I’m no expert, of course, but here are some things you can do that I’ve come to see are good for everyone involved:

If you’re away, call home. At least once a week. You probably cannot imagine how much of a difference that makes, but it does. I know in the past my family has felt like I’ve just run off and forgotten about them. This helps such misunderstandings.

If you’re at home or at least in the same town, set aside time for your family, and organize special things, too. Dinners, board games, movie nights. Dinners are especially good ideas. There’s nothing like the whole family sitting down for a couple of hours to chow down and converse, just like when everyone was little, except now the conversation can be more sophisticated. Maybe. Plus mom more than likely appreciates someone else cooking for a change.

Listen to your parents. Uh-oh, I just hit a sour note, didn’t I? Seems to me nobody these days wants anything to do with what their parents have to say. Even though most of us are presumably past the “my parents are embarrassing” stage, I think what has actually happened is that the emotion has morphed into “my parents are stupid interfering busybodies.” But here’s the deal: you want them to respect you and your opinions and lifestyle, right? Then respect theirs. Listen to what they have to say, whether it’s advice, a plea to be home for Christmas, whatever it happens to be. This doesn’t mean you have to be compliant, but at least consider it; don’t automatically reject everything they say as BS. Your parents care about you more than you could possibly understand, will always be there for you, and truly want the best for you, always. Besides, it’s really probably a bad idea to assume you know more about life and the world than someone more than twice your age. Nobody’s perfect, we all know that. But your parents were made your parents for a reason. And don’t forget to show them you love them (see the two above paragraphs).

Set a good example for your younger siblings. I am the oldest in our family, and unfortunately I will never be able to understand how entirely influential my existence is to my younger brothers. Sometimes they tell me, or it comes out in their actions. I’ve done what feels like a million horrible things, most of which they know about or have found out about. From watching friends my age who have older siblings, it’s harsh. On the one hand, when that older sibling does something not entirely commendable, like starts smoking or drinking excessively for instance, that younger sibling feels very distraught. But at the same time, something happens in the psyche: part of the younger sibling looks up to the older sibling forever loyally, feeling like the older sibling can do no wrong. So when the younger sibling gets older, he or she might justify the same actions by “my older brother/sister did it, so it can’t be that bad.”

This is hugely important. You don’t want your younger siblings to overdose on heroin and die just because you happened to snort cocaine a few times, do you? This may sound extreme, but I have some pretty nasty stories of similar occurrences. It’s a big deal. And really, if you don’t want your younger siblings to ever be doing the things you try to keep hidden from them, then you probably shouldn’t be doing them either. Just sayin’.

Also, if you are a younger sibling, make sure to constantly let your older siblings know how you look up to them. I can attest that it certainly helps if that older sibling is doing something not-very-admirable.

So, dear readers, always remember that your family is your most intimate set of friends. They are not your worst enemies. In the end, they are going to be there for you and love you unconditionally above any friends you may at present regard higher.

Now, go hug those family members and tell them thank you for putting up with you.

What are these people trying to say? Are they trying to use flattery of some sort? Are they out of a loss of anything else to say? Maybe, I don’t know. What it sounds to me is a bunch of people limiting their children and themselves, respectively.

I think, more often than not, it translates to “I don’t want to do that because it would ruin my chances at getting a job that pays any more than minimum wage.” And I wonder if that would be followed by a “….but I wish I could.”

Whatever it is, what I mainly want to address with this is, “Si, se puede.” Yes, you can. If you want liberation from the conventional schooling environment, and learn what you want to learn when you want to do it, but just KNOW you “could never do that” – you are dead wrong. Shut up those voices of Everyone and Everything Else in your head. Turn up that voice inside of your heart. Listen.

Keep this in mind when making your New Years resolutions, list of goals, or whatever you’re doing in preparation for the year to come: that little voice in your head speaks Spanish sometimes. “Si, se puede.”

I was incredibly blessed to have been born to parents who did not put me in an institution where this would have been the case. But imagine if I had. What if I had grown up being told I was wrongly different and that I must shape up or take a pill to shape me up? I don’t even want to think how drastic of a contrast that would be to my life.

