Another Down!

Today I managed to finish the trouble with boys and the book might just haunt me for a little bit. Reading about how the school isn't geared for boys and then hearing about how most of this isn't being acknowledged is pretty scary. Then the fact that boys are being accepted into college with grades that are a C average is also a scary thought to me. What makes the boys being accepted scary is that it goes on to tell how little effort they actually apply to the school after being accepted.

I told everybody about the other book that I have been working on which is known as Nurture Shock. Today it tells about how much sleep patterns affect the kids. I thought this one was also just a little bit scary as it goes into the facts like one hour of sleep can decide how well kids do in school and how they take life. What makes this one even worse is that it then tells about the wary parents that are willing to help the kids and get them some more sleep to help them. For example the many schools that are reluctant to start school an hour later to help the students even after the research was proven to help and there was remarkable changes within the schools who did change their schedule.

Tomorrow is my dads birthday and I feel bad having another one of his birthdays and not having a good substantial gift. Dad has been there for us through all of the ups and downs and I can't help but feel we take all that he does for granted. He is the one that brings food into the house and not even to mention to keep the house that gives us shelter. I don't know what we would do without dad and his persistence to keep a job and to go through any trial thrown his way.

Almost There!

This week is going to be extremely hectic for 3 reasons. One is Kristi moving in this week. Second is my dads birthday on the 12th. Then third is the fact that my birthday is this Saturday or otherwise known as the 15th. The problem with my birthday being so soon is that I have yet to actually make a list of what I want for my birthday because there isn't much that I want. Music is pretty much out of the question because I can listen to any music free on the internet and since I have ad blocker there really isn't any wait time. Books are an OK bet but I read a book about once or twice a year so I feel it would be terrible to enjoy a book immensely then let it sit on a shelf for about a year before being picked up again. Finally I don't want to ask for anything to expensive because there is so much going on this month and it seems almost rude to ask for a $50 video game when we are already spending so much this month with Christmas and dads birthday not to mention any unexpected problems that might show up.

Today's work was fairly easy but did require some thinking. I had to read one book named Nurture Shock which was a nice little wake up call to the way the kid brain works. For example that praising the a person in general might not work the way you want. Research has shown that by praising a kid you might actually make them worse rather then helping them improve. For example during a test which consisted of 3 puzzles the kids who were praised for being smart but not for the actual effort decided to go for an easier puzzle the second time which they were then praised for this puzzle as well. Though when they were given the 3rd puzzle they did 20% worse on this puzzle which was actually the same as puzzle number one.

Then another book I read today was a book known as "Mr. President Mr. President!" which is about a journalists view of the white house with personal interviews with different presidents. For example she got to know Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman as well. These are the two that I have gotten to but she gives her opinions of the two and what they had gone through for example Harry Truman was hated by many people while he was president but when others looked back at Truman they think that he was a wonderful president. Another one which was also with Truman was that when he had to decide to drop the bomb on Hiroshima or not he claimed to have slept like a baby after making the decision to drop the bomb without the help or support of anyone close.

Easy!

Today I have about 4 things to do so this is my third. I have done all of my reading now I'm doing my blog and then Finally I have to post something on Google + in French. Funny thing about the French project is that I have been allowed to use a translator. This may sound like cheating but considering the fact that I have been studying French but have fallen behind drastically makes this a life saver.

The funny thing about today is that I have the easiest day today. Everyone else except for Zoe has a pretty hard day. First off Nate is going to 2 places today just to return home get dressed and head out for the choir performance later tonight. Then there is Kristi who is driving Nate around and then she comes home to wait for dad for their night. My job is to babysit Zoe which really isn't that hard. In fact it will be pretty cool being able to sit around and relax most of the day and eat some ordered food for dinner.

On the other hand I have pretty much nothing to do today upon finishing my work. Honestly I was afraid it was going to be worse today then it really is. Only because I feel that I was going to be done in the morning and have just read and sat around the house all day until I got some more work. Though overall I am quite relieved for a good fashioned break. I will get plenty of time later today to just mess around and hang out with my friends so I really feel like I got lucky.

Feedback

Today I thought it would be an alright idea to talk about in some more detail on yesterday. For example I am going into more depth about what I think about SOPA and PIPA and how last night ended with the Christmas special. For this paragraph I am going to tell you about my strange day. What made this day so strange is I woke up at 8:00 today and I usually wake up at 10:00. I was baffled but I managed to get in an extra hour of electronics time. Then I there is the fact that I was going through work so fast that I am already done with chores and I am very close to finishing my school work for the day and for the week! The reason for this is because I have worked hard this entire week and tomorrow was supposed to be a make up day.

