{"id":524,"date":"2010-02-05T19:37:09","date_gmt":"2010-02-06T00:37:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hilltribeart.com\/wordpress\/?p=524"},"modified":"2014-04-05T19:40:09","modified_gmt":"2014-04-06T00:40:09","slug":"inescapable-homework-by-ari-age-16","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hilltribeart.com\/wordpress\/?p=524","title":{"rendered":"Inescapable Homework (by Ari, age 16)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Inescapable Homework (by Ari, age 16)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Each winter trip to Laos and Vietnam takes my brother and me out of school for several weeks.\u00a0 This sounds like every kids\u2019 fantasy, but in addition to day-long bus trips, uncomfortable beds, and controversial cuisine, completing required school work has been challenging.<\/p>\n

Since I entered South Eugene High School, the workload has grown exponentially and simply not doing the work is not a possibility.\u00a0 So I have had to actually communicate with my teachers to find suitable alternatives to being in the classroom.\u00a0 Inevitably, my teachers require that I do all missed homework and projects while I am traveling, and that I make up any missed exams upon return.<\/p>\n

\"Homework<\/a>

Homework time at a homestay in Vietnam.<\/p><\/div>\n

Often, while sitting on what might be a 10-hour bus ride, I would try to do my assigned reading.\u00a0 The buses there are not like the buses that you see tooling around town in Eugene.\u00a0 They are disproportionately large for the road, extremely rickety, have no shocks and a bumpy terrain to follow, and have more puking people on them than anyone wishes to imagine.\u00a0 I guess I\u2019m fortunate in that I do not get queasy when reading in a vehicle, but it is difficult to concentrate on To Kill a Mockingbird<\/i> when\u00a0the woman sitting next to me discretely vomits \u2013 for the fourth time – into a plastic bag and then leans over me to toss the bag out the window onto the shoulder.\u00a0 And while they call some of the roads \u201csealed,\u201d the endlessly windy routes have potholes that effectively, and repeatedly, jar my butt a foot off the seat.\u00a0 By force of will I have learned to narrowly concentrate on text and blank out the chaos around me.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>

A local bus.<\/p><\/div>\n

If I had a favorite time to do homework, it would be during a homestay.\u00a0 On the first night of a two-night trek near Sapa, Vietnam, we found ourselves in a dusty local home that was filled with more smoke than air and one of the kindest families that I have ever not been able to talk with.\u00a0 I sat down at their unlit, uneven wooden table, next to the family\u2019s ten-year-old son, and began to chug away at my geometry.\u00a0 I hated proofs, so the assignment was taking a long time.\u00a0 However, the line drawings and English text of the photocopied text delighted the schoolboy who leaned closely over my shoulder slurping a 7-Up (such an odd combination of \u201cprimitive\u201d and \u201cmodern\u201d).\u00a0 Never again will I see someone so excited about geometry!\u00a0 He later showed me the reading and writing homework he had copied into his thin, stapled notebook.\u00a0 The burden of homework was our common bond.<\/p>\n

\"Ari<\/a>

Ari and his geometry buddy at a homestay near Sapa, Vietnam.<\/p><\/div>\n

Though the work was sometimes tedious and the conditions were\u2026 well\u2026 not horribly accommodating, I have always been able to finish and submit it all upon return (not that mom and dad leave me any choice).\u00a0 My teachers may have been pleased I completed my work while away, but they have had no idea, until now, of what it really took.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Inescapable Homework (by Ari, age 16) Each winter trip to Laos and Vietnam takes my brother and me out of school for several weeks.\u00a0 This sounds like every kids\u2019 fantasy, but in addition to day-long bus trips, uncomfortable beds, and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hilltribeart.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hilltribeart.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hilltribeart.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hilltribeart.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hilltribeart.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=524"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hilltribeart.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":525,"href":"https:\/\/hilltribeart.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524\/revisions\/525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hilltribeart.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hilltribeart.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hilltribeart.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}