But I would have been categorized and medicated. I was that (all so very typical) kind of kid: hyper, silly, flippant, not very attentive, etc. I know I drove a lot of people crazy because my youngest brother is the same way and sometimes I want to sit on him until he calms down. (I don’t.)

I was talking with one of my gardening clients one morning and she was telling me about her ADHD (adult) son and how he was incredibly active all the time, always doing something… rafting, building stuff, biking, swing dancing, etc.  Her other son is very not-ADHD, and is quite the workaholic, working 12-hour days, never really seeing anybody or doing anything he cares about.  Who do you think enjoys life more?

That conversation with my client sparked somewhat of a hypothesis in my mind: what if ADHD wasn’t a curse, but actually an advantageous personality trait?

Thusly prompted, I set out the next morning to do research. I didn’t have to look far. Almost immediately I found two articles by the same name: “ADHD as a Gift.” The first one was more anecdotal, someone writing about their own child: http://www.aish.com/f/p/48931672.html. The second one was more scientific, and thus hugely informative, realistic, and even encouraging: http://www.ivillage.com/gift-adhd/6-a-128377?p=3.

So what’s the matter with being ADHD? I think, if you feel like you have some “ADHD symptoms”, then take it as a sign – you’d do better, or are doing better, finding your own way in the world of higher education. The way things are typically taught are just not the best for your highly-concentrated learning style. But also, don’t let the illusion of it being a disorder keep you from pursuing an education via college. It may mean you have to bend your ways a little to meet what needs to be done, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do it.

On that note, a few days ago, I wrote a small article on how to test out whether college classes work for you for The Unschooler Experiment. Here it is: Crashing College Classes.

It’s so important to be aware of how we learn and work best. I work best switching between activities often, usually moving around a lot if possible. I also like to write and read, but I usually mix these things in with bike-riding or gardening, that kind of thing. How do you learn best?

Passionate anger was building up inside him and it was starting to surface in ways that were hurting the ones around him and were certainly not doing any good for him. He started to meditate on this and presently found himself coining a Latin phrase (for Latin is one of his favorite things) as his new life philosophy: “Vive furiale!” Which translates as: “Live furiously!”

We have all felt the same way; things make us mad. A new guy comes into work and immediately snags the position you have been trying to work up to for months. You’ve been working as hard as you can on your skills and knowledge of your favorite subject, and yet there always seems to be someone better than you. Nobody seems to be accepting your work applications or returning your calls about a purchase you want to make from them for your business.

It’s very easy just take the anger in stride, either allowing it to boil inside us, or attempting to ignore it and hoping it just goes away after a while. Often we let it bring us down to the point where we avoid it and anything else associated with it, and we’d rather just lie in bed and pretend the world doesn’t exist with all its ridiculous responsibilities.

But what if, instead, we took that frustration and turned it into good stuff?

Anger is energy. And all too often that energy gets channeled into something that taxes your mind and body. Very recently I watched a National Geographic documentary about how stress can kill you. So we here at Life Without College do not recommend you die so defeated.

It takes a little thought and effort, but frustrated energy can be channeled into working harder, better, and faster. Your mind is going super-fast: use it to come up with new ideas and solutions for the issue at hand. Your body is probably capable of running a marathon right now with the amount of horsepower you are generating: use it to learn more, make more, work harder, make more phone calls and make them assertively. Whatever needs to be done, do it now with this newfound vigor!

Consider it a challenge, because it really is: someone has dared you or said, “I bet you couldn’t _____!” Of course that gets you riled up and of course you want to prove that person wrong. Do it!

This doesn’t mean that you have to live in anger all the time. That’s no fun. No, I’m talking about a way to blow off steam that is not only healthy but extremely productive and proactive. Taking negative energy and transferring it into making positive progress. It not only helps you when something has gotten you down, it also solves the problem.

Vive furiale today, everyone!

The article is one of many I will be writing as the new associate editor of the “College” section of The Unschooler Experiment. Which I am really stoked about, by the way.

Although this article and the ones to follow will be foremost directed at homeschoolers/unschoolers considering college, at their core they all are applicable wherever you are in life:

“It’s hard to tune the ‘College is the answer to finding success in your future life’ message out and make an educated decision for yourself. How do you decide, on your own, whether college is right for you?”

