Crashed---Hard!

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Sorry I have been AWOL lately.  My computer has been having a love affair with the screen above.  Finally, on Thursday, it just bit the dust.  No amount of coaxing would bring it back.  The good news is.....(my husband and I have this little joke where in any given situation, we express the good with the bad :-)  So the good news is that I had a back-up drive on my computer.  The bad news is that I hadn't backed it up since June.  Yep!  We lost a lot of stuff!  Hopefully, I can recreate most of it.  The good news is that my computer is now up and running.  The bad news is that it cost me a few hundred dollars.  But I really should not complain!  Our computer guy came Friday morning and had us back, up and running on Monday morning, with a few improvements!  Yipee!!!

So to recap what has happened to us during our absence, last week we had a friend pass away.  He was only 49!  (That is only a few years older than me....)  He left a wife and four (?) children.  His funeral is tomorrow.  I have been thinking about them a lot and wondering how I would handle such a trial.  I have no profound thoughts, except that I read this article in this month's Ensign and felt peace.

Today, I have had some other experiences that I have been pondering.  The first was a conversation I had with one of the mothers at our elementary school.  I was there for an award assembly where Smiley received the Scholar Award.  She asked me if I had a son who graduated in 2010.  (I had to really think...did I?  I have so many, that I wasn't really sure which one it would be and which graduation she was speaking of.....?)  Then she said, Slim.  Oh ya!  He did graduate in 2010.  She asked me what he was doing and what his plans were.  I shared that he was attending Southern Virginia University and would graduate in April and was taking the LSAT this week to start his law school applications.  (I didn't bother to mention his service as a missionary in Brazil.)  "Oh Wow!  Great!" was her response.  Being polite, I asked her what her son was doing.  "He wants to be an architect so he is working for this company in the Bay Area.  He hasn't gone to college yet.  So we will see."

Drew graduated in 1993

At this point, I was feeling a little sheepish.  I was not intending to brag about Slim....that is just what is happening in his life and what his plans are.  I was worried that maybe I had gone overboard in talking about Slim.  But all of a sudden, I was hit with the realization that there are plenty of other young men, about Slim's age, who are doing all sorts of things with their lives that don't include getting a formal education or even thinking that direction at all.  I just never really thought about it.

I think there are plenty of things (noble and righteous things) to do with your life that do not include a college education.  I grew up in a home where my father was not a college graduate.  Because of that, it was SUPER important to me, to have one.  (That and my father was always asking me what I wanted to be when I grew up.)  I worked hard to get my degree.  By the time we got married and started our family, I had only finished one and a half years of college.  By the time I received my degree, we had four children.  I finished my degree by taking six credit hours a semester---for five years.  But I finally did it!!

The second interaction I had today was a phone call.  The principal from our high school called to talk about Speedy.  In his English class, he has been opting out of many of the assignments because of morally objectionable material.  The teacher has said that she will support him in not reading or viewing material he finds objectionable.  But after he has refused to watch the third video and has not read two books, in the space of seven weeks, she was concerned.  I was not expecting my conversation with the principal to go very well.

But the good news, is that it did.  I explained that we are extremely selective about the materials we let our children view and read.  We can talk all about the base things that happen in our society without needing to read the graphic details or view it in all its debauchery.  Her main question was, "How are you going to handle this in college classes?"  I immediately went to the fact that the colleges we attend don't have that problem either.  But she was talking about the junior college here where we live.  It took me a minute to realize that is what she was talking about.

Slim 2009

The funny part was that I had just jumped from high school classes to university classes and she was talking about junior college classes.  (I hadn't even considered junior college classes as college classes.....  Ya' I think maybe I am kind of a snob!)  When I realized what she was talking about, that was easy enough.  I have had almost four children graduate from our junior college and viewing and/or reading objectionable material in their English classes has not been a problem.  We only have issues in the high school.

Spanky 2010

I am expecting a phone call from the teacher.  So we will see how that goes.  But I think it is important that we help others to understand that we can still teach about, talk about, and find solutions to any of the major moral problems of our society without exposing our children to them, especially in an educational setting.  I mean really, if I wanted them  to experience the vices in our society I would put them on the streets, not send them to school.  What happened to studying Shakespeare??  There are plenty of moral issues in the classics to discuss and consider, without personally experiencing them.

Scuff 2012

I had more to say on the issue, but my baby's blood sugar is low and he is sitting on my lap as I type, demanding that I feed him.  So I guess I had better go and help him out :-)  Remember to stand for truth and righteousness, even when everyone else around you is not.

Way to go Speedy!!