Reschool Yourself

Monthly Archive: June 2009

Looking Back and Moving Forward: One Year Later

Yesterday marked the official close of my year of reschooling. Though it was a busy Saturday, my thoughts kept coming back to the progress I’ve made this year in finding balance and contentment, and the gratitude I have for all the people who helped make this project possible. You know who you are, and I hope you know how thankful I will always be to you.

Two big lessons that come to mind:

1) Achievement hasn’t made me happy in the past, and it won’t make me happy in the future.

2) Nearly 100 percent of the time, life isn’t as serious as I think it is.

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June 21, 2009 About the Project, Progress Reports, , , 7 Read more >

School’s Almost Out for the Summer

Photo by James Adamson

I’ve decided to end the official academic year of reschooling this Saturday, June 20th. I’d been thinking June 15, because it’s closer to the real last day of school for most kids, but June 20th has more significance for me. It’s exactly ten months after the first day of kindergarten (August 20th, 2008), and it’s exactly one year after I left my full-time job as Spark Co-Director. It feels like the right time to step back and reflect on my first year that I’ve educated myself on my own terms.

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June 16, 2009 About the Project, Progress Reports, 7 Read more >

If I Could Do College Over Again

The young woman whom my mom mentors is going out of state for college in the fall, and my mom is compiling a booklet of advice for her. (Yes, my mom rocks.) Here’s my contribution:

If I could do college over again, I’d spend less time in the library and more time living. As a student, I had the attitude that the most important part about school was academic achievement, but now I realize that it’s about so much more. It’s about playing frisbee on the lawn at 10 pm. It’s about sitting around with your girlfriends in the dorms, giggling about silly inside jokes. It’s about the little moments that will stay with you the rest of your life. This may be the only time where you live on a campus with people who are all your age, so enjoy your time there. Don’t believe people who say that college is the best time of your life, but make it one of the best times.

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June 2, 2009 College, , , 4 Read more >

My Aha Moment

A couple of weeks ago, a woman from Skadaddle Media emailed me to ask if I’d share the Reschool Yourself story on camera for Mutual of Omaha’s aha moment campaign. She said she’d found me through an Internet search, and that the video production trailer was coming to Jackson as part of a nationwide road trip to collect the life-changing stories of everyday people.

Watch a short video of my aha moment here.

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June 1, 2009 Video 3 Read more >