In the February 1999 “Muse Mail,” then-13-year-old Dana Mannino suggested that Bo should eat Kokopelli to give scientists an inside look at a cow’s digestive system. She’s been writing to the magazine ever since. Here’s her latest note, e-mailed to MuseBlog as she starts her sophomore year at Gonzaga University:
I’m loving/hating college. Right now mostly hating because it starts on Tuesday and I had a really great summer in which I did nothing but read books that I like, at my pace and without having to underline for quotes in a paper. OK, so I also played with my sisters, spent six weeks studying Spanish in Mexico, and went on my first backpacking trip with my Dad, but I still rate my summer in time spent reading for pleasure.
I figure that the love it part of college will kick back in within the next two weeks. I intend to double major in Spanish and Philosophy, but you’ll be happy to know that I’m pursuing journalistic interests on the side. I’m taking journalism classes and I’m a part of the editorial team for a student magazine. I edit the Faith section, because that’s what I know, but I have ambitions to someday contribute to the highly competitive and campus renown mirth section. I want to do a piece about living at home with my family while I go to college. My peers are tired in class because they pull all nighters. I’m tired because my four year old sister still wets the bed sometimes and I have to get up and change the sheets. I also have to be careful to check the back of my pages before I turn in papers, sometimes they’ve been used for coloring. It gets pretty laughable around here.
I checked out your blog. LOTR freaks, musicians, Muppet fans, other people who spend all summer reading, an administrator who can’t operate a cell phone — gee, sounds like I’d fit right in. We’ll see how often life allows me to check in on it. As for life after Muse, the main change has been that Muse has morphed from a much anticipated semi monthly delight, to a epic internal struggle between scholastic obligations and desire, usually terminating in a tragic metaphor for the relinquishing of childhood pleasure in order to make room for adult stress as I reluctantly hand the magazine to my sister and tearfully ask her to recap the articles for me when shes done. I still get a little reading in on break and before bed sometimes, when I don’t have to tell bedtime stories. Hmm, that sounded pretty good. OK, Â ( Dana turns on the fan and types into it so as to attain eerie effect.) Build the topic and she will come.
A fan forever,
Dana
Hi! Welcome!
Nice to meet you. I shall point out that even if some of us can’t operate cell phones without everything going dreadfully awry, we can make evil plans to destroy the world. (See Plan Mostly Harmless.)
Dana,
You were home-schooled, weren’t you? I suspect many other Muse readers are, too. It would be interesting to hear what you think about that experience, especially now that you must be running into more people with different backgrounds.
It’s nice to meet you, Dana. College sounds kinda fun. I think you’d do fine in the mirth section. And the Faith section. I know someone named Faith!
“If anyone feels like being carried out, rolling in the aisles, helpless with mirth, this would be a jolly good night to do it. We’re recording.”
-Flanders of Flanders and Swann. See HGtG
OH look! I get to relate the successes in my life story. What a pick-me-up after a long hard first day-that-felt-like-two-weeks of school. Hmm, this could get lengthy. I’ll try to be brief.
Robert’s right; I was home schooled, as I see some of you are (by the way, I was also a Star Wars fan, so the two aren’t mutually exclusive). There are a lot of different styles of home schooling, so no two home scholars’ experiences are the same. My mom had this crazy idea that the best learning happens without text books or pretty much anything that people today would think of when they hear the words school. Thus my education consisted mainly of reading, lots of reading. From age 1 to about age 19 (hee hee) I pretty much lived in the library (when I wasn’t in my room reading). Muse and Magic school bus videos were my science classes. I’m sorry Duncan_Quagmire, I never much cared for Bill Nye the Science guy, although I’d like to get the full story on your encounter with him.
When I was younger I had a hard time with my mom’s methods. Not because I didn’t love it, but because I had doubts. I couldn’t understand how I was learning everything that kids spent all day in school learning, just by reading. My confidence wasn’t boasted by the “jealous” (that’s the adjective my mom used) neighbor kids who came over and shouted long division problems at me to see if I measured up. I thought I was kind of slow. That was kind of good because it gave me the motivation to work really hard. I started teaching myself algebra via three hour session in my room with a self teach text book, a pencil and a really big eraser. Still, that all important self esteem level definitely wasn’t inflated when it came to academics. I knew I used bigger words than any other kid I knew, but what did that count when I couldn’t multiply 5769 by 354 in the 30 seconds my neighbor kids allotted me before bursting into laughter.
At the end of my junior year in High School my dad, who had always been sure that I was brilliant, set up a meeting with a high school counselor to see if I could take classes at the local state college. Washington state has a cool program that lets high school juniors and seniors take college classes for free that then count both as their high school equivalents and as well as for real college credit. Home scholars do it all the time, but I didn’t think I was smart enough. I was wrong. I aced all the placement tests, made a great friend in the high school counselor, and found myself in a college level English class three weeks later.
OK. Now for the stuff Robert probably really wanted: The details of the transition: If you are home schooled or you know a home scholar you won’t be surprised to find out that I didn’t foam at the mouth the first time I had to talk to a class mate. I’ve met some people who seem to think that I should have. I didn’t have trouble socializing with my class mates. My teachers didn’t “notice” that I was home schooled until I mentioned it late in the quarter. We got along fine; I ended up babysitting for one of them. I found deadlines a little difficult and stressful, but I’ve learned that most of my traditionally educated companions share my sentiments. A lot of people home school because they want to give their children a better moral grounding than they believe is available in the public or even private schools. My mom was also one of those. People often ask me how I adjusted to being around people who had different moral standards, after having lived “a sheltered life.” It didn’t really bother me. As with any transition into a new environment, it helps to have people around you who share the same core values. I had family and friends to fall back on if I felt alone, but really it wasn’t a shock or painful or scary. I knew that there were people out there who believed different things than I do and lived differently. Being a little bit of an outsider on some of their jokes didn’t bother me because I had gotten used to being a little different than most people just by being home schooled. In all honesty, the biggest adjustment for me was a weird psychological block I had about going somewhere EVERY SINGLE DAY! It was hard for me to think about how predictable my life had become. Still, I took it one day at a time, and it stopped bothering me after the first three weeks or so. I got really good grades and I’ve been going to college ever since.
