Time Constraints

I must admit that now that we have come into Irving's 4th year of life I was hoping that I would have more time to post on this blog a bit more regularly, and some of the time I can manage it, and other times this year, I feel like we are off doing something, supporting Willow on her uni experience or having family time.  We are finally on our winter break, and it is lovely to be able to take it a easy for a bit, and also enjoy the very mild winter that we have been experiencing.

Arden and I did some history walks around the city, earlier this past term, including an art deco tour of Perth and a Boom and Bust trail. 

Fabulous art deco building on Wellington st, was once a school.  We had a chat about going to school in such a beautiful old building, and talked about trying to imagine all the girls leaving school  (it was a girls' school).

We liked this gate.

We imagine that it once went up the hill, and to St. Mary's cathedral, but now it is barricaded and looks into the carpark!

We enjoyed a few coffee stops on our outing...part of the fun IMO.  Matcha lattes have been going down well around here!  :)

This was a nice surprise.

We discovered this hidden garden on our walk, on the way to trying to find the back view of Bishop Hale's house.  Even after living her 6years now, the city still has some unexpected surprises.  It did feel a bit like an elite hideaway, given that it is tucked down the back of bank offices, and was totally deserted since it was the weekend when we went through.

And at the very back of the garden, we could see Bishop Hale's house, which is now a restaurant.  Made us wonder about what other beautiful homes might be once been along the terrace and in the area.

We had been intending to get to Tranby house during this last block, but that still hasn't happened, and so will sit on my to do list for a while I imagine.  The last block that Arden did was focusing on animals, and some of their processes.  Arden did a bit of study on cuttlefish (I had not idea they were so fascinating- can change colour and shape!), Giraffes and Siberian tigers.  Plus we had some discussions about humans and sex and babies, and he did a self portrait. For Sex and babies we are big fans of the BBC's Human Body Series, and Willow and Gabriel grumble now when I show it!  I used it twice as preparation for the kids for home births (the younger two were born at home), as I like that it gives a bit of insight into birthing at home and avoids the horror stories that some women experience (which IMO is not a healthful introduction to birth and babies for small people).

Arden's self portrait.

Arden managed to finish his embroidery project and I need to help him to create it into a pillow now, and we took a break from formal maths, as he is a bit ahead, and we spent some time looking at the Wooden books mathematical series.  He also has been spending some time getting familar with his new wooden piccolo.

Gabriel has been working on doing some sketches of Games Workshop miniatures for his  art this term.  He will be progressing on to modelling and designing his own.  His sketches are coming along beautifully.

Gabriel has been improving his time management and we are now discussing his progress twice a week.  Beginning of week to see what he's up to,and at the end of the week to review his progress.  He is currently working on writing in the style of an epic, and is also planning an essay on the Trojan War.

Arden and Irving and I went down to WAAPA to see Eneksis in their free lunch time concert, we saw some of it, however Irving was finding it a bit difficult to settle this time.  A lovely lady, kept an eye on Arden so he could watch all of it, and then we spent a little time in the nearby park again, and we took a look at the fish pond.

Irving has been taking a little interest in writing and numbers, and is starting to get a bit easier to play games with.  Turns out he is quite adept with mazes too!
Some copywork by Irving.

Damien and I went down to see Willow perform in WAAPA's Life as a Cabaret performance recently.  She only had a small part as a volunteer and diploma student, but it was fabulous to get to see her in a show again, and doubly fun as it was probably the first child free wedding anniversary Damien and I have had since before Willow was born....though as she pointed out not quite child free!  She has also been doing a lot of drawing, and writing now that she is on  holidays, and has recovered from her weekend volunteering at Supernova.

Willow's drawing

 
Willow has finally made it in Australia!

I was a little tempted to buy Willow this baby bib.  At the time of her birth I did not like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Damien found the name in an old story....sadly he doesn't know where!  Anyhow at the time of her birth there were very few Willows ( we liked that it means liberated in old English), and now she keeps being asked if she was named after Willow on Buffy, and unfortunately for her it was just not the case! 


I have finally finished sewing myself a bag, and now have 2 nice bags!  For years and years, I've had fairly sad bags for carrying all sorts of children's treasure, and as with my decision to be clean with my fourth child (no more smudgy marked pants for me!), nice bags seemed to be in order...even if they do still end up with interesting collections!

Bag no. One.

Bag number two

I also made another bra recently, and am thinking of trying a silk one next.

This past week has seen us busy giving the house a clean over, celebrating Irving's 4th birthday and heading off to see Shaun Tan's "The Arrival" performed by Spare Parts Puppet theatre.

Candles and Cake for Irving's birthday

Wandering through UWA on the way to see the Arrival.

Enjoying the mild winter at Elizabeth Quay with the family.

Adventures Of A Homeschool Graduate

Hello everyone! How are you all?

It's been a while since I've posted, but it appears that mum has been giving a few small mentions to what I've been doing at waapa. But why don't I give you my own update on it all?

Currently I'm in the process of exams. I've survived the first half of the semester! I've heard a lot of horror stories about studying at university and none of them have really materialised.
 I've been having a lot of fun though. I've already performed in two shows, I have a third coming up in under a week, and I've made quite a range of interesting friends. Of course, I've been doing much more than performing and socializing.

 The main thing I've noticed so far is that university isn't too different from homeschooling.

• Learning is self driven
     It's not quite the same as homeschooling, but quite a lot of the learning is self driven. Sure, I have to sit in a history class for an hour and listen to the lecturer talk about whatever era we're in now, but because it's only an hour there's a limit to what we can be told. Which leaves the opportunity to answer my own questions by googling and looking in the library.



• The lecturers will tell you about their passions
     In my experiences from being homeschooled, if I wanted to learn about a specific topic I would find someone who knows a lot about that topic and loves it. I've done that with voice acting - I emailed people who did it, asking for their experiences and for tips... I even ended up going to a studio to watch some voice acting in action.
     It's the same with the lecturers. The history lecturer was delighted when I told him I wanted to know more about music history, and gave me a list of his favourite history books. The music theory lecturer is also a flute tutor, and gave me a few practising techniques. If I'm looking for information on a certain topic, chances are someone there can inform me on it.

    Of course, there's the main big difference with the "socializing" (fun fact - "social" originally meant "devoted to/related to home life") side of things. Instead of going out and just making friends along the way, there's the school mentality where everyone has to have a friend.
   So there's a lot of acting from everyone. It's quite annoying. It's hard to see who people actually are underneath the persona they've come up with. Some people don't act, and most of them tend to be the people who were homeschooled for a year or two.


  It's being an interesting journey. My exams will be over this week, and then I'll be starting semester two in July. And maybe I'll be doing bachelor next year.

If people would like to hear more about being a homeschool graduate in university, let me know. I can give up dates on what I'm doing, my thoughts on certain subjects.

~Willow