I go on to list several questions and actions you can take to optimize your conscious decision-making process. Check it out – I can guarantee they’ll help you! Feel free to e-mail me with any questions or suggestions.

For as long I’ve been making these schedules, though, I have always run into one tiny frustration: there are days/times when I just don’t want to stick to the schedule.  I’ll start writing a story instead of reading about frog innards as I am supposed to do.  Or start playing the guitar instead of doing yoga.  Whatever it is, half the time I really feel like doing something else.

As I have grown older and felt more responsible, and also more aware of and sensitive to the consequences of NOT getting something done, forgoing my set schedule has felt more and more sinful.  Normal People label this practice of “doing one thing when you should be doing something else” as procrastination.  So, naturally, I’ve gotten all down on myself for being such a procrastinator.

That is, until I had some sort of epiphany a few months ago: as much as what I have scheduled to do are what I want to accomplish (as opposed to a teacher or the like), I haven’t been fully allowing myself to fully live in freedom.  The philosophy behind “unschooling” (the K-12 version of Life Without College – more info here: http://whyunschool.info/) is to let the child learn what they want to when they want to, because people learn better when they are actually interested in what they are learning and feel like pursuing that interest.  And here I have been attempting to force myself to do things, finding my enthusiasm for learning wane day by day.  The result is a Jessica who gets nothing done and feels like pig slop come bedtime.

The first step I took to remedy this spirit-crushing issue was to determine what the waverables and non-waverables were in my days/weeks/months.  Because as much of a good thing it is to let myself be free, it is an even better thing to continue being responsible.

The first non-waverables are things you are committed to do for/with other people – things like work; or if you are taking a class at the community center or a nearby college, it’s probably a good idea to do those things at the original time you allotted for them, as they simply won’t be happening at a different time.

However, who says you need to read Dante at 7:45 am, and then start work on your recording session at 9:00, break for lunch at 12, record for two more hours, go do laps at the pool at 3, make food from 4-6, eat food, and then blog about it before settling in to watch a movie at 8?

“But that was how I planned my day!!!”

But what do you want to do?

I see it as “listening to your heart”, which you can definitely accomplish without being sappy.  You know how you listen to your body to tell you what kind of food to eat?  Maybe you don’t, but it really is so good for you to get in tune with your body – I know when I need milk, dairy, citrus, eggs, meat, leafy greens, a banana, a protein drink, etc.  Even chocolate!  (And since I started listening to my body, I definitely don’t eat as much chocolate/junk food as I used to… now isn’t that something?)

So, “listen to your heart.”  Before you tell him goodbye, and every time else in between.

Perhaps this is the commentary inside your head during that day instead:

“Today,” your heart tells you, “I want to go swimming first thing.  Then I want to come back and make a big bunch of food because I’ll be HUNGRY!!  I’ll take pictures of it when I’m done, and then go ahead and record a bit.  But I don’t have the kind of attention span for doing all of it, so I’ll go read a book, maybe even go to the coffee shop and chill a bit with my peeps.  Maybe while I’m there I’ll go ahead and blog about my tremendous breakfast.  Then while I’m at the coffee shop with those peeps, I think I shall invite those peeps over to watch that movie with me.  We don’t make dinner exactly, but we do get frozen jalapeño poppers from the grocery store and those are practically just as good.  Then some of them end up staying and we have a jam session into the night, in which we don’t record what I had intended exactly, but what we did record was so awesome and inspiring for my future work that it did more good than harm.  At last we all crash in various places around the house and I don’t get quite as good of a start to the next morning, but that’s okay.”

As you can see, chances are you will still get things done if you give yourself leeway and don’t adhere 100% to your set schedule.  This doesn’t mean don’t make a schedule – I still do, or else I have no guidelines at all and end up wasting away doing not much useful.

Although, come to think of it, what is “useful”??

Just ask my family.  Every single day, practically, I am at the computer, staring at pictures and saying things like, “El gato duerme” and “Japon esta lejos de Brasil.”  (“The cat sleeps” and “Japan is far from Brazil”, respectively.)  When I am procrastinating, I do my Spanish lessons.  When I am sick, I do my Spanish lessons.  When I go somewhere, I take my audio companions (and I get grumpy when I accidentally leave them in the car that I am not driving).  I form sentences to test on the Latino guys at work, like, “Huevo sol ariba?”  (“Egg sun up?”  You know… fried egg, sunny side up…).  I scour Craigslist for ads in Spanish to read (the Personals are especially interesting).  All this thanks to working with Latino people and wanting to be able to communicate with them better.

