Sunday, January 20, 2013

Graduation Day

 Graduation Day! 
Kiddo's Graduation Speech:
Hello. First off I’d like to thank you all for coming. This is one of the most important days of my life, and it warms my heart to see you here. Next I’d like to thank God for influencing my Mom and Dad for making the decision to home school me. 
I know that there are many misconceptions about home schooling. When I say that word, "homeschool" some tend to assume that I was very sheltered. But you know what? If that means that I was shielded from the pain of dating, drugs, and alcohol when I was in high school, and middle school, then YES! I was sheltered! Thank you Mom and Dad! 
Some people also think that kids that are home schooled, actually don’t do any school. They think their parents are saying, “Okay, kids! We’re going to learn about physics at the amusement park!” Hey don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that home schoolers don’t have the best field trips. But that’s like saying that you don’t have clean clothes just because you don’t go to a Laundromat to wash them. 
People also seem to think that home schoolers don’t have any friends. But that's not true either. Home schoolers just have to actively seek out friendships, and aren't the best of friends the ones you pick out yourself anyway?  
And this is the dumbest one of them all. A lot of people seem to think that homeschoolers have no lives. Okay, let me get this straight. Public school kids spend 8 hours in a specific classroom, at a specific time, EVERY SINGLE DAY?! And I’m the one missing out on life experiences? No way! If I wanted to I could get up at 6 in the morning to get all my school work done early, and have fun the rest of the day!! And the rumor that home schoolers sleep late and do school in their pajamas... well, that part is actually true and I think it's probably the best part of all. My life is awesome! So, thank you Mom and Dad for homeschooling me. 
I would also like to thank my older brother. Not my oldest brother, he's just pretty average. I'd like to thank the other brother. Ethan. That brother. He is an amazing person. And when I say amazing, you probably think "Oh, like Einstein or something". WRONG. Dead wrong. Amazing-er. If Einstein had a great-grandson who was exponentially smarter and possessed faultless good looks? Yeah, that'd be Ethan. While I do give credit to my parents for teaching me and all that, I give significantly more credit to Ethan for being a constant and ever-present example of how to be amazing.
-Ethan gave me ten dollars to read that.-
It certainly was a daunting task, but Mom home schooled me from preschool, to the end of 12th grade. Homeschooling a kid is NOT easy. The fact that I was the kid she was teaching made it a lot harder. I just couldn’t seem to focus. I remember my Mom tried putting me in a make-shift cubicle for math class, because I was consistently taking hours to do my work each day. Dad told her it would help with distractions. One side of the "cubical" was a door with a mirror.  Mom went about the house doing her housework, and about an hour and a half later, she realized how long I'd been doing math. She checked on me and found me making faces in the mirror. I had only answered two questions. Sometimes I’d be up until bedtime doing school. And maybe this is completely unrelated, but I noticed that after school my Mom and Dad’s veins on their temples would pop out, and worry lines would appear. But it was probably just my imagination… I remember Mom quoting Bible verses to herself. I believe one of her favorites was "Let us not be weary in well doing, for in due season we shall reap if we faint not".
It’s customary in a graduation speech to say what your choice is for a career path, or whether or not you’re going to college.  With so many options available, I haven't quite worked out all the details yet, But for the most part, I’m just going to be serving God, going wherever He tells me to go and doing whatever He tells me to do. I figure you can’t really go wrong with that. So forget me. Let’s give God all the glory! Thank you all, and have a wonderful evening.
Note: not all the ideas in this speech were original
For her inspiration please see the following link: 









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