You Know You Were Homeschooled if. . .

You’ve been asked if you could go to school in your pajamas and what time you got up in the morning.
You’ve been asked why you are playing “hooky” when the cashier sees you shopping with your mom during the so-called “school hours.”
Your school bus is a nine-passenger van.
You considered schoolwork after lunch to be cruel and unusual punishment.
Some people (falsely) viewed your social life to be one rung lower than that of a Benedictine monk.
You had to move dirty laundry off your desk before you could start school.
The signatures on your high school diploma all ended with the same last name.
You enjoyed the pastime of watching public school kids walk home from school.
You had to look at the clock to see if you could call your public school friends yet.
The teacher could kiss the principle, and no one thought it was unusual.
You got to school and the teacher asked you if you’ve done all your chores.
Your friends talked about waiting for seven hours to try the new ride at the State Fair, so you went and waited two minutes on a school day.
You have ever suffered through Saxon Math.
You taunted high schooled friends during finals week.
Your bedroom was your classroom and your bed or floor was the desk.
Your school lunch contained food that was easily identifiable without a microscope and extensive scientific knowledge.
All birthdays were school holidays…and national holidays were not school holidays!

By Emily Paine, taken from the RCHE Dispatch.

I thought these were very well done. I wouldn’t know how to do them any better. Of course, the author is a homeschooler.

thesinger

Here is my latest School Paper.

That’s right. I’m going to post my one of my latest “very-short” stories. For some background, I was supposed to take a conversation that I had with somebody in the past and try to emulate the excellent job that Chaim Potok did in his book, “The Chosen.”

The short-story is entitled, “Spitting in the Dishwater.”

It was a balmy summer day. I wanted to be outside where the sun shone bright, the wheat was almost ripe, and where the green grass was just waiting for me to run around on it. Instead, I was trapped inside, washing the dishes. Ah vell, I thought to myself, such is life. There were a lot of dishes that day. This little boy was not very impressed.

Suddenly, without much thought, I spit into the dishwater.

“JOHN!!” That sharp word, my name, came into my range of hearing. Uh oh, I’m getting it now. I looked over at mom, who had been baking chocolate chip cookies, with questions popping from my eyes. “What did I do, Mom?”

Her heavily wrinkled face, weighted down with the cares of bringing up four sons, looked at my young and immature face. Her eyes wore a coat of astonishment. Her usually slightly bent back was ramrod straight. “You spit in the dishwater. What made you do that?”

I grimaced. Conversations I had with Mom in this nature sometimes involved bloodshed. “Um, well, I, uh, I, guess I thought spitting in water would be a good place to spit.” I wasn’t sure at this point how the conversation would go. If I was lucky, Mom would just say, “Don’t!” and all would be peachy, but sometimes there were consequences for actions.

“Well son,” she came over to the counter and gestured with her hand, “Why don’t you consider the simple fact that spitting is rarely a good thing to do. If it’s necessary to spit, the ground outside is the only acceptable place for spittle.” Deep down inside, I smiled to myself. This was good – it was the type where not many actual bad things would happen to me.

“Drain out your water and make sure it doesn’t happen again!” Her normally calm voice was rough along the edges.
I promptly obeyed. She was not the type of person you messed with.

She went back to making her wonderful cookies and with downcast eyes, I resumed washing the dishes. The sun was still shining brightly, but for me, it had darkened a little. The wheat was still standing out in the field, but I didn’t have the desperate desire to go ride the combine like I used to. The green grass was still there, but I had no desire to run around on it. I had disappointed my Mom. I vowed that I would never spit in the dish water again.

thesinger

I like Spring Break!!

Yes, that says it all. Today, I spent the morning shooting the seniors in town. It was definitely my type of thing. I enjoyed hanging out with a very neat bunch of kids and being behind a powerful camera. You know? It sort of combined stuff I enjoy doing the most — shooting and hanging. (Oh, and it also helps my attitude when my services are rewarded with cash.) *smiles here*

Another good thing associated with senior group-picture-taking outings is going out to eat afterwards. So, it was decided in the Reno Co. Museum parking lot that we would go grab a bite at Spangles, and afterwards go to Metropolitan Coffee and hang there for a while. This is what happened. It was a lot of fun. Even though I am only a Junior in high school, they graciously allowed me to hang with them even after the official picture taking was over. Good times!! Good times!!

