Homeschooling.

  It's been a while since my last post, but I hope you're all ready to jump right back into the swing of things. :)

  Today, while doing school, I was told to write an analytical essay. I was all ready (even though it was bound to take me forever T_T) and started brainstorming for ideas when, obviously, being a homeschooler, I thought to write about how homeschooling has affected national education. Then I realized I didn't actually know.

But I wanted to.

  First off, for those curious, what is homeschooling? Homeschooling is school at home. Usually, there's not much different in terms of schooling. Parents choose and purchase school books and supplies and administer testing. There is also "unschooling" which is a different approach to homeschooling. Unschooling is when the parents let their children learn through life experiences and working at home. They also let their children choose what they want to learn and then make that happen. Unschooling isn't that different from homeschooling. The only difference being that homeschooling focuses more on school book curriculum while still incorporating the ideas of unschooling.

  All I really know is how homeschooling has affected me as an individual. I've been homeschooled all my life so I don't have anything else to compare it to. When I was younger, I remember telling new friends I was homeschooled and the weird look on their faces; "Homeschooling? What's that?"

I didn't mind telling them all about it, in fact, I loved it. And most of them were just curious and intrigued about the idea. But there was the occasional kid who would think of me as "weird" or "different", and sometimes even "stupid".  

  Homeschooling comes with stereo-types. And, it's hard. I've had the closest of friends "slip up" and use stereo types about homeschooling. I've also had friends try and pat me on the back and say "For a second it felt like I was talking to someone who went to school!" Like I was finally almost normal. One time, I even had a "friend", replying to me informing them I would be homeschooled for the next year, say "Aw :/ Oh, I mean, that's great!"

  I've never let these get to me, though. They just hurt. I can understand skepticism, and actually encourage it (how else will you ever know if you're making the right decision for yourself?), but many people aren't just skeptical. Skepticism requires that you investigate and really find out about the subject before you make a decision on it. But almost every situation I have encountered has been the result of plain old stereotyping, pride, and/or prejudice.

  I'm not going to lie, homeschoolers are guilty of this as well. I've heard too many homeschoolers say almost the exact same thing while they're gossiping about another child. "Oh, well he must go to public school!"

-_-

  Schooling doesn't define who we are or who we are going to be. It's a big part in discovering ourselves, but you are who you are no matter what's around you.

  And, for arguments sake, homeschooling CAN be done wrong. If a parent just doesn't care about a child's schooling it's obviously not going to be looked at unless the child does it himself. This is a problem that afflicts public school/private schooling as well. If a child's parents don't care whether their child goes to or stays in school, they're going to drop out unless the child does it himself.

  So, what does this mean? Whether a child is homeschooled or not doesn't mean that they're less likely to actually be schooled. It's whether or not the parents actually parent that matters.

  Being a homeschooler doesn't mean that we're socially illiterate. No, we don't go to school with hundreds of other kids every day. But, we're not alone. People aren't socially illiterate, and that's not because of schooling. When a child is at home learning from a parent, isn't that social interaction? Just because a child isn't constantly in contact with another child doesn't mean they're going to have severe mental growth issues. Yes, it's good and very healthy to have friends, but to think homeschooled children don't have friends because of the way they're schooled is rediculous. Most homeschoolers go to homeschool groups and some families go to churches with children in them. And most homeschoolers live. Sure kids meet a lot of friends at school, but tell me, is that the only place kids meet a lot of friends? Children make friends just by living everyday life. You don't have to attend school to gain friends. That's simply absurd. (Lol ever heard of a playground? or boy/girlscouts?) Any human being longs for social interaction. A child who attends school gets that from friends, siblings, and parents. A child who is homeschooled also gets that from friends, siblings, and parents. Homeschooling and attending school do not account for any differences between individuals.

  A homeschooled child is not stupid or handicapped just because they are homeschooled. It's a shame because many children, like myself, benefit greatly from the learning style that homeschooling gives. Some children, who actually love to be homeschooled and really thrive on it, ask their parents to be put in school because of bullying and teasing that's a result of the stereotyping of homeschoolers by other children.

  Homeschooling is a personal preference and choice and people shouldn't be persecuted for exercising the gift of freedom. There are many issues like this in the world that I simply don't understand, and would like to address more of.

  Thank you for reading this. It's something that means a lot to me and it's a real issue. No one should be hurt because of what they believe/the choices they make, no one should be afraid to say what they think, and no one should be made to make choices they don't believe in or want because of fear of being hurt. It's not a religious view, it's the basis of freedom.