The SOPA and PIPA bills really made me want to slap someone. The way the bill was worded is so the government could shut any website down and if they were wrong about there being some way of supporting a illegal site they could simply say it was an assumption and couldn't get sued. This could process of shutting down websites would lead to a internet where no one person could be safe. YouTube, Facebook, Wikipedia, and even Google could be shut down in a heartbeat for doing nothing bad at all.

Finally there was last nights Duck Dynasty Christmas Special that we got to stay up for. We all got together with some snacks and nommed away as we laughed at the mistakes of one of the employees. What happened is that the owners wife volunteered him to play Santa at a church and when the original employee they had planned for backed out the one person that wanted to go was a lazy worker and brought "toys"  that he gathered from around the office. When I say toys I mean a tape gun, coffee cups, and a dustpan are just a few of the things he brought.

Loving the work

I was always tolk that it was important for a person to love their work. Well I have to agree with that the more I get these forms of curriculum I like. The first few were Freakonomics, the diary of Adrian Mole, and Anthem. Now I am enjoying The Trouble With Boys quite immensely. For example the recent chapter I read was about how the form of boys writing is really excepted in school. I know this pretty well because it talks about how the other boys like writing with sarcasm, humor, and purely for the other boys in the class to enjoy. I love this book because most of the things that they talk about is usually quit true and noticeable within the average public school. Of course most of the kids ignore this stuff going on around them taking it for granted.

Today's work is getting really easy with no math or french to take up all of my time. Though the hard part is that Kristi knows this and is willing to use the extra time. Today I had a Khan Academy video that is 25 minutes long. That would be five minutes less my average french lesson. Then before that I had a 12 minute Khan Academy lesson on SOPA and PIPA. I do enjoy Khan Academy and his use of the tablet to spell out and show people things while he explains them. I also love the ability to ask a question on the comments and get about 20 different answers from different people.

The family has got one of the first TV shows that we watch as a family since the Big Bang Theory which we have not yet abandoned. This new show is Duck Dynasty and it is almost just as funny. Tonight is the Christmas special and Zoe is being allowed to stay up another 30 minutes to watch it with us! The show is about a family of rednecks and their business of making duck calls. Of course it wouldn't be reality TV if something didn't happen and there is plenty of humor to go around. I can't wait for tonight as we get a nice meal and the Duck Dynasty Christmas special!

Khan wins!

Today I had my first science video on Khan academy. I believe this gives Khan another point in the great war of the curriculum being in so far three different college level main curriculum. The three I've gone into so far are math, social studies, and science in that order. I can congratulate the owner which if I remember correctly is Sal Khan. I hereby congratulate him with grabbing my attention along with all of the other people who have gone to his website and followed along.

I am done with editing my 2nd draft for Freakonomics. The problem with this is the fact that I now have to edit a second time. I do want this to be a good essay but I just don't want to edit a second draft again I want to move onto the third draft and edit that. I can't really complain with results much as this is probably the best essay I have seen yet considering the fact that every other essay before this ended very badly with no real writing behind them.

On a much brighter note I have finished my French for this semester. I may not be doing so well in french since lesson 18 in section 1 I made it through and for that I am proud. Funny though I may not be to good at actually speaking the french I can still read french pretty well even when I failed at reading glace properly when Alex, Kristi, dad, and I went after helping Kristi move stuff through her house. I don't have a need to speak French right now but if I have plans of ever traveling I better start learning some French. Besides I like the language quite a bit I just missed one word in lesson 18 and it set me completely off.

Full speed ahead

Today we have been working hard on catching me up on my Freakonomics paper. This work includes spending a good hour making the changes necessary to the paper. I loved seeing my paper evolve but I really did hate actually working on all of it. I was never a huge fan of sitting there and demolishing what I've created except for when I build it specifically to be destroyed. This is hard work criticizing my own work and making the necessary changes.

I also got to watch a movie today known as "Outfoxed." It is all about the right winged fox news network. I found it really funny when they were covering president Bush how they would cut people off who were raising to good of a point against them or even telling the people that were guests on fox to shut up. I don't watch fox news but I started getting really annoyed that this kind of network would even be allowed to be run at all making things that were terrible seem really good to make the president look that much better.

I was reading the Trouble with boys this morning I was staring at the book dumbfounded. I was reading the 9 things that would usually label a kid with ADHD and to my surprise almost everything listed I saw in pretty much every boy I knew. This list Included staring into space, not remembering what you were talking about a few seconds ago, and even not paying attention. almost every boy I know stares into space with nothing in particular in mind but manage to end up diagnosed.