To give you an idea of what happened when, we met at School at 8:30 AM. Left School at 8:42 AM. Met Karen at “the strip” (an asphalt strip, owned by whoever owns the road system) and left for downtown Hutchinson. We shot pictures at several locations from approx. 9:10 AM to 10:39 AM. We talked about where we want to go eat and other assorted things etc. etc. etc. for about 15 min. in the Reno Co. Museum parking lot (as mentioned before) and left for Spangles at approx 11:01 AM. We ate there in Spangles, (I ate a 1/3 lb. Gourmet Supreme Shake Meal, it was very good) visited together until we were done eating, and then left for Metropolitan Coffee. We arrived at Metropolitan Coffee at about 11:53 AM. I ordered a Mocha. It was very flavorful, delicious, and warming. We then commenced to talk about life after high school, etc., etc., and generally had a wonderful time together. We left Metropolitan Coffee at 12:50 AM and came home.

Now I will post some pictures of the morning for your “listening” entertainment and enjoyment. First of all, I will post some group portraits.

Next up is a picture in Spangles.

And last, here are several pictures of the festivities at Metropolitan Coffee.

That is all for today. I hope all of you have a marvey day tomorrow!!

thesinger

Spring Break!!

Yes, I am very excited about it. It will be a good break from the normal and mundane, (and Anabaptist History). Yes, I do enjoy school, and yes, I have a lot of good friends there, but sometimes, I enjoy just being at home with my family.

Here are some random pictures of flora and scenery that are given because of a special request from Sandra.

That is all for today my fine furry friends. Have a great week!!

thesinger

Joke of the Day

Well folks, GCFL.net has outdone themselves again. In this humorous but true story, a man, well, I won’t ruin it for you. Here it is!!

This is even funnier when you realize it’s real!

Next time you have a bad day at work, think of this guy. Rob
is a commercial saturation diver for Global Divers in
Louisiana. He performs underwater repairs on offshore
drilling rigs. Below is an e-mail he sent to his sister. She
then sent it to radio station 103.2-FM in Ft. Wayne,
Indiana, which was sponsoring a worst job experience
contest. Needless to say, she won.

Hi Sue, just another note from your bottom-dwelling brother.
Last week I had a bad day at the office. I know you’ve been
feeling down lately at work, so I thought I would share my
dilemma with you to make you realize it’s not so bad after
all. Before I can tell you what happened to me, I first must
bore you with a few technicalities of my job.

As you know, my office lies at the bottom of the sea. I wear
a suit to the office. It’s a wet suit. This time of year the
water is quite cool, so what we do to keep warm is this: we
have a diesel-powered industrial water heater. This $20,000
piece of equipment sucks the water out of the sea. It heats
it to a delightful temperature. It then pumps it down to the
diver through a garden hose, which is taped to the air hose.

Now this sounds like a pretty good plan, and I’ve used it
several times with no complaints. What I do, when I get to
the bottom and start working, is take the hose and stuff it
down the back of my wet suit. This floods my whole suit with
warm water. It’s like working in a Jacuzzi.

Everything was going well, until all of a sudden, my rear
end started to itch. So, of course, I scratched it. This
only made things worse.

Within a few seconds, it started to burn. I pulled the hose
out from my back, but the damage was done. In agony, I
realized what had happened.

The hot water machine had sucked up a jellyfish and pumped
it into my suit. When I scratched what I thought was an
itch, I was actually grinding the jellyfish into myself.

I informed the dive supervisor of my dilemma over the
communicator. His instructions were unclear because he and
five other divers were all laughing hysterically. Needless
to say, I aborted the dive. I was instructed to make three
agonizing in-water decompression stops, totaling thirty-five
minutes, before I could reach the surface to begin my
chamber dry decompression.

When I arrived at the surface and climbed out of the water,
the medic, with tears of laughter running down his face,
handed me a tube of cream and told me to rub it onto the
affected area as soon as I got into the chamber. The cream
put the fire out, but it took two days before I could sit
down again.

