Oh happy day! I found out that I am not on the skeleton crew on Friday. Which means.....
I AM DONE WITH DETASSELING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Well, I should probably stop with the exclamation points. After all, I probably don't want to break my key board. But, I am just so happy to be done, I think I'll use a couple more. :D
YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ok, I'm good.
Now, with all my excitement about the end of detasseling, you may be wondering if I am going to do it next year? The answer to that question is yes, but ONLY if I can't get a job somewhere else. If everything goes well, I will never spend another day of my life in a cornfield. Of course, now I'll probably end up marrying a farmer or something.
Until I write again, au revoir.
~Nat
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
I Thought that's what Parents were For?
I have recently been trying to finish up a summary of a portion of H. R. 3590 (better known as "Obamacare"), I've been working on for Ten-Amendments.org. Today, I was plodding through section 2953 when I came across yet another example of the government stepping in where it isn't supposed to. Section 2953 is about "Personal Responsibility Education,"and provides funding for States (at a minimum of $250,000) and grants, for specific organizations, to carry out "Personal Responsibility Education Programs." These programs will be able to teach the youth of America many useful things (if you can't tell, I am being sarcastic) including the following:
"(C) ADULTHOOD PREPARATION SUBJECTS.—The adulthood preparation subjects
described in this subparagraph are the following: (i) Healthy relationships, such as positive self-esteem and relationship dynamics, friendships, dating, romantic involvement, marriage, and family inter actions. (ii) Adolescent development, such as
the development of healthy attitudes and values about adolescent growth and development, body image, racial and ethnic diversity, and other related subjects.
(iii) Financial literacy. (iv) Parent-child communication...
(vi) Healthy life skills, such as goal setting, decision making, negotiation, communication and interpersonal skills, and stress management."
Seriously? Does our government really have to step in and pay for our children to learn about friendship, positive self-esteem and decision making? Have the parents been so absent in our country that this is the steps that is necessary to prepare our youth for adult life? Unfortunately, the more I see of the world outside my little home school bubble, the more I am afraid that the answer to the last question is yes. When I was taking driver's ed this summer, there were these posters in the classroom explaining how to do things like ask questions, accept criticism and apologize to people; and this was in a high school.
Although, I find it very saddening when I think about how many kids in America are not being properly raised by their parents. I don't believe that it is justification for the government to step in and starting parenting. That is not the role our government was created for, and it is not the right way to raise children. You cannot teach a child to be respectful and responsible in a classroom, if they are not learning the same lesson from their parents. You cannot teach a child about parent-child relationships, and how to have a good marriage if they aren't seeing that when they enter their front door. There is a very serious very serious problem in America today, and a problem that needs to be dealt with. But not by the government
Until next time, au revoir.
~Nat
"(C) ADULTHOOD PREPARATION SUBJECTS.—The adulthood preparation subjects
described in this subparagraph are the following: (i) Healthy relationships, such as positive self-esteem and relationship dynamics, friendships, dating, romantic involvement, marriage, and family inter actions. (ii) Adolescent development, such as
the development of healthy attitudes and values about adolescent growth and development, body image, racial and ethnic diversity, and other related subjects.
(iii) Financial literacy. (iv) Parent-child communication...
(vi) Healthy life skills, such as goal setting, decision making, negotiation, communication and interpersonal skills, and stress management."
Seriously? Does our government really have to step in and pay for our children to learn about friendship, positive self-esteem and decision making? Have the parents been so absent in our country that this is the steps that is necessary to prepare our youth for adult life? Unfortunately, the more I see of the world outside my little home school bubble, the more I am afraid that the answer to the last question is yes. When I was taking driver's ed this summer, there were these posters in the classroom explaining how to do things like ask questions, accept criticism and apologize to people; and this was in a high school.
Although, I find it very saddening when I think about how many kids in America are not being properly raised by their parents. I don't believe that it is justification for the government to step in and starting parenting. That is not the role our government was created for, and it is not the right way to raise children. You cannot teach a child to be respectful and responsible in a classroom, if they are not learning the same lesson from their parents. You cannot teach a child about parent-child relationships, and how to have a good marriage if they aren't seeing that when they enter their front door. There is a very serious very serious problem in America today, and a problem that needs to be dealt with. But not by the government
Until next time, au revoir.