I was not always this excited about Spanish.  In fact, it was the opposite.  I wanted to learn ANYTHING else instead: Spanish was too “common.”  Every kid in America was learning Spanish.

So I grew up trying to learn French (less common?  Apparently).  However, every program I tried only catered to one learning style and/or did not teach me anything useful.  Also, I realized a few years ago that I really had no reason to learn French at all: I had no particular overwhelming desire to travel to France, Belgium, or Canada, no French friends, no obsession with French culture, food, literature, music, or anything.  That was when I quit, too relieved to feel disappointed in myself.

At the beginning of June, though, when I started my new job in the restaurant, my disheartened attitude about language learning in general made a 180:

Spanish is the second language in this current workplace of mine.  Half the employees are Latino and they are always talking to each other in Spanish and to the rest of us in Spanglish.  Immersion has presented itself, and therefore the motivation to learn to communicate.  Sure, these guys speak some English, too, but why limit ourselves?  Especially when I see their faces light up every time I understand what they are saying or say something in their language.  It is, really, deeply flattering when someone from another country has chosen to learn your native language.

My dad bought Rosetta Stone Spanish levels one and two a couple of years ago for anybody in the family who wanted to use it.  Up until June I considered it a “might as well as a last resort” option.  But now, it’s ended up being exactly what I’ve needed.

Now I can’t stop.  I am always hungering after anything Spanish-related… poetry especially, but basically anything that has any Spanish word in it or has any associations with Spanish whatsoever (like  bags of nacho chips).  What I really want is, once I have gone through all five levels of Rosetta Stone, to take maybe 6-ish months and travel in Mexico, Central, and South America, completely immersing myself in the language and culture through a combination of WWOOFing adventures and homestays that will probably include dancing lessons.

Did you know they have majors in foreign languages?  I mean, I knew, and it kind of makes sense, but then it kind of doesn’t.  While couchsurfing a few months ago I stayed at a couple’s house where the girl was working on her master’s in French, dating an Actual French Dude From France who, as a plus, helped her with her assignments.  I mean, I guess that’s what you need if you want to teach French, which was what she was aspiring to do…

…. But really?  Wouldn’t it be super, amazingly, stupendously fun to design your own “major” around a foreign language?  I mean, just by opening myself up to learning new linguistic processes, I have acquired a thirst I would have never guessed would follow.  What if I followed through completely on these inclinations, and started studying Spanish poetry/literature, Spanish history, Spanish architecture, Spanish geology, Spanish… whatever!  There are 21 Spanish-speaking countries, including Spain in Europe, Equatorial Guinea in Africa, Mexico in North America, and the other 18 in the Caribbean, Central, and South America.

Where to start??

Well, I know for one thing that I have always wanted to study Argentine Tango in Argentina, so there’s a start.

Regardless, I am SO EXCITED.  Don’t stop me now!

In the meantime, I know y’all are looking for answers and solutions.  In the past I’ve provided several reasons to quit college and reasons why I’m not going anymore, etc.  Okay, you get the point.  So in the future I want to focus more on what you peeps can proactively do to give yourself your own “higher level” education.  I’ll be providing resources,  ideas, tools, encouragement and inspiration, and anything else I can think of.  Often ideas are generated from the needs I see you have through the e-mails you send me.  So even though I am kind of pathetic at writing back (just now!  I vow to change my ways!), keep writing me with your stories, questions, feedback, suggestions, etc.!  The purpose of this blog is to help you, not for me to have a place to rant incessantly.

Speaking of providing resources, I happen to be “in cahoots” to some degree with a fellow who offers trips and programs for self-directed teens and young adults.  His name is Blake Boles and he will very soonly start working out of Asheville, NC, in the beautiful mountains just a few hours west of my own home in Raleigh.  Zero Tuition College is his program aimed at young adults with the message that  you can get that widely preached “higher education” without having to pay tens of thousands of dollars to an institution that will eat away four years of your young life, stick you with tons of debt afterwards, and probably not teach you what you want to know in the way that you learn best.