So, next time you’re having a bad day at work, think about
how much worse it would be if you had a jellyfish shoved
down your pants. Now repeat to yourself, “I love my job, I
love my job, I love my job.”

Now, whenever you have a bad day, ask yourself: Is this a
jellyfish bad day?

May you NEVER have a jellyfish bad day!!!!!

Received from GCFL.net

Isn’t that delightful? I think so. It makes school sound so very nice and pleasant and many other kinds of nice things.

thesinger

I am currently listening to. . .

a recently purchased CD entitled “Palestrina – Masses & Motets.” It is simply some of the nicest Church music of the 16th Century. One reason I bought it was because I am a major fan of Palestrina. His music has a ethereal sound that powerfully cuts to the quick as the pure but deep harmonies cascade over the soul.

In other words, it speaks to me.

I bought another CD from the same place while I was anyway paying big money for shipping. It is entitled “Early American Choral Music – Vol. 1.” It exclusively features the music of William Billings. The word that comes to mind when I try to describe his music is earthy. Just because I call it earthy, however, does not mean for one iota that it’s not beautiful. Rather, this earthiness merely powers the music along with a high energy that just wants to blow off the roof. “The Lord is Risen Indeed”, which is written by Billings, is an excellent example of the energy in his music.

thesinger

ps, Scroll Publishing has some pretty good specials on some of their music selections.

The Programs are OVER!!!

And if you haven’t caught on by now, let me tell you that I am very ready to think and breath and live something else besides Spring Programs at high schools.

It seems as though this is the time of year for many concerts. The reason I say this is because the Reno Choral Society and the Hutchinson Community College Concert Chorale are going to be giving a performance of Handel’s Messiah this next Sunday at Stringer Fine Arts Center in Hutchinson. (I welcome all of my readers to join us for this performance. It will be Very Good!!)

I must run. Many concerts make me very busy.

thesinger

Guest Post by Ryan Nisly on Choir.

I have various thoughts about choir. Personally, I enjoy music a lot, but I would rather listen to music than participate in creating musical fusion. That being said, I did enjoy choir quite a lot this year. Various highlights include the following: learning to sing new songs, giving programs (We are still in the process of giving them), singing with John in charge (“Since by Man Came Death” by Handel), and believe it or not, sleeping during an optional choir.

Choir typically begins at 1:00 on Friday afternoons. We start off the class with some warm-ups to warm up our voices. After we have done all sorts of interesting things to make our voices sound nice and boost our confidence, we sing and work on songs that we are singing for the Spring Programs. The class generally ends at 2:07 PM.

Ryan Nisly

Today is the day of. . .

many quotes. And today, they are all from Albert Einstein. Without further ado, I will proceed to let you read these wonderful quotes.

Anger dwells only in the bosom of fools.

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction.

Before God we are equally wise – and equally foolish.

Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.

The difference between what the most and the least learned people know is inexpressibly trivial in relation to that which is unknown.
– All from Albert Einstein, 1879 – 1955

Much Peace, Love, and Hair Grease to all of you!

thesinger

It’s my birthday!

And I got a birthday card from my “Kind/Rich Uncle”. It’s a funny one that I thought might bless my readership.

The front cover goes like this.

The inside is very nice. I like what it says!!

In addition, I got a card in the mail from my brother who is Calvary Bible School. This one is very funny, butt, for the sake of my more sensitive readers, I am refraining from posting pictures of that one.

Choir at school is going well. I am convinced that the program on Wed. night at Center Amish Mennonite Church will have some definite highlights, and some definite lowlights. What does this mean? This means that we will probably have a balanced program. Some good parts, and some not so good parts.

To my readers who are not singing in the Choir: I cordially invite all of you to Center Amish Mennonite Church on Wednesday evening, at 7:45 PM. I hope to see you there!

thesinger

ps. Sheri wrote an amazing post that needs to be read by all who are stressed out with school, or just need an energy boost. I recommend it to everybody else as humorous reading or just plain ol’ GOOD READING!!!!