HS Comments on the Fly

Yes, we have boring vocabulary words: calumniate, perambulation, alacrity, votary, orisons, phantasmagoria, alameda, fain, tatterdemalion, mendicant, refulgent. Listening to the words (so we can attempt proper pronunciation) at m-w.com is about as exciting as it gets around here.

I am glad and relieved after reading Amy’s escapades with vocabulary words like concupiscense, morass, fetish, etc., that we have dull vocab words. Her vocabulary class would just about give me a nervous breakdown.

For Enquirer readers, our words are from Tales of the Alahambra by Washington Irving — a non-edited version. I don’t even want to know where Amy gets her vocabulary words.

Oh, yeah, and go buy some of Amy’s soap. It’s fancy schmancy.

Okay, so I found BookMooch. I love books. So I joined.

I added one book to my “Inventory” and then added another. Then I went to look at my inventory list, thinking I’d see two books listed.

But no, only the first book was there. So I clicked around trying to figure out what the problem was and found out that someone had already requested the second book that I entered into the system. Within seconds — just that quick! Wow!

That was a shock. And then I had to figure out what to do, which ended up being easy … just “Accept” the “Mooch.” Maybe I have the terminology wrong, but it’s close.

So, now, I can mooch a book from someone else because that moocher who requested my book automatically gave me one of their points. Cool, huh? A free book will arrive for me in the mail once I get a wishlist put together.

PROBLEM: I am wanting to get rid of books (remember?), not get more books. Oops. I guess BookMooch.com isn’t really what I want, is it? It’s basically send a book, receive a book.

It would have been great 10 years ago when we needed more books to replenish our home library for homeschooling. But now, we don’t need books in quite the same way at all. We’ve got almost enough books to finish high school and don’t need any more general books for school. The only one I can think of that we still need to buy is a workbook and isn’t likely to show up on BookMooch.

So. I don’t think I’ll be entering a whole slew of books into my BookMooch inventory since I have to package and ship books if they’re requested. 1) I don’t enjoy packaging up books and 2) I have to pay money to ship them. It’s easier and cheaper to just give them to a thrift store when I want to get rid of them.

Oh, and to top it off! Our post office won’t even let us send books as Media Mail because books aren’t educational materials. I’m not kidding; that’s what I was told. If it’s a textbook, we can use Media Mail; but we can’t send just any ol’ book Media Mail — not even literature (I asked) because “… that would include all books then.” What will the post office come up with next?

UPDATE: The post office worker took the package, opened it, and ripped up the interior packaging which consisted of a plastic grocery sack taped completely shut as a moisture barrier and the newsprint (or butcher paper, I don’t know what it’s called exactly) that the book was wrapped in. The family member who was mailing the book for me tried to get it all back together properly, but the wrapping materials were torn. The postal worker looked at the exterior of the book only and said that it couldn’t go “Media Mail.” It had to go “First Class.” No, there were no personal notes of any kind inside the book (which she didn’t look inside of anyway), nor were there any papers in the package at all — even though an invoice is permitted.

I hope the package arrives at its destination okay.

Don’t save even one important class or book for grade 12. Plan to get everything that you and your student feel is significant done before the end of grade 11.

Impediments to getting much of anything done in a student’s senior year could include:

• part-time job
• owning a vehicle which necessitates it being driven, etc.
• romance
• lack of interest
• desire to “just be done with school”
• college application process
• friend(s) with their own places who need to be visited
• friends with crises
• etc.

Don’t plan on your student having time/desire to learn how to make pesto, read a book just for fun that you’ve picked out, write a term paper, etc. So if it’s important to you or your student, get it done in grade 10 or 11. Don’t wait. Even if you find the time to do it in the last year, the ability to learn (and enjoy it) is affected by the items on the above list.

And I know that doing things too early is also not good. But not doing them at all is sometimes worse.

Timing. So much in life homeschooling is all about timing. Okay, life, too.

UPDATED 09-JAN-08: Here’s a link to another version of the Mike Huckabee Canadian National Igloo video because the old one was removed.

Described as a “friend of homeschoolers” by busy blogger Isabel Lyman, Mike Huckabee appears in a YouTube video congratulating Canada on preserving their National Igloo.

You see, this fellow, Rick Mercer, who it seems has/had a television show in Canada, comes to Arkansas and stands outside the state capitol. He informs folks that Canada has a capitol building that is a replica of the Arkansas capitol building, except Canada’s is made of ice, which would make it an igloo. Concerned about global warming and the resulting melting of their “National Igloo,” he informs folks in the U.S. that Canada is building a dome over the igloo to preserve it.

US citizens (I presume they’re citizens.) are then taped, facing the camera, as they congratulate Canada on preserving their National Igloo. The then Governor Huckabee, who’s currently running for President (right?), also offers his felicitations to Canada for preserving their National Igloo.

The whole YouTube video is quite hilarious. Lots of folks are asked questions about Canada. A Harvard professor remarked, when questioned about it by Mercer, that he would like to see the Saskatchewan Seal Hunt stopped. Columbia University students are asked about whether they think that peacekeepers should be sent into Saskatchewan due to the Russian invasion of that area, and they reply in the affirmative. Others folks are asked about the Canadian dollar, while others believe him when he tells them that Canadians have never flown on jets.

Folks even believed Rick Mercer when he told them that Canada owned the mining rights to Mount Rushmore and was going to begin preliminary drilling explorations for plutonium on the back side. Basically, it shows that a few folks in the U.S. are clueless about Canada and, in the case of putting Mulroney (former Canadian PM) on Mount Rushmore, even clueless about the names of U.S. Presidents. It’s an amusing or appalling video — depending on how you see things.

I quizzed my remaining student on these questions and she passed. Whew!