Ah!  Finally, someone who understands!

What’s really awesome is he has a 4-day, 3-night program coming up in mid-October in Asheville.  It’s called “Zero Tuition College Camp” and will be an intimate, jam-packed weekend full of “ZTC-oriented workshops, discussions, and activities. You’ll leave with a detailed plan for skipping college, lots of inspiration, and a cohort of new friends and mentors.”  And it’s only $200 for accommodations, breakfasts and dinners, and all the activities and workshops.

Oh, here’s the link: http://www.unschooladventures.com/?page=trips/ztc11

I’m definitely going, and I’ll be making y’all’s dinners.  So… be there!  I want to meet you!

Zero Tuition College will also be running a 6-month co-op house in Asheville starting in January.  It will be for six self-directed learners around the college-age who still want an awesome, community-based college-like environment to pursue their own interests in.  I’d highly recommend it; Asheville is the cutest town this side of the Mississippi with tons of opportunity and resources for self-education.  And I can testify that it is 100% easier and more inspirational to conduct your self-directed studies when surrounded by a bunch of people who are just like you, going the same non-college way!

Here are the details about the co-op house: http://www.ztcollege.com/ztc-house.php

So, I hope this helps and encourages you: there are opportunities for you and other people just like you to pursue those opportunities with!  I’ll keep letting you know about more – where there’s a will, there is a way when you decide to quit college.  Keep up the good work, y’all – you’re on the right track.

~Jess

Barb, the designated clapper.

Last night I jumped in a minivan with seven other people I’ve known for years and we all drove to Greensboro, NC, chitter-chattering happily along the way, for the showing of our 6-minute film, Just One.

Our film was one of 43 being shown this week as part of the Greensboro 48 Hour Film Project, one branch of the now world-wide competition to write, film, edit, score, and turn in a 4-7 minute-long movie in 48 hours (http://www.48hourfilm.com/). The even greater catch is each team has to incorporate an assigned character, prop, line of dialogue, and a genre/theme pulled out of a hat. The event alternatively goes by, “I Had a Way Better Weekend than You.”

Last Friday evening at 7pm, those 43 teams gathered in a long room to eat, drink, be merry, network, socialize, and at last be given their assignments so they could burst out the doors in a stampede-of-rhinoceroses-type-fashion to go complete the task before Sunday night at the same time. Plumb Line Pictures, our group, was assigned the theme of “Birthday/Anniversary.” All of the teams were given…

Character: Don or Donna Hastert, Plumber
Prop: Crayons
Line of Dialogue: “Where did you go?”

In the end, we produced a quaint bromance about a guy who is trying to forget today was his 5-year anniversary with a girl that broke up with him 3 months prior. His friend comes over to help get his mind off things, and in the end a hot plumber shows up to fix his toilet and he considers asking her out. In my completely unbiased opinion, it was one of the few really excellent films shown last night.

The other categories included:

Comedy
Dark Comedy
Detective/Cop
Fantasy
Film de Femme
Horror
Mockumentary
Musical or Western
Period Piece
Romance
Sci Fi
Superhero
Thriller/Suspense

Additionally, there were Wild Card genres. These were for people who didn’t like the genre drawn from the main list of categories and wanted something new:

Adventure Serial
Coming of Age
Drama
Family Film
Heist
Silent Film
Time Travel Movie
War or Anti-War Film

Plumb Line Pictures, the film division of my improv group, the Unintentionals, has been participating in the 48 Hour Film Project for three years independently now; and three years with another team, Neon Kudzu, making it six years total. I’ve now acted in/written/photographed/crewed/lackeyed/propped/scored/etc. three of those six. They haven’t necessarily been the best of films, but in the end, that’s not the point. The point is we have all had a gigantic blast each year and learned a lot about teamwork, time management, storytelling, filmmaking, and countless other things.

And if, by chance, you were thinking the title had something to do with why I fell off the face of the earth AGAIN… you’re wrong. Basically.

On that note, do stay tuned for more frequent blogging!

~Jess

Bad, right?  So bad.

How did I reach such a point?  What happened?

