Ganeida's Knots

When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, "I used everything you gave me." ~Erma Bombeck





Star got rather a kick out of her morning by declaring loudly, "But I don't want to go to school today!"  Funny Bunny, because today is the day we went in to Star's umbrella school.  Not that our visit was mandatory or anything but our supervising teacher likes to catch up once a term.  Normally she comes to us & Star does the lunch because Home Ec is one of her *subjects* & doing the lunch is practical application.  This term, however, was complicated by Liddy & when M had the school car we were deeply mired in angst & fraughtness & absolute bedlam so we deferred & agreed to come in to the school, hand in Star's work, have a chat & generally make the right noises that keep the governmental departments happy before heading on to music.

In the four or five years we have been with the school we have never ever been in to visit before.  I have all the navigational ability of a stunned homing pigeon & Star, whose map reading skills have improved markedly, invariably waits till I'm lost before finding us on the map & deciding on a route to get us to where I'm going.  All well & good when you have plenty of time & don't mind aberrant directions such as...Which way, Star?  Star: It doesn't matter; you choose....Um, yeah....  Still find the school we eventually did.  Where is Liddy when I need her?

We came in the back way so had to prowl across the entire campus of the regular school to find the  D.E building, which was definitely an afterthought.  Now in Queensland you can belong to the State D.E program, or a private D.E program or you can register independently with the education department but however you do it the State likes to keep tabs on us homeschoolers because we're naturally subversive & goodness knows what we'd do if we weren't kept tabs on don'tcha know.  So the school started life as a regular school & when the D.E program started it was tiny ~ 8 people in a regular house on the school grounds because people send their kids to school & Christian parents send their children to Christian schools; no~one home educates.  It didn't take long before the school realised they had got it wrong & had to build a proper school building that now houses 20 *teachers* who are available to help, support, direct & co~ordinate home, school & government.

Having started with BSDE we were used to a big distance school which was always swarming with kids & visitors any time we went in.  Groves D.E program is small by comparison & all the work stations were quiet as most of this term's work is already in & marking under way.  The school itself [not the DE part] was much bigger than I expected  ~ which didn't prevent Star from swanning round like Lady Muck because it's always fun to be the homschooling student while everybody else trudges back into class.

We did a massive scenic detour coming out because Star muddled her lefts & rights then decided she didn't like the route she had chosen because it was tolled & made me turn around & go back!  *sigh*

Music, on the other hand, is lovely.  The kids are back with John Curro in October for a Bach thingy so rehearsals are Bach~y & I'm so not complaining,  all day workshop not withstanding.  Over the holidays I will organise our QPAC auditions.  Star is so determined I not embarrass her she is giving me singing lessons.  I got my first one in the boat coming home.  Sol-fa ~ which are the hand signals for singing on pitch .  Despite having seen this in action for years I have never exactly sorted out what's what & the kids go so fast!  Going up the scale is hard.  Coming back down is impossible.  Seeing I'm the academic one in this household I understand the theory much better than the practical application.  The practical application comes hard.  By the end of our 20 minute boat trip my wrists were aching!  Who knew music was so physically strenuous!

And it's happened.  Random skype messages from Chile:  What's a good craft to do with children 9~12 for the story of the fall of Jericho?  A craft to illustrate any other bible story? OK, at least she's not standing on the street corner going, Where am I?