I’ve told this story for the past three years at information nights for home schooled families who want to know how to get their kids into college. I like to tell it because I want to encourage home schooled kids to take their education to the next level. If any of you feel like I did, that college would be nice but is just not a feasible possibility for you, Stop it! College is possible for home scholars. A lot of teachers tell me that home schooled children are very well prepared for college because they know how to motivate themselves, manage their time, find information on their own, and talk to and establish relationships with people of all ages, not just with their peers. I’m not saying that kids who go to school can’t or don’t do all these things as well. Never having been a normal school kid I’m not in a position to compare or know. But home schooled kids, you have skills that you need. If it’s a mater of looking normal on paper don’t worry about it. Take an SAT and shop for a college that is accustomed to admitting home scholars. They exist, and they’ll even accept your mom’s home made reading list, a couple of your essays, and your father’s assertion that you’re well behaved in place of a high school transcript and a letter from your principal. Not all colleges do this, but mine did, and more are starting to because they recognize that home scholars are desirable students too. The most valuable asset you could have for surviving that insatiable curiosity that I know all Muse readers have, regardless of where they learned to read or add.
So that’s the brief version : ). Those of you who stuck it out and read the whole thing, thanks for your time. Those of you who skimmed, the important part it is the last paragraph, especially the end. I have to go put my insatiable curiosity to work on a mountain of home work. Best of luck to all of you as your forge ahead into your school years!
I LOVE MAGIC SCHOOL BUS!!!!
Yeah… one time, Bill Nye was doing a book signing at the mall.. I was like 9 or something… and my parents took me… and I bought a book and got it signed… eventually I lost it… the end.
On that first one, I noticed the Muppet reference. Go Beaker!
Ah, I was never any good at long division either… But come to think of it, I’m not homeschooled. My teachers are official teachers, they shoudl FORCE me to be good at it! I think what it is actually, is that it’s my lack of participation. Teehee.
I didn’t understand long divison at first either! or polynomials. Maybe we Musers don’t learn long division as easily?? I like math in general a lot and I’m on math team. What do you think about math?
Polynomials are the rue of my existance. Bill Nye has been forced into my brain for almost my whole school life.Not the squids again!
Hi Muse fans!
Since I’m the all wise grown up guru I thought I’d share my college experience of the day. I fell down and went boom. Well, technically, I fell down and said something idiotic like “ow!†or “That hurt.†I’ve told this story three times so far and at this point all three of my listeners asked “How did you fall?†so in anticipation of your reaction I will tell you. I don’t really know. I was running to catch up with my Irish Dancer friend who didn’t know that I was following her because the only thing less cool than running on a college campus is shouting someone’s name across a college campus. No wait, on second thought people yell names all the time. Oh well, so I had my social norms messed up. What else is new? Any how, I was running and then I stopped (probably because I got my social norms straightened out, or because I have no physical stamina and I just couldn’t run any longer, take your pick). I tried to take a normal step, and my ankles gave way. It was as if they said “we’re sorry, your feet have become too small to support your body weight and we can no longer balance on them. See your nearest retailer for a larger size.†And then I fell. My compassionate college compatriots did the kind thing and refrained from stopping and starring. In fact no one even paused to ask if I was all right. My sister thought this was rude, but there is more than one kind of charity. Anyway, I relate the experience because I had thought that there came a point in one’s life when one no longer skinned one’s knee. Either I was wrong, or I just haven’t reached that point because I skinned both of mine today. I felt it was my duty to inform you lest you make the same folly and think yourself exempt from pavement burn as soon as you graduate from high school. I guess skinned knees happen to the best of us.
Hullooooooooooo!!
I had a teacher at Mars camp who was better than Bill Nye.Seriously.
I am not homeschooled. Long division is okay, i have no idea wat polynomials are.
That must have hurt..
I fell down yesterday. Hard.
Of course, I was wearing ice skates, but still..
I’m not homeschooled, and I have no problem with long division or polynomials, but I can’t do any math in my head at all. I mean, sometimes I’m doing homework, and I have to use a calculator for 16+7.. sometimes I have to use a calculator/write it out for really easy stuff, like 6+5..
Nice to meet you, Dana! It’s great to hear from a homeschooler who appreciates her homeschooling. I’m not strictly homeschooled now, but I was through elementary school. Currently I go to a small private school designed for homeschoolers. I take all of the classes offered, but a lot of homeschoolers there only take a few courses and continue learning the rest at home. It’s great because you’re allowed to choose which classes you want to take and what days you want to go, so you can socialize and learn with other people but you aren’t forced to obey any strict rules for what you have to learn or how long you have to be there.
Oh, and as for math, I’ve never been good at it. I’m more of a literary person. Too many numbers, especially in algebra, make me tired and confused, lol.
Hey Dana!
I don’t suppose you come here anymore, but in case you ever want to feel younger again, you can check out a picture on the February 2006 Random thread and see two of the GAPAS on rocking animals. That would clearly certify you as young enough to still read Muse and, perhaps, come on MB again.