  Again, thank you.

lOVe,

Molly

Mom.

  I don't like to touch on these things much. However, there's no real way to avoid it. On July 16, my mother, Karen McGrath, died of cancer. 
  Those of you who read my blog regularly remember the phone call I got in the London airport before I got on the plane to leave England. Erica had said "They think she's waiting until you come home to die." On the plane we had a delay (OF course) and then the 7 hour flight that should have seemed longer than it did. I, thankfully, had plenty of distractions. When we landed, the distractions stopped, and now that we were on the ground in Boston all I really cared about was getting my luggage and getting home.
  I wasn't that...shocked? I guess you could say. I knew it had been coming for a while. My mom had gone into a coma-like state while I was in England. When I got home, we all got to sit with her for a minute. There was a.... medical incident that I won't detail. I don't detail anything to do with the medical side of things because it really is disturbing. Anyway, things got taken care of and everything was kind of suspended. I guess suspended is the right word, the feeling is hard to place. We thought I had just gotten home in enough to time to say goodbye but my mom held on for a full week before she passed. Then, about 5 days after that, we had the wake and funeral. I'm really glad I got to see her before she passed, and even talk with her a bit. A few days before she went she had what is called "The Surge" where, a day or so before a dieing person passes, they will have a surge of energy or awakeness and be alert and such. It was a lot of fun to talk to her and see her reactions to things such as the fact that my new boyfriend has dread locks :P The only thing I kind of regret is the fact that I didn't get to be with her while she slipped into the coma-like state. In one hand, I would have liked to talk to her and be with her as she declined. But, in the other, I'm glad I didn't have to see that and I know that she wanted me to go on the trip to England.
  My mom did this thing sometimes where she would give me a card or note when I had to leave for something and we had a fight or I was nervous or just for no reason at all. The day I left for England was no exception, and it's something that I'll treasure for a very long time. The end of the card reads:

"I love you so much and I'm so proud of you! Sing your heart out, take lots of pictures, and dream big! I love you with all of my heart!"

It's really nice to have this and, even though she's gone, she'll never be gone to me.
I love you, mom.

lOVe,
Molly

Balance.

ENGLAND. WAS. AMAZING. :D

I don't know where to start, there are so many good stories! I'll try and go day by day but I doubt I'll be able to remember everything.

(Pictures of that day come before the description, all photos are by me (or Eddie) unless otherwise indicated.)

The first day at the airport was pretty sureal. It was my first time on a plane ever so I was pretty nervous about that. I loved it. It was so much fun and not really scary at all. Sure a big hunk of metal shouldn't be able to stay afloat in the air but if you don't think about that part, you're fine. :) :P

The next day, technicaly, was a sightseeing day. All we did was take a sightseeing tour from the bus and traverse around Edinburgh Castle :) We hadn't slept on the plane, though. So in reality June 27 and 28 were smushed together for us into a 30 hour day. Fun, huh? One of the best things about this day was seeing Fettes College, the building J.K. Rowling based Hogwarts on. :) Me and a few friends also ate lunch at The Elephant House, which is the birthplace of Harry Potter. :) It was the silver lining of the day.

(Obviously, this wasn't taken by me. I think Patti took it.) The next day we had our first concert. We were pretty bad. It was a little discouraging but we had fun anyways. After that we went to Loch Leven, a lake in Scotland. Some people took a boat to Loch Leven Castle which was on an island but a lot of us just stayed on the main land. I took a walk with Jenny, Patti, and Jessica. I took this photo on the walk. It was GORGEOUS. I've never seen a more spectacular view. :) In this little park area they had the most amazing playground EVER. It had a zipline and the coolest climbing thing I've ever seen. I think you can imagine where I spent most of my time. :P

June 30th we visited the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum. Honestly, it was pretty darn creepy (as you can see from the photo). But because I like creepy (Edgar Allan Poe FTW), I was happy. :P It was really interesting, and one of the best museums I've ever been to (in my oppinion). We had an informal concert there that was outstanding. We had a phinominal organist play in our concert to and it was just beautiful. After the concert, one of the listeners came up to me and my friend and says "You are the best choir I have ever heard." It was really encouraging to hear that because one of the things we were most intimidated about going into England was the fact that they have a very prestigious and high quality choir background. To know we were the best choir he had ever heard was a really high statement. After the musuem we went to St. Bride's Episcopal Church to perform with Depot Arts. Basicly, Depot Arts helps disadvantaged kids have a voice. We sang Rolling in the Deep by Adele with them which was amazing. We really bonded with them. We were singing to our hearts content with them backstage even. It's something I'll never forget.

