When I was around a year old, my mother decided that she was getting tired of handing over her own kid to someone else while she went off to teach other peoples’ children. She talked it over with my dad and decided to quit teaching in favor of being a stay-at-home mom. They downsized to allow for the reduced income, and wouldn’t you know it, right after she left her job they found out that they were expecting my younger brother.

To my mother, this sort of solidified that being a stay-at-home mom was what she wanted to do. And by the time I was ready to start kindergarten she had decided that, darn it, she really enjoyed being around her kids and just wasn’t ready to send me off into the world yet, so after another discussion my parents decided to try their hand at this thing called homeschooling…

My parents continued to homeschool me all the way through high school. When my mom found herself stumped by higher-level algebra, she simply ordered a curriculum that included a DVD with a math professor to teach each lesson. During my junior year, my parents granted my request to attend a small local co-op type school. It was a 3 days per week K-12 academy where I was the only junior, along with 2 sophomores and 5 freshmen. This gave me the opportunity to hone my writing skills, take chemistry from a pharmacist, and learn Spanish from a woman who had lived in Argentina for several years. I feel that this experience really helped to prepare me for college and for that reason I suggested that my parents encourage my brother to go during his junior year as well.