Oh yeah, ooh, make me feel lonely harder

swedishbadgergirl, I'm sorry to hear about your rheumatoid arthritis, that's a bummer of a card you were dealt. I cannot speak to the "home schooling" aspect, but I have a bit of experience with self-motivation. I work from home and for the most part, until recently, I have had a tremendous amount of autonomy. If I wanted to, I could sit around in my PJ's all day and nobody would be the wiser. However, I'm in sales so if I don't actually produce, I make substantially less money.

What I've always done is quite simple. I write a daily list of things I wan to accomplish:

  -Expense report
  -Call on 10 prospects
  -Sign two new accounts worth "x" dollars
  -prepare presentation for "x"
  -read recent industry report for "x"
  -activate 1 new account
  -fill out "x" form

What I do, is I tell myself that once I've crossed everything off of that list, I can do what I want with my time. Maybe I get all of that done by 4pm and I have two hours to play music, read, hubski etc.

My suggestion would be to approach your home schooling in the same way. Make your own list of what you would like to study that day. Do it and then reward yourself with something outside of scholarly pursuits that you enjoy.

Good luck! I hope you are able to relieve the pain.

I was unschooled until this September, when I switched to an online high school. My motivation for that change was A) I was being a lazy dipshit, and B) because on a whim I looked up college requirements and realized that everything is 3 times as complicated without a high school diploma.

Good stuff: you can plan out your day however you want and do whatever you want, basically. Whatever you want to learn at whatever time.

Bad stuff: see above. It's much easier to be lazy when you're homeschooling.

The motivation question is one that I can't answer. My schedule is different now, and unrelated to your question.

Also, sorry to hear about that. I don't know how that feels, but I know how bad knees can get.

I was effectively "unschooled" from grade 3 until university. Apart from some effort being made to have me go through math workbooks, and a couple of distance-ed high-school courses, I was pretty well in charge of my own time. Bad things: Less friends, less socialization (not for lack of trying from my parents - there were enough other homeschooled kids around that we did group activities with, but I didn't like most of them very much). I didn't date, and that was very frustrating for me. Good things: You learn how to look stuff up for yourself instead of relying on someone to tell you.

This is around 8 years behind me now, so it's hard to judge whether it was a good thing or a bad thing. I think I've done okay since...

First, figure out a vague plan for what you want to do with your life. I don't mean you need to know right away, but you should have some idea of a direction (do you need a degree? apprenticeship? free-agent?). If you want, say, a degree, figure out which universities you want to go to. Find out what their policies are for special circumstances, and work towards fulfilling their requirements. I had to write the SATs to get into university, since I didn't have a highschool diploma. It's a normal thing to do in the US, but it's fairly unusual here in Canada.

The good news is that, outside of your career goals, you're free to study anything you like. Do you want to read about electronics & dream about building a Tesla coil[1]? Now you can! Physics beyond Newton & dynamics? You can do that too. Don't care much for history? Screw it[2]. If it doesn't relate to your goals, you can forget about it. The important thing is to keep those goals in mind, and to stay positive about your abilities. For years I told myself I was bad at math, so I didn't go to school for physics like I'd always dreamed of. Eventually I discovered that I was actually quite capable of understanding it, and the math I was bad at was better suited for a calculator anyways[3].

So I guess to summarize: Have some idea of your life goals and what you need to do to achieve them. Focus on those goals & the steps you need to take for them. Believe in yourself.

[1] I never did build one. At this point I'm wise enough to think that with my skill set, it's probably a bad idea. Plus, I have way too many computers & electronics around that I'd probably fry.

[2] Not that it's necessarily a good idea to do this, knowledge is always worthwhile, but it's not like you'll need it to get a job/be successful in life.

[3] I can only find basic derivatives/can't remember most strategies for finding an integral, but I know what these things are and why I'd want to do them, and since I don't need to do it on a regular basis, knowing about them is almost as valuable.

Yes, except mine does exist elsewhere.

Deep, deep within the dusty pages of a Scivener tomb, one can find a file.

In that file, a story transcending the internet, fantasy, and the love hub, is being written. Prepare yourselves.

HUBSKI. Coming...whenever I finish it. Maybe I'll just do regular updates. But it's actually happening! The cat's out of the bag.

I wish I could form an opinion on the #notallmen #yesallwomen thing.

On the one hand, #notallmen is a clumsy approach at solidarity. On the other hand, #yesallwomen is a clumsy counterapproach at solidarity. it feels like one side is trying to say "sorry this happened, we aren't all terrible assholes" but the other side counters with "we know you're not all terrible assholes, but every single one of us has suffered from a terrible asshole at some point."

I think it's valuable for women to remind men that sexism and gender violence is alive and well in 2014. I wish there were a way to do it without assigning blame. I also understand that the people who most need to hear it are the ones who think they're blameless... but I'm not sure how you get through that and I'm not sure the #yesallwomen approach is the best... but I can think of no way to improve it.

Using the word "nigger" or "faggot" in a comment results in an instant ban in /r/movies. Using the word retard results in an immediate comment removal. The counterargument is that both words have been reclaimed by their respective cultures... but the counterargument to that is that neither word has lost its hurtfulness and that "reclaiming" is a sad alternative to "retiring."

On the one hand, 8bit could scrawl "you insensitive racist cracker mutherfuckers" underneath the bathroom graffiti. Would it change anything? Maybe. On the other hand, should he bear that shit on his shoulders? fuck no; he's got plenty on his plate. So you're left hoping that somebody in a position to actually alter someone's behavior does so, and left realizing that if you're hoping for someone else to do something about it you're letting it happen.

So in the end I'm just left feeling bad because a misogynist I don't know shot up a bunch of other people I don't know and blamed it on a lack of tail and what the fuck am I supposed to do about it? It's like those rape awareness marches on campus: hey, I'm sorry you all run the risk of rape but I haven't so much as kissed one of you yet so why exactly are you explicitly forbidding me from joining your vigil?

Right, because I'm a guy, and I'm the enemy, and because you know I'd use this as an opportunity to pick up chicks.

Which makes me a sexist, and in the end everyone's pissed off at everyone else because the targets of their rage are unavailable.