~Nat
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Every Mushroom Cloud Has a Silver Lining
Yesterday, I had just about sworn that I would never do detasseling again (for those of you that don't know what detasseling is, check out Wikipedia). But today I'm considering actually coming back next year. You may wonder what brought on the sudden change of heart? It's because God is amazing!
Most of the time detasseling is difficult. It involves a whole lot of walking, and often times my shoulders ache from pulling the tassels. But yesterday was the worst day I have ever had in my entire time detasseling, and I'm not alone, some one who had been doing it for three years said that they had never had a day so bad. Although the field we were pulling wasn't ver large (only 20 acres) it was absolutely the worst field I had ever been in, apart from having seven foot tall corn stalks, much of the corn had been blown over by a storm, and was so twisted together it was almost impossible to tell which row was which, or to find the tassels. We spent eight hours in that field, with the temperature steadily rising to around 90 degrees, getting more and more tired as we went along. By the end of the day I was almost crying because I didn't want to keep going, and that night I was dreading getting up the next morning to do it all over again.
The next morning got off to a rocky start, I found out that it was supposed to get really hot today as well (they said that the heat index could get up to 106). Also, as I pulled out my stuff I realized that I had left my mp3 player at home, and I felt like crying again when I though about spending a monotonous 8 hours, in the heat, without even my music to keep me sane. But Like I said, God is amazing! After we had first pulled (A first pull is when we go through the field for the first time and pull all the tassels the machine missed.) the bits of the field we hadn't gotten to yesterday, Phil (our bus assistant) got us all together and said that we needed to try and get out of this field by 12 so that we wouldn't be out when it got really hot. But to do this we needed to have 30 minute rounds (a round is when we go up one row of the field and than come down another row). Since our rounds yesterday were no where near 30 minutes, I wasn't very optimistic about our chances of getting done before 12. Well, we didn't get done at 12, we got done at 10! Since we had been so slow yesterday, we had been able to pull most of the tassels, and the rows were so clean, that we were able to do a round in 15 minutes! This just shows that no matter how horrible things are, God is always in control, and you can always find the positive side to almost any situation.Because we had suffered so much yesterday, we were able to get done quickly today, and get out of the field before it got unbearably hot. Isn't God so wonderful?
Here are a couple more bright spots in the weekend that I thought would be the worst weekend of my life:
-Getting to eat bubblegum the entire time I was pulling tassels.
-Seeing hot air balloons.
-Seeing a guy witness to someone in the cornfield.
-Not getting sunburned.
-Brightly colored duct tape.
-Getting to Spend some time praying since I didn't have my mp3 player.
-Fully relying on God throughout this whole ordeal.
-Chocolate pudding.
Until next time, au revoir.
~Nat
P.S. If you know what song that my title came from, you are officially awesome.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
When Will I Be Free?
Driving in the car with my mom is not something you want to do while you're still "learning to drive." Before we even entered the car we got into an argument about whether I should drive in flip flops or not. I am of the opinion that since I spend a great deal of time in flip flops (and I don't want to have to constantly drag a second pair of shoes along) then it would be best for me to get used to driving with them. But of course she is the mom, she has the car keys, and she can say that I won't be able to drive until I turn 18, so of course she won the argument.
Now, the main reason driving with my mom is so annoying, is because she is constantly telling me to do stuff that I was already planning on doing. Like stopping at red lights, and reducing my speed. She also has a tendency to freak out when ever I get within a few feet of another car, and whenever I turn left.
But despite all the aggravation she causes, I suppose I should be happy that she puts up with me, and is willing to let me drive. Even so, I am going to be really glad when I can drive on my own.
Until next time au revoir.
~Nat
Now, the main reason driving with my mom is so annoying, is because she is constantly telling me to do stuff that I was already planning on doing. Like stopping at red lights, and reducing my speed. She also has a tendency to freak out when ever I get within a few feet of another car, and whenever I turn left.
But despite all the aggravation she causes, I suppose I should be happy that she puts up with me, and is willing to let me drive. Even so, I am going to be really glad when I can drive on my own.
Until next time au revoir.
~Nat
Friday, July 9, 2010
Detasseling: Day 1
So, the first day of detasseling is over and done with (Yay), and it actually wasn't so bad. It was incredibly wet and very dull, but not too bad.
