I just thought everyone would like this, since we are pretty much all Narnia fans. A girl on my hall printed this out real big and put it on her door, that’s how I found out about it. Enjoy!
Lydia
The first week of 2008
Dear Friends and Family,
Wow, it has been an amazing week. I am very glad we started back school on a Thursday and just had two days of school before the weekend, because I don’t think I was ready to just jump back into school for a whole week.
I had a wonderful holiday, thank you, and I hope you did too. My family was here (meaning home in KY) from California, Colorado, and England, and we had a wonderful Christmas week. We ate out almost every night! I am surprised, or rather not suprised, at how tiring eating out can get when you do it all the time. If it was just me I wouldn’t of done it, but the point of eating out was to fellowship with each other, so it was worth it.
New Years Eve some members of my church hosted a Continue reading “The first week of 2008”
The Obvious … isn’t
Take a close look at this fighter plane. Do you see anything unusual?
One of the things that makes living in America in the 21st century a challenge is something I’ll call inscrutible complexity. That is, some things seem simple or manageable, but when you actually try to do them, you get lost. I have business clients, for instance, who look at a computer screen as they try to figure out how to do something, and they’re toast. They are looking at the same screen I am, but they are overwhelmed by all the information and can’t make sense of it. Something like that has, I believe, happened with US foreign policy in the last decade. So many things are going on, and they seem so complex and dangerous, that the average voter just wants to “get the troops out of there”, come home and be done with it.
I recently read at article at EjectEjectEject.com that is Continue reading “The Obvious … isn’t”
Post of praise
A funny thing happened on the way to graduation (my daughter’s, not mine). We got her a Nikon D50 for a graduation present, and she started taking lots of pictures. The pictures are great, the camera is great, we should be happy. Ah… I, specifically, should be happy. Not happy- exactly- because now the camera’s doing the talking (metaphorically, shall we say) and the long posts about what’s going on in the head have become leaves, and such. Therefore, I was majorly pleased to find this post, which is about work, words and CSI Las Vegas. Having been to her house, sat on the couch and tried to Continue reading “Post of praise”
Danger in the leaves…
Authorities are warning leaf-rakers in the north-central KY to be on the lookout for a man-eating tarp. Last spotted in the Shelbyville
area, it approaches from the rear and quickly engulfs it’s victim before anyone can react. This poor soul, for instance, was gobbled up in a matter of seconds; rescuers only recovered the boots and a few tuffs of hair. The tarp apparently slinks along the ground on the edges of a yard, and jumps out from behind when the raker is walking away. One expert on the subject of man-eating tarps has done some research which suggests that if rakers periodically swing their arms in a circle above their heads and “woop-woop” like wild savages, the disoriented tarp will wander into the nearest ravine and get tangled up in the bushes.
A reward is being offered for the capture of this particular tarp. If and when it is spotted, everyone should immediately surround it, wave their arms frantically, woop in their most frightening voices and keep up the din while someone else calls 911 on their cell phone. If, while waiting for the police, it approaches anyone in an aggressive manner, all present must join hands, howl like wolves and stomp on the tarp with all of their collective feet. Since it can only swallow one victim at a time, this will stun it and prevent a disastrous outcome.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
The End of School
Dear family and friends,
I hope you all had a wonderful thanksgiving. I am thinking about whether or not to write during Christmas break, and I think I will at least twice, since break is all of December. I have one final left, Arabic, which is at 7:30 AM on Monday morning. This, contrary to some expectations, is not early for me, since I usually get up at 6:30 anyway. It is a problem, however, for many of my classmates, who are used to sleeping till 10 am, or getting up to go to a class and then going back to sleep again. After my final I’ll be done with school and homeward bound.