(Photo by Jennifer Cox.) This day we went to the Roman Army Museum. It was a lot of fun. There was a little movie to watch about Roman times and then after we had a presintation from a worker at the musuem. The presintation was a lot of fun. He had us make a formation the Romans would have used in battle and there was a lot of hands-on stuff. After that we got into the bus to leave and almost left someone at the musuem. It was close but Eddie made it into the bus right before we pulled out of the parking lot. :P After that I'm pretty sure we went to Hadrians Wall. It's cool for the people in PC and YME who went to Jordan two years ago and got to see Hadrians Gate because this way they get to see two ends of the Roman Empire. However, I, having not gone to Jordan, wasn't all that impressed and was more sick of musuems. :P So I listened to the initial presintation but then hung out and had lunch with Eddie instead of going to the musuem.

(Picture by Eddie Dodson) We didn't do much this day because of our very important concert that night at The Sage, Gateshead. BCC forgot to feed us so the entire choir except for me was dieing of hunger. I wasn't hungry because I couldn't eat anyway on account of my stomache being in protest to eating out. Yay trailmix. Anyway, we sang with the Quay (pronounced "key") Voices, Lads, and Lasses. It was a very good but tiring concert. After we were done (and even before hand) we were going crazy with energy (at least I was). After the concert we took TOO MANY group photo's outside. :P

We had another site seeing day, and they took us to Fountains Abby. Like many of the places we saw, it was breathtaking. I spent most my time with Eddie, Drew, and Jen. It was nice to just relax. Though we lost Drew for a bit, it was a fun day with little stress. :) After Fountains Abby we checked in at our last hotel and got a LOT of leisure time which was cool. It was a lot of fun to be able to walk the town by ourselves away from the whole group of 60+ people.

This is the only picture I could find from this day. :P In the morning we went to the Forest Arts Centre and sang with the choir there. We taught them a song we knew and then we sang it together. We were broken up into guys and girls so when both the groups had finished we performed for each other. When we were done with that we all jammed to "Goodmorning Baltimore" from the musical Hairspray. It was awesome. :) Then we went to the CBSO Centre and performed with the CBSO Youth Chorus. It was an amazing concert and very exciting to hear the other choir perform. They performed a song that we had been learning over the year called "The Snow" and it was cool to hear it completly finished because we had never gotten a chance to finish it ourselves. We also had an American style dinner, concidering it was the fourth. It was nice to be back home for a little while. :) When the day was over and we got back to our hotel rooms me and Regina (my roomate) had a little celebration in our room (as seen in the picture) with loud music and such. It was a lot of fun. :)

This day we went to Oxford. :) We had an informal concert in Merton College, which we were late for. Someone got sick in the middle of the concert and had to step out to. And, because we were late, some people went on stage with their flip flops on instead of our uniform shoes. It was a mess but the audience appreciated our concert. After we were done we went sightseeing on a tour. It was raining through most of it, but not too bad. During the tour we saw the lampost from the Narnia books, Mr. Tumnis who is also from the Narnia books, and a filming site of Harry Potter. It was pretty exciting. I bought a lot of souveniers here because they said it was probably the last time we would be able to buy anything. After the tour we had a lot of leisure time which was really nice. I tried to forget about how close to the end we were.

We went to a school this day and teached much like we had done before. It was really interesting to be on the other side of things where we were teaching instead of being taught. We had kind of been that way the time before but this was different because the kids were younger. Instead of hanging out with them and being more on their level we were really more like mentors than we had been before. After this we went to the Maida Vale Studios where we attended a rehearsal with the BBC Singers. They were crazy good! They hadn't practiced at all and could've recoded right off the page. It was absolutely amazing and inspiring. We got to ask questions after which was a huge plus. They really liked us, which is good too. :) We met our host familys this night and stayed with them. My host family took me and Audrey (a roomate :) on the London Eye which was SPECTACULAR. Unfortunately, Eddie had the camera we were sharing so I couldn't get any pictures. It was beautiful, though. And my host family was magnificent.