I’m trying to think back over my two decades of life and determine an explanation.  From birth to about 12 years old, I was good.  Has anybody coined the term “Puberty is the root of all evil” yet?  If not, that is now my philosophy.  Once I became conscious that I was a human being among other human beings with whom I was in competition for everything, anything pertaining to my existence changed.  I became overly conscious of everything I did, and thought a lot about it.  I was in my head a lot more than I should have been.  I also became horribly discontent that I wasn’t doing other things that other people were doing.

Last summer, I think, was when I finally realized that I wanted to get back to my roots: back to 10-year-old Jessica who would simply exist without thinking, and lived entirely in the moment.  (Of course, I am not saying I want to extract everything “beyond 10″ out of me; it would be silly to abandon the slightly more conscientious nature and advanced processing skills I have acquired with my age.)  It’s been a process and will continue to be a process; especially if I start doing lovely things like thinking about how I am being so good at living in the moment (it is a horrible temptation that I have to squash frequently).

A related matter is how often I worry about wasting my time.  I don’t know why I worry about this, since I waste a lot of time worrying about it, and consequently doing MORE things that waste my time because I get so depressed about all of the time that I am wasting.  But that is what happens.

However, I am now officially ready to relinquish all of that worry.  Among other recent circumstances, it was proven absolutely unworthy of ever being in my brain again by a certain night in New Orleans.  Last Wednesday, two other Farm Peeps and I stayed at a Former Farm Peep’s shotgun house just outside the French Quarter.  At about 10 pm, we had eaten dinner and watched a movie when the Former Farm Peep up and announced, “Who is ready to go out?”

“What?!” I exclaimed, a shriek that was almost unheard because of the “Sure!” cheered by my other two fellow guests.

“What do you mean?” Former Farm Peep looked at me queerly.

“Why would we go out?  It’s bed time!”  It is a well-known fact that I am not a nocturnal creature; and, by farm standards, it was past bedtime by a mile.

“But there’s so many jazz clubs to check out,” Former Farm Peep’s earnest persuasion started to work on me with the mention of “jazz,” but I was not as attracted to the word “club.”  Clubs were where people partied and drank and did nothing useful with their lives.  I was a useful person.  I had plans to get up at 6:30 the next morning and go write at the coffee shop up the street.  Staying out all night like a bunch of hooligans was not conducive to such refined literary pursuits.

“I don’t know……” I murmured, looking around for something to look busy doing, and finding nothing.

“Look, Jessica,” Farm Peep #1 chimed in.  ”Just come along for a little bit; and if you want to come back home after a while, we’ll walk you back.”

Farm Peep #2 and Former Farm Peep nodded in affirmation.

I squirmed and realized that I officially had no more arguments that did not make me sound entirely unreasonable.

“Yaaaaay!” Farm Peep #2, a person very in-tune to body language, cheered and jumped up and down.

“She’s coming?” Farm Peep #1 and Former Farm Peep brightened.

“I guess,” I groaned.

There was more cheering, and then we all headed out the door and into the night.

(By the way, if you have been imagining me talking to three yellow Marshmallow Peeps this whole time, and not actual people, you are not the only one.  Still, I was talking to actual people…. and maybe I should choose different pronouns next time.)

Frenchman Street at night was probably a hugely toned-down version of Bourbon Street, and I was very okay with that.  There were crowds…. great masses of drunk, obnoxious crowds… but also, there were very cool people doing awesome things, like playing jazz, blues, and bluegrass music, and dancing (composedly) to it.  We went to four different clubs/bars (being me, I really don’t know the difference, so I beseech you to excuse my ignorance), and saw four very different bands.  All of them were fascinating and delightful.

I got to see a side of society I had never been exposed to first-hand, and I really loved it.  Not in the “I want to live that way all the time” kind of way, but I really truly appreciated the experience.  And it was all because:

a) Once it started happening, I dropped all “wasting time” qualms

and

b) I got out of the past, out of the future, and out of my head and simply lived the moment.

I can honestly say it was one of the best nights of my life.  We also met this random guy named David and played tag with him in the inner-city park (that was closed and we had to hop the fence to get into, and I really had to try hard not to worry about being arrested the whole time).  But that is probably another story.

In the words of Nike: “Just do it!”

~Jess