This being the last week of classes, a lot of parties and various celebrations went on. Thursday night I Continue reading “The End of School”
DEATH comes to OSU campus (see Terry Pratchett’s “mort”)
Dear Friends and Family,
It was 2 pm, Friday afternoon when terror and death struck south campus. In one flash of movement, the beloved south campus celebrity, Whitey, so loved and cherished by OSU students, was cruelly murdered. Several students walking through the South Oval witnessed the aftermath of the attack. I personally was not there and did not see it happen, but when I read about it later in the newspapers, I thought it was rather funny. I was never a fan of Whitey’s, and on campus it really is survival of the fittest. I guess he got lulled into a false sense of security because of the attention he got from the students. Then one day, wham! That Hawk got an easy meal since the squirrel was albino and easy to spot from above. I’m surprised it lasted this long.
So now that the long reign of Whitey the celebrity squirrel has ended, perhaps life can go back to Continue reading “DEATH comes to OSU campus (see Terry Pratchett’s “mort”)”
“Poisonous Individualism”
If I told you that homeschool parents had established a leadership academy in their home, you might be surprised. Even most homeschool parents would be surprised because surveys show the two main reasons parents choose homeschooling are to avoid the negative peer environment of public schools and to teach from a religious perspective. Few homeschool parents identify training their children to be leaders as the reason they chose home education. But are they right? Perhaps many homeschool parents are training their children to be leaders without realizing it.
So begins this article by HSLDA President J. Michael Smith, recently published in the Washington Times. He’s right. We have four children, and they would all scoff at the suggestion that meekly following the agnostic and “whatever feels good, do it” crowd is even remotely desirable.* Our goal has always been to teach, lead and counsel, and always based on the truths of Scripture and common sense. Though they haven’t always been wise nor sinless, no one would say any of our kids are crowd followers.
To find out where the title of this blog entry comes from, read the whole article.
Guess we accidentally raised a bunch of leaders. Praise God! We are so proud…
*Even Andrew, our son who died several years ago in a tragic accident of his own creation, managed to do it by stepping out of the crowd. Later, at a Louisville Youth Choir function where his memory was honored, at least one person described how he had been a leader in ways we didn’t even know…
A small respite
Dear Friends and Family,
We have a small respite this week. Monday is Veterans day so we have a three day weekend. Which means……more time for homework! Really, I’m serious. First off I want to thank all of our brave men and women who have served and are serving in the armed forces who have/are putting their life on the line to preserve the freedom of America. Thank you!!!
Friday night, I went to see “Three Short Plays” (Medea, English Therapy, and Vendetta Chrome) at Ohio State’s Drake Theater. The reason for this was because English Therapy was written by Nancy Gall-Clayton, a resident of Louisville KY. I do not know Mrs. Gall-Clayton personally, but a good friend of mine who is a friend of hers was so kind and thoughtful as to send me a ticket. I was accompanied by Debbie, my Taiwanese conversation partner, who upon hearing I was going to see a “real, live American play”, promptly bought a ticket and announced she would be going with me. She said she quite enjoyed the plays too, though she didn’t understand English Therapy very well. It used a lot of tricks and twists of the English language to create comedy, and Debbie is not a native english speaker.
Thursday night I had the pleasure of Continue reading “A small respite”
Fall has finally fallen
Dear friends and family,
Well, fall has truly come to OSU campus, and the war is in full swing. What?….you don’t know about the war? It is an epic battle of mighty proportions that I see raging back and forth across the campus. The sides are not equally matched, and I fear that those who fight for good on campus shall be overpowered and ground to shreds. Haha, I hope I’m confusing you >;)>. I’m speaking of the heated battle between the groundskeepers and the falling leaves. The beautiful, many colored fall leaves are swirling and falling all over campus, making everything beautiful, as if covered with a weird colored snow (hmmm, maybe not). Anyway, it is the hight of my fall experience to swish through fallen, crackly leaves on the way to class.
However, it seems that the powers that be on campus are not an open minded and nature loving bunch. They’ve sent their lackeys (groundskeepers) out on a quest to gather and destroy all rebellious leaves who refuse to stay up in their trees. I see the evil work being done every day, and I long to pause in my hurried rushing from class to class in order to lend a hand to the poor leaves.
Despite the fact that I know the leaves will eventually be overcome, they Continue reading “Fall has finally fallen”