The next day was a guided sight seeing tour of London on the bus. It was awesome and I finally got some pictures. The sky was clear, we were all dressed up for the formal-ish farewell lunch, and everything looked up. Until they made us get out and walk for our walking tour; IN THE POURING RAIN. It hadn't been raining until the moment we had to walk out of the bus and then it came down in buckets. They canceled the walking tour but still made us walk to some museum to spend the time we woulda spent walking there. Our dresses and shoes were all soaking wet by the time we got to the museum. We were there for a while but not long enough to completly dry until we had to walk in the rain again to the site where lunch was. Even lunch was a little stressful, but we got through it. That night was epic and so sad but happy at the same time. We had the last concert and everything leading up to that was pretty normal except for the....anxiousness? of "Up to the Mountain", our song. Up to the Mountain is a song PC and YME does every year for the last concert. It means a lot to us. Before we had even started singing it during the last concert people were crying their eyes out on stage. Of course, we sounded horrible, but it was so beautiful. The people who sang the solos were singers and they were crying and just everyone was crying. It was, unreal. After the concert we went outside and cried some more. We still had one more day, that's all I tried to focus on.

This is a picture of me and my host family. :) From right to left it's Mrs. Turtelboom (AWESOME last name, I know :P), me, Audrey, and Emma. We met at the girls school and had our last day services. Superlatives were handed out (I got "Biggest Dr. Who fan" :P), the seniors sang the senior song, and we gave cards to the staff. They took us to Windsor Castle but I know at least I didn't go into the castle. Me, Drew, Jen, and Eddie went on a mad expensive ferris wheel. It was well worth it, in my oppinion. After that we went to the Londond airport and I got a call. Or rather, had been told to call home. I had been told to call home a few days before but it wasn't as bad as this time. Before I had just been told that my mom was some sicker, which is nothing new to me. But during this conversation my sister actualy said "They think she's waiting until you get home to die." I was in shock for a while. A few people asked me about it and I told them. Eddie helped me a lot with things, but it was still a pretty long plane ride. I don't like to dwell to much on this stuff, especially since it's what destroyed my last blog, but I'll still touch on it. I can't avoid it at all. I'll talk more about it in the next post, but for now, TOUR WAS AWESOME. :) I'll be putting videos up and most of my pictures up soon too, keep a look out. :)

lOVe,
Molly

Nameless.

  IT FINALLY WORKED. At least, it looks like it's finished uploading. Who knows if it will ACTUALLY play. T_T It's taken blogger somewhere around an hour to upload this video. Forget uploading it on the Songs page, that doesn't work AT ALL. I'll try it again, though. Lol. 
  This video is of me playing piano. :D This is a preview of a song I'm currently working on. It's called "Nameless." because I was about to write "This song is currently nameless..." but decided "Nameless" as a name would be pretty cool. L" So enjoy. And if you have a better idea for a name, please leave it in the comments. ;)

  Since I don't want this post to be a waste, I've decided to write about Fathers Day as well.
  It was honestly pretty typical. We almost crashed, which was annoying considering some whack job decided to stop in the middle of the road to let people across the street when there wasn't even a cross-walk. Gr, lol. I would have started honking up a storm if I was driving. I guess it's a good thing for the rest of the world that I don't have my license. :P
  Shortly after that incident we (Me, my dad, and Ell.) arrived at my grandparents. And, I must say, being there is so much more entertaining than TV. For example, here's what a typical conversation over there would go like.

G-pops: Who is that-is that Tommy?
G-ma: NO JOHN. That's PAUL.
G-pops: Oh, then where's Tommy?
G-ma: Tommy's not here.
G-pops: Oh....
(a few minutes later...)
G-ma: John your going to get the cake all over the place! Why are you cutting it?
          NO THEY DON'T WANT A PIECE! NO that's NOT TOMMY. What are you
          talking about?! Dear God I have no idea what to do with you....
(Then she turns to us and says very nicely....)
          Would you like soemthing to eat?
G-pops: No I'm not hungry.
G-ma: I wasn't talking to you John!
G-pops: Oh... is that Tommy?

  Yeah, this goes on for the entire duration of the visit. :P Sometimes I think G-pops is faking; just doing all this to get on G-ma's nerves, because, most everytime she startes to get frustrated, you can see a hint of a smile. :P

  For my dad, we got him a floating TARDIS from Doctor Who. XP It's AWESOME. And, for the sake of awesome, I've included a pic. :)

What's on my mind: Nantes, Beiruit. I first heard this song from a friend who covered it on his youtube channel. I'm really falling in love with Beirut. Their music is beautiful, powerful, sad, and happy at the same time. <3 Oh and yeah I lied about doing this every post. Sorry. XP

lOVe,

Molly

"Oh, yeah I'm going to- wait..... I'M GOING TO ENGLAND?!"

