homeschooling.  First, because I miss the classroom setting and being with friends.  Also, because planning high school would be a lot of work for Mom on top of already planning lessons for my sister and brother next year.  I love homeschooling, but we've decided that going to traditional high school is what we need to do.

Today, there are a two questions that have been coming up a lot that I need to answer.

What will happen to Misadventures of a Homeschooler?

Since I won't be homeschooled, this blog won't be used anymore.  I won't delete it because I want to remember my seventh and eighth grade years--kind of like a diary.  But I will be starting a new blog, because I've become kind of attached to blogging :)  Not sure what I'm going to call it.  At first I was thinking High School Misadventures, but I kind of want to start fresh and not feel like it has to be just like this one.  So tell me your suggestions, because I have none!

Also, I will be blogging on here until the end of the school year, then I will start on my other blog, which I will link once it's ready!

What school am I going to?

Hasn't been decided yet.  I'm going to the private school student visitation day next week, and my mom is going to their parent night.  However I might go to public school, and we're applying for an inter-district transfer next month.

We probably won't know if I'm accepted in that school district until July.  So it might be a while before this question is fully answered!

This post was way shorter than my last one haha!  But it needed to be split into two parts.  If there are any more questions, I will answer them in another post!

Happy Homeschooling!

Announcements Part One

Hello everyone, happy new year! :D

[NOTE:  There is a lot of stuff going on in this post, you don't have to read the whole thing.  I won't judge you!]

I have some stuff to actually talk about, that I've been ready to post for a few months now but it wasn't really the right time.  So here we go.

Next year, as you probably know, I'm going to be a high school freshman!  Exciting stuff right there ;)  But high school is a really big deal, and I will not be homeschooling.

There are a few reasons why:

The first is that I do miss seeing my friends every day, I miss having different teachers, I miss those funny moments where one of the guys says something totally random in class and everyone starts laughing for five minutes.  I grew up in a private school, and that's what I'm used to.  I honestly miss it.

Don't get me wrong, homeschooling is amazing and fun!  We have a really good time at home, and I learn a lot.  We get to go on field trips and I use what I'm learning in real life.  Plus, every day is a home ec lesson :D  But mom and I agree that high school is really important in social life.  Mom still has friends she met in HS!

Another reason we've decided to not homeschool next year is the work for Mom.  A lot of her time is already used making lesson plans and teaching me and my brother.  Planning high school would be even harder, along with homeschooling my siblings, who will be in kindergarten and second grade.

It was kind of hard, but we finally decided that it would be best for everyone for me to attend public or private high school, rather than homeschooling.  That way I will be able to get back into the routine that I was in from kindergarten through sixth grade, and she will have more time to spend on my brother and sister's education.

Obviously, I know it's not going to be all High School Musical!  (haha)  There's going to be a lot of homework, a lot of drama, and probably quite a bit of stress added in for good measure.  But I'm up for the challenge.

I will post part two of this tomorrow, because there is more to talk about concerning this blog, school options, etc.  This was just an explanation of why I'm not homeschooling next year.  Check back tomorrow!  I love you and...

Happy Homeschooling!