Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Jumbled thoughts of the homeschooly variety

All of the blogs that I read that are written by people I don't know (and some that are written by people I do know), are so well written and witty and while the author comes off as a "life of the party type" they always claim to be introverts.  This is weird to me because their on screen personas are usually so charismatic (otherwise I wouldn't be reading it), but their descriptions of their real life personalities are generally shy and without tons of real life friends.  I feel like some of my grammar may be messed up, but this is stream of consciousness (and MY blog) so I'm not going to change it.  I'm also not terribly sure what my point is except that I'm not so much an introvert or an extrovert and if wildly popular blogger=introvert, that's not me.  But I'm not real life life of the party extrovert either.  I'm just regular. 

As I've mentioned before I'm not a fan of "how to" people.  Like "let me tell you all the things I know so you can be as smart as me" kind of people.  Because of this sometimes I stay quiet even if I think (know) I have so information that could help somebody.  This is especially true when it comes to new homeschoolers.  There is a local facebook group of homeschoolers, so many just starting out with questions like "what is the best curriculum for me to use?"  "how do I find an umbrella school?"  "how do we make friends?" and I generally don't answer except in my head where I say things like "how do I know, I don't know anything about you or your kid" or "why??" or "the same way anyone else ever makes friends".  But when the sarcastic voice in my head shuts up, I know that if I took some time I could really help these people by asking questions and giving them some of the benefit of my 18 (13) years of homeschooling experience.  I know that so many new people start off so unsure and it doesn't really have to be as hard as other so called experts make it sound.  Today I had a brief interaction in real life with a new homeschooler.  She was saying the general, "I figure you can't mess up kindergarten" and I offhandedly commented you can't really mess up 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th ,6th either.  I don't think she bought it, and I didn't have time to explain as I was also trying to count money, give change, open the doors to the theatre and finish two other conversations at the same time.  My point was a generally concerned relatively intelligent mother who has a kid without major issues will most likely not mess up those grades.

So to come full circle, since I only blog about once a month and I am not a fullfledged introvert, my blog will not become wildly popular any time soon.  Meaning this will not be the venue in which I share my wealth of knowledge.  So in the mean time I just might have to put down the money, leave the theatre doors closed a little longer, and make a more conscious effort to put random new homeschooling mom at ease that she really can do this.  I may even risk looking a little like a "how to" person when I comment and say something like you can do this.  I'm just regular and my kids are the proof.

2 comments:

ann marie said...

I always think wildly popular bloggers who say they are introverts and have no friends in real life are full of bs. Especially when they go on huge book tours for months on end and post pictures of hundreds of adoring fans wherein said introvert blogger is whooping it up and all smiles. Yep, totally calling bs on that whole introvert thing. I know I sound snotty but I can't stand it. I can think of two hugely popular bloggers in particular who have consistently pulled the "omg so introvert, much lonely" card and it bugs me. I've gotten very very disillusioned with big and wildly popular blogs because I don't believe any of it anymore and so I am PLEADING with you...go ahead, have your conversations in real life about homeschooling, but please blog more. I love your train of thought posts and I really only read small blogs written by people I know IRL at this point. I don't really care what people I don't know have to say. I'm aware I sound mean and bitter. You're welcome. Doing all I can to bring bitter to the whole wide interwebs. In conclusion, please write more and also, coffee soon. You know I'm better in person anyway. Almost not bitter in person. HAHAHAHAHA. I almost said that without laughing.

Julie said...

Ann Marie, I might write more just to get you to comment since that seems to be the only writing you are doing on the Internet of late!