For those of you that don't know what detasseling is, let me explain. Detasseling is when you get up at unearthly hours and walk around for long hours though corn fields in the freezing cold or scorching heat pulling tassels off the tops of corn so that they can cross pollinate and create a hybrid corn. In other words, torture.
Just kidding. It's really not so horrible once you get used to it. Although, it does take a while to get used to seeing corn when you go to sleep at night.
Until I write again, au revoir.
~Nat
For those of you that don't know what detasseling is, let me explain. Detasseling is when you get up at unearthly hours and walk around for long hours though corn fields in the freezing cold or scorching heat pulling tassels off the tops of corn so that they can cross pollinate and create a hybrid corn. In other words, torture.
Just kidding. It's really not so horrible once you get used to it. Although, it does take a while to get used to seeing corn when you go to sleep at night.
Until I write again, au revoir.
~Nat
Thursday, July 8, 2010
The 4th
The fire crackers exploded, thick smoke filled the humid air and fireworks burst in a myriad of colors in the night sky. My four year old cousin Emma looked up at the gigantic fireworks exploding above us and exclaimed with excitement, "Look! Sparklers!"
~ ~ ~
This Fourth of July my family went over to our cousins' house and celebrated our countries independence (and the birthday of our nine year old cousin, Morgan) the way it should be celebrated; with cake and lots of explosions! We started out while the evening was still young with the noisy stuff, and had a great deal of fun trying to destroy toy soldiers, you wouldn't believe how durable those things are. Although I felt somewhat guilty when my mom compared us to the kid from Toy Story.
Eventually, after it got dark, we started lighting the fireworks. Unfortunately, I never seemed to get used the the sound the fireworks made when they went off, and every time one exploded I would utter a little shriek and jump.But I still had a great deal of fun, and I discovered that I greatly love blowing things up. We also lit sparklers (on of my personal favorites, they just look so pretty) and I loved watching Emma cautiously wave the sparkler around her, as if she weren't quite sure that it wouldn't explode.
All in all I had a great time on Sunday. But before I leave you, and get back to ignoring the world before detasseling starts, I'm going to tell you about one last, rather humorous, occurrence. As we were setting off fireworks two boys across the street started to light their own, more impressive, fire works. As we watched them explode in the sky above our heads (with me giving the occasional jump of surprise when particularly loud ones went off) Allyson, the oldest of the cousins, and I got into an argument about how old the boys were. I though they were 15 or 16 and she thought they were closer to 18. In order to settle the argument, Megan, another cousin, told Morgan to go and ask the boys how old they were and gave her specific instructions not to tell them that we had asked her to do it. She happily ran off to go ask the boys their age, and we waited patiently for her return. When she did finally return, she did so by running toward us exclaiming, in a not so quiet whisper, that the boys were (like I had guessed) 16 years old. Well, this didn't fail to attract the notice of the two teenage boys, and after they threw a few surreptitious glances at us, we started laughing about how they probably thought we liked them. A little while later, the incident with the boys forgotten, we went on a walk; although five minutes after we started out, we stopped walking, and started skipping (yes, skipping). We had been skipping for a little while (and probably looking like complete idiots) when this car pulls up to a stop sign, and honks it's horn at us. Well, the simple fact that a car had come upon us while we were looking like fools would have been amusing enough in and of it's self. But as the car pulled away, we realized that the occupants of the car were in fact the very same 16 year old neighbor boys from earlier in the evening.
Well, I think I have written enough for now, and I have a book that is calling to me. So until next time, au revoir.
~Nat
~ ~ ~
This Fourth of July my family went over to our cousins' house and celebrated our countries independence (and the birthday of our nine year old cousin, Morgan) the way it should be celebrated; with cake and lots of explosions! We started out while the evening was still young with the noisy stuff, and had a great deal of fun trying to destroy toy soldiers, you wouldn't believe how durable those things are. Although I felt somewhat guilty when my mom compared us to the kid from Toy Story.
Eventually, after it got dark, we started lighting the fireworks. Unfortunately, I never seemed to get used the the sound the fireworks made when they went off, and every time one exploded I would utter a little shriek and jump.But I still had a great deal of fun, and I discovered that I greatly love blowing things up. We also lit sparklers (on of my personal favorites, they just look so pretty) and I loved watching Emma cautiously wave the sparkler around her, as if she weren't quite sure that it wouldn't explode.
