I Survived Hell Week

1.	Hell Week
	Usually found around midterms & finals. It’s a widely understood fact that prior to Hell Week, professors meet & discuss ways to purposefully create schedules with 3 midterms on the same day you’ve 2 papers & a group project due, all in addition to your normal homework load & extra-curricular activities. 2. Hell Week The inagural week of all Greek organizations (fraternities) in which the new members (pledges) are rigorously abused and tortured as an endurance test. If the pledges make it through Hell Week, then they can become full-fledged fraternity members.  3. Hell Week The week of a theatrical performance during which the cast and crew practically live at school and communicate to thier families soley through notes. 4. hell week The week before final examinations in college, thus named because it is the week that -everything- is due. (ie papers, presentations, things of that nature) and yet you must still find time to do other assignments and study for your exams. 5. Hell Week Commonly used to describe a situation in which a person spends a long period of time forgoing sleep and sometimes other necessities to prepare for something. Hell Week gets its origins from the Fifth week of the First Phase of BUD/S (for those of you who don't know what it is, it is the training course that Navy SEALs go through) where for five days, they are subjected to living hell where with no sleep, they are required to perform strenuous physical activity in combat conditions at Olympic standards. Ok. So it was none of these. But I'm not so sure this shouldn't be added to the Urban Dictionary along with the other definitions. Because. Oh. My. Words. I've explained that we felt Mouse was really falling behind in school. I worked with the teacher last year to try and pin point what the problems where but even she was stumped. The kids will bomb testing but if you sit by her and ask her to do something she just does it.  Although trying to teach new concepts to her was a challenge also. And when you are ready to beat your head bloody against the wall....she picks up the pencil and just does it. Wha?!?!? Anyways, we survived our first week of school at home.  There were tears (mine!!). There was crying (because she thought home school meant no more school?!?!). There were blank stares. There were lessons that took 3 hours instead of the 1 expected. There were lots of breaks. Sadly there were a few instances of yelling and having to get a grip. There were a million emails and three phone calls/conferences with the teacher (in 5 days). There were decisions to try and make based on a snapshot of time (drop back to 2nd grade work or press on). There were classes taught by dad to verify whether it was material or the teacher that was the problem. (It wasn't the teacher.) There was the realization that it was much worse than we originally thought. And after many conferences there was the realization that this IS the right thing for right now. I'd be lying if I said it was fun right now. It has the potential to be fun when she realizes that whether its school at home or in a building with other kids, ITS STILL SCHOOL. It requires learning. It requires work. And I think we will get there slowly. I'm working harder than I had to work with the other two put together. But I do like this curriculum and having the lessons planned for you...and only needing to read and prep yourself is a true Godsend. We also are in a learning curve with getting used to switching back and forth from computer to books to virtual classrooms. Its starting to get easier just after the first week. Of course we are throwing a wrench in the works this week. We did not take Labor Day off. Instead we switched the off day to Friday as we decided to get in a last summer camping trip Tuesday through Thursday. We wanted to miss the Labor Day crowds. So we spent today hammering out all the online class materials and the stuff we were behind on. The rest of the weeks work we take with us is rather easy and portable. And Friday is the day off that we can use to catch up if we fall behind. Although we do have our school picnic that day that will take up a couple of hours with kids in the same program. I'm not sure I'll have much to blog about the next couple of months. Unless, of course, the economy miraculously improves and Hubs finds a job.  Right. Like that's going to happen. See? You don't want to hear that kind of crap anyways.  Keep us in your prayers! We need every one we can get!