Many people have the misconception that denial is a negative thing that only happens when you don't want to believe bad news and such. Well, they're wrong. :P

I don't know how many times I have told people about my upcoming tour to England, but it's become second nature to me. Same old story ect. Until yesterday, (16th) when BCC sent an email outlining our itinerary and packing list. I freaked out. Though I'm sure some of it was fueled by my moms birthday cake that I had consumed two pieces of, it was mostly stemmed from the fact that I'm going to England FINALLY sank in. I'm going to be on my own for two weeks, I'm going on a plane for the first time, I'm going to be on my own for two weeks (Yes, I said that twice on purpose. :P), and I'm going to be with people that are still kind of unfamiliar to me. It's all new and exciting, and......I'm afraid I won't be able to handle it all. I remember my first MLK (Martin Luther King Jr. Concert. Nationally televised. We call it MLK.) and it was completly overwhelming. Part of that was because I was going through so much at the time but I'm still going through a lot. I rememeber just going into the bathroom one time before the concert at Jordan Hall and just crying. Not because I was sad, really, just because I was stressed and being too hard on myself. MLK really was a lot of work though, I'm not saying tour won't be, but I'm going to look at it as more of a vacation. Especially since I have to take care of my mom so much nowadays. I'm going to learn all of my music before tour starts and just have fun and completly forget about everything. When we went on our mini tour to Vermont one of my roomies started lecturing us about tour saying "DO NOT be late and DO NOT get caught up in the drama because TK will hate you for the rest of the tour and it will not be pleasant." I was kind of worried because I have a habit of attracting drama (Haha, what an understatment.) but then I realized, so what? If everything goes wrong I'm still going to enjoy this trip. No matter what. I'm not going to be afraid and I'm going to be confident. The worst part? Everything good is easier said than done.

Lesson of the day: Eating cake and letting loose screaming around the house is good once in a while. The crash afterwords? BAD. XP

Happy Birthday, mom. :)

lOVe,
Molly

Through the Carefull Act of no Planning at All.

  Wensday night I stupidly stayed up untill 2 A.M. because I didn't fully realize that I had a recording at WGBH the next day for my choirs christmas album. T_T

  The next day I had no sense of planning. I had to wake up at 7 A.M to help my mom and that messed up my energy even more. I was getting a ride to my recording because the rest of my family was soposed to be gone before me. Well my ride came wicked early and I was still in my pajamas. I had to rush to get ready and sadly only had time to put on eyeliner. We got to WGBH and waited for a while until TK (our conductor) got there and we headed into the studio. It was absolutely soundproof. After talking for a while with TK we got to record and it was amazing. While we sang our songs we watched the lightning outside the ceiling to floor window. It was weird because we saw complete bolts of lightning that were very close but couldn't hear a thing.
  Recording was a lot of hard work. I almost passed out in the car on my way home. We sang for 4 hours straight from 4-8 without food or a break longer than 10 minutes. I think it was very worth it, though. We had some cool choir moments too. Being able to sing with so many amazing people and acomplish the things we are acomplishing.....nothing gets better than that. I hope I can always have that. <3

In every post, starting with this one, I'm going to have a little "What's on my mind." section at the end. This post I have a song to share. It's Florence + The Machine, Cosmic Love. I have been listening to this song for hours and absolutely cannot get enough of it. I think both the music and this video are completly beautiful. I love how poetic she is in all her songs, especially this one.

Lesson learned: GET READY ON TIME. Even if you're in the middle of a mission on inFAMOUS. ;P

lOVe,
Molly

Take Two.

  Hello! I used to write another blog that had restricted viewers but I couldn't keep up with it. I decided to make this one instead. I didn't like where the last one was headed and thought it would be a good idea to just start new and fresh.
  This new blog will still keep some of the same stuff. As you can already see it has similar pages to what was on the last blog. I do have to warn anyone who hasn't read my blog before that I am very unedited. By that I literaly mean UNEDITED. There is going to be spelling problems, grammar problems, and a whole lot of  "THEN THIS HAPPENED. THEN THAT. and that. then this." lol though I'll try and keep that to a minimum ;P
  Oh and emotes. That's important too.
  Also instead of focusing on my day-to-day life I'll be focusing more on my experiences and lessons learned. Though I'll probably still write about the crazy drama. Ugh. My life is crazy.
  With that said I will never intentionally hurt, swear, or offend anyone. I want this to be a very friendly, serious, funny, silly, beautiful, and enjoyable blog for all ages like I know it can be. (Tear tear. :P)


With that said and my "Welcome!" post finished. I look forward to writing for this blog. :)


lOVe,
Molly