All in all I had a great time on Sunday. But before I leave you, and get back to ignoring the world before detasseling starts, I'm going to tell you about one last, rather humorous, occurrence. As we were setting off fireworks two boys across the street started to light their own, more impressive, fire works. As we watched them explode in the sky above our heads (with me giving the occasional jump of surprise when particularly loud ones went off) Allyson, the oldest of the cousins, and I got into an argument about how old the boys were. I though they were 15 or 16 and she thought they were closer to 18. In order to settle the argument, Megan, another cousin, told Morgan to go and ask the boys how old they were and gave her specific instructions not to tell them that we had asked her to do it. She happily ran off to go ask the boys their age, and we waited patiently for her return. When she did finally return, she did so by running toward us exclaiming, in a not so quiet whisper, that the boys were (like I had guessed) 16 years old. Well, this didn't fail to attract the notice of the two teenage boys, and after they threw a few surreptitious glances at us, we started laughing about how they probably thought we liked them. A little while later, the incident with the boys forgotten, we went on a walk; although five minutes after we started out, we stopped walking, and started skipping (yes, skipping). We had been skipping for a little while (and probably looking like complete idiots) when this car pulls up to a stop sign, and honks it's horn at us. Well, the simple fact that a car had come upon us while we were looking like fools would have been amusing enough in and of it's self. But as the car pulled away, we realized that the occupants of the car were in fact the very same 16 year old neighbor boys from earlier in the evening.
Well, I think I have written enough for now, and I have a book that is calling to me. So until next time, au revoir.
~Nat
Saturday, July 3, 2010
It's Over!
So, drivers ed finally ended on Thursday... finally. I am now am able to legally drive on my own! Well, as soon as I get a driver's licence, and get insurance worked out. Which my mom says may not happen until I turn eight-teen, darn. Anyway, here are a few of the good, bad and random things that happened during drivers ed.
Good:
-Getting to take driver's ed at Central High School. My goodness the building was beautiful.
-Passing my test with only three mistakes.
-Getting to explain why I was reading the book God and Government over the summer (I was reading it because I think there may be some stuff I can use for debate).
-Doodling on my hand.
-Getting to tell my mom what she is doing wrong when she's driving
Bad:
-Waking up at 7:00 am.
-Sitting through over four hours of class. I have just realized how much I dislike classrooms.
-Parallel parking.
-The video from the 90's where they sing at you.
-Filling in the blank in the book.
-Having to drive around with an instructor while being paranoid about going over the speed limit.
-Having to figure out when to signal.
-The driving test.
-The written test.
Wow, there were a lot more bad than good things.
Random:
-My teacher saying, "We'll take a ten minute brake, and then we'll do drugs."
-Accidentally driving into the correctional facility.
-A guy in the jeep in front of us flirting with me.
In the end I learned a lot of stuff (stuff that I will probably forget in the next month), and I wasn't completely miserable the whole time. Besides insurance will be cheaper. But I'm glad to have driver's ed over and done with. It is an experience I am not wanting to repeat
Until I write again, au revoir
~Nat
Good:
-Getting to take driver's ed at Central High School. My goodness the building was beautiful.
-Passing my test with only three mistakes.
-Getting to explain why I was reading the book God and Government over the summer (I was reading it because I think there may be some stuff I can use for debate).
-Doodling on my hand.
-Getting to tell my mom what she is doing wrong when she's driving
Bad:
-Waking up at 7:00 am.
-Sitting through over four hours of class. I have just realized how much I dislike classrooms.
-Parallel parking.
-The video from the 90's where they sing at you.
-Filling in the blank in the book.
-Having to drive around with an instructor while being paranoid about going over the speed limit.
-Having to figure out when to signal.
-The driving test.
-The written test.
Wow, there were a lot more bad than good things.
Random:
-My teacher saying, "We'll take a ten minute brake, and then we'll do drugs."
-Accidentally driving into the correctional facility.
-A guy in the jeep in front of us flirting with me.
In the end I learned a lot of stuff (stuff that I will probably forget in the next month), and I wasn't completely miserable the whole time. Besides insurance will be cheaper. But I'm glad to have driver's ed over and done with. It is an experience I am not wanting to repeat
Until I write again, au revoir
~Nat
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