Sorry I haven't been posting lately. Summer just carries you away!
So, for those of you that don't know, WPA stands for Wisconsin Parents Association. It's a homeschool organization that fights for our rights as homeschoolers and provides resources and information as well. Annually they do conference in Oshkosh, with workshops, a resource fair, a used book sale, and that kind of stuff. We arrived a day early and had practically the whole north tower of the Gruenhagen conference center (a converted dorm) to ourselves. Add some new nerf guns, an unused lounge near the elevator, and the mysterious Room 710 whose door was left ajar and a pillow and blanket missing, and we had a great time. My sister and I ran up and down the hall, shooting at each other over the cushions of the lounge. It was delightful.
The next day, after milling around at the dorms until noon, we got a takeout box at a Japanese restaurant and drove over to a park on Lake Winnebago, with one of those cool old wooden playgrounds, the kind with square tunnels you go through to get to the top, where you you go up and down and run around the whole thing up there. It's hard to explain. This one had the theme of a wooden castle. We ate our lunch, which was Teriyaki shrimp, beef, and chicken, plus some dumplings, veggies, and sushi, delicious, by the way, and ran over to play. We met some other homeschoolers there, from Milwaukee, and we had a great time.
When we got back people were already starting to arrive. We stayed in the room for another hour and then went down to get our name tags. Once we got them we popped by the "Meet 'n' Greet", a place where homeschoolers are supposed to hook up with other homeschoolers. We didn't stay that long. There were some people milling around, and then a corner designed specifically for teenagers. And boy, was I surprised. I expected everyone to be rather shy, timidly snatching glances at the crowd around them. But everyone seemed to know each other. They all seemed like, well, teenagers. Laughing, talking, putting up streamers. If I had not known better, I would have passed them by thinking they were from the local public school.
Later we got dinner at the campus food court and headed on up to the "Graduation", where six students "graduated" from homeschool. There were also some speakers. But before all this, they asked us to look at our name tags and find what region we were from. Apparently the state is divided into 15 regions. We were from region "1". We were the only ones that stood up when it was called. For some regions, no people stood up. For some, 5 or 10. For others, 30. It varied greatly. When one particular district was called (I think it was 10, 11, or 12) a bunch of the teenagers from the Meet 'n' Greet stood up. That pretty much explained it. They did all know each other.
Those teenagers all seemed mainstream. Throughout the whole conference, I could tell. They acted very much like what I expect kids that go to school act. They made frequent references to pop culture, dressed in the latest style... you get the idea. I realized then how different I am from most kids. I thought all homeschooled kids were like me. But I was wrong. I guess the kind of people I hang out with are different, too.
Onto the rest of the graduation. The Keynote speaker was pretty good, giving us some statistics about homeschooling in Wisconsin and what we stand for when we say we homeschool. Then the diplomas were awarded. Half of the graduates gave speeches, and the other half let their parents give speeches. After that there was some folk dancing, but Ellyn was tired and we all agreed to go back to the dorms.
The next day we got breakfast (I had eggs, ham, hash browns, and half a doughnut,) and we headed off to the workshops. First Ellyn and I went to a workshop on Harry Houdini. Although perhaps directed at younger children than us, It was still interesting. Then we went to an improv workshop, where we acted out small fairy tales. That was fun. The ones I was in were Robin Hood and Pinocchio. Then was lunch. I got pizza, salad, and fries, and mom let me actually get Pepsi (I had to share with Roy though). Oh yeah, and ice cream.
After lunch, I went to a Soccer workshop. It was exhausting. The instructor invented 3 pirate related terms. "Scrub the Deck" meant putting your foot on the ball and rolling it backwards to turn and go in the opposite direction. "Walk the Plank" meant coming around the outside of the ball and kicking it in the opposite direction to turn. Then he had us "Raise the Flag", throwing the ball up in the air and making it land on our foot without bouncing off your shoe. I was pretty bad at "Raising the Flag." All this conditioning was really hard. Then we had an actual game. That was fun. I was in the ages 12 and down group. Our team won 1-0.
Then, like every year, we went to the Birds of Prey workshop. The interesting part was getting to see a Barred owl, a Great Horned owl, and a Turkey vulture. After that, we packed up and headed home. A pretty uninteresting 5 hour drive. Except that we stopped at Taco Bell for the first time in my life. At about 11 PM we got home. What a trip. We won't go next year, but the year after that. We go every other year. I'll be 14, almost 15. Maybe then I'll fit in with that teen crowd at Meet 'n' Greet. Or maybe I'll just stay out of it, who knows. Whatever it will be, I hope it will be as fun as this year.
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