In reply to Tash, Why Am I Homeschooled?
Hmm. Why am I homeschooled?
Well, I started in second grade, because first grade was only a year after I learned to read (I learned in the year before kindergarten, when I was almost 5), so whenever I came home from school, I would be pooped and just want to read.
I used to be ultra-clingy, too. I would never really want to be away from my mommy. So when I got home, I would read a few Magic Tree House books, then eat dinner, and go to bed. I never really had a time to be with Mommy, except in the mornings when we would argue about what clothes I should wear for the day. (I used to favor mixes like yellow and pink striped dress with a red long sleeve shirt with Santa Clauses and reindeer all over it. Not exactly lovely.)
So I decided to homeschool. Every morning I would go to the dry-erase board and look at the Morning Message my mom put there. Then I would find the grammar and spelling mistakes in it and correct them in red marker so that when she came down, she could tell me if I got them all right. Then I ate breakfast and put on whatever amazingly uncoordinated outfit I pleased. Unless we were going on a fied trip. Then I would usually wear clothes that matched.
I would have math from a math book, and handwriting, and, my main source of pride of being an ‘advanced’ student was the fact that, in second grade, I was using and 8th grade spelling book. The words were like ‘copy’ and ‘amazing’ or carbonated’. The hardest part was the list of hyphenated words such as first-aid, which I am still very bad at.
That was my entire day, after I practiced piano. Then maybe I would write some poetry and hand it in for extra credit.
People always told me that homeschoolers were all so precocious and smart, so I lived by that rule, and whenever a guest came over during a school day, I would put on a khaki shirt and my navy blue uniform skort so that the people would think I was extra-super smart. Back then, in second grade it was accepted that people who went to ‘uniform schools’ were the smart ones.
In fifth grade was when I got lonely, because now all of my friends (sustained from kindergarten), were talking about who was ‘the cutest boy’ in the class, blah blah blah. I didn’t really get any of it, because I have been at home all this time, I was so sheltered.
Then it just got worse as people got older, and SOME or my friends became a little ‘boy crazy’. Actually, not a little, a LOT. That could get quite annoying, since I had no clue what was going on there.
In sixth grade, people started having ‘private jokes’, or things happened that couldn’t be explained to me since I was homeschooled and ‘wouldn’t get it’, or it was ‘too long a story’.
THEN, the worst thing happened: I realized that no one my age was homschooled anymore. I realized that I thought of myself as a normal person, while I looked at the others homeschoolers like ‘farmers’ or some rustic people like that. I realized that I too, was probably a ‘farmer’.
All the homeschoolers on fieldtrips we went on never brushed thier hair, and probably didn’t bother bathing or changing clothes that often. The little boys would boast about how it had been a month since they had bathed, or five days since they changed clothes. And thier parents would boast about thier children too. “Well my son slept in that shirt for six nights and days with our family dog” ‘oooh’ s and ‘ahhh’ s would follow.
That was when I decided to distance myself from the other homeschoolers, and look for another way to be. So I got obsessed with clothes. I made my own, and they were extremely nice looking. I also altered alot of old things to fit me. Voila, instant wardrobe makeover.
Then, when people my age began getting held back when they began schooling at other places, they wouldspread the word that people were homeschooled because they had ’special needs’. Then people would look at me like I was an idiot, when in truth the reason why I was being homeschooled was because I was literarily and mathematically precocious. No, I dodn’t have ’special needs’ in the way the term implied: help for someone who is behind. But I needed a special setting for someone who was ahead.
Well, now people think I am being homeschooled because I am ‘dumb’.
That is just not true.
Now, to prove the world wrong time and time again, I have turned into the clothing-consious, knowledge-brimming young woman before your eyes… Well actually, I’m behind your computer screen.
Oh, and by the way, by ‘clothing consious’ , I do NOT mean that I am conforming to any certain branch of the clothing industry, but I am wearing my own inventions: An orange tie-die mirrored shirt from India with a bright green mirrored skirt, or such.
Please, please do not think that I am clothing OBSESSED. I am cleanliness obsessed. Ineed to look neat and groomed. I do NOT obsess about clothing. I don’t want you to get the wrong picture of me as Miss Material Girl, because I’m NOT.
So, that’s why I’m homeschooled, Tash. And thank you for asking, because now everyone knows the truth!
Love, Kimaya
P.S. Emily and Graham, I am NOT talking about you as the messy, held back homeschoolers in this post. I am talking about someone else. If you want to know who, email me at Kimaya8@aol.com – IF you ever happen to read this.
