Why This Student Thinks... (fill in the blank)

However many people may not agree with me on this, I'm going to say it anyways; iQ is a great school. I was never one to hide my bluntness, and that's my honest opinion.

Right now, I'm on a secluded tiny island that looks on a map that China is eating it; it's raining. Not only that, but only a few people on this island speak English; the rest speak either Mandarin Chinese or the slightly different Taiwanese. Kinmen, (pronounced Jing-men) the island I'm on, has one internet server, one. But, with this one server, I'm able to post this, early morning for you people stuck in Wisconsin, from across the continent of North America, plus the Pacific Ocean. Now that's amazing. Technology astounds me.

So what is my point? How does this "little island being eaten by China in the middle of nowhere" have to do with iQ being a great school? If I wasn't doing iQ and I wasn't homeschooled, I wouldn't be here. Well, in Kinmen at least, I'd still be in the supposedly newly green Wisconsin bothering a bunch of people. And, I'd be going to school. With four/five weeks of school left, I'd have major spring fever and be absolutely sick of the monotony.

Instead, I'm in an amazing little country with an amazing history and an amazing future, seeing amazing people and meeting amazing (and adorable) little kids. For a whole month. Spring break lasts, what, a week? But no, I'm here for an entire month, and, yeah, I brought school with me. Up on the shelf sits my World History book... It's collecting dust, but Mr. Sajdak doesn't know that.

With iQ, I can be absolutely anywhere in the entire world that has internet connection (yeah, even one dinky little server) and be connected with my school and keep my grades looking nice and shiny. If I went to a face-to-face school, I'd be... well, at this point I'd be sleeping in or getting ready for church, but I would have to go Monday morning and sit in class for about eight hours, propping my eyelids open with my pens and paging through my very worn Geometry book trying to remember all the insane formulas.

However, here in Kinmen, I'm getting to do a lot of face-to-face learning, but not stuck in a classroom. I get to go out, whenever I want and be attacked by the smell of stinky tofu, aromatic spices and Taiwanese chocolate (all mixed together). I get to go to Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall in Taipei and learn about "that Chiang dude" and everything he did; things I learned in World History, but I'm now seeing where they happened. I get to sit next to an older man on a plane and listen to him tell me the history of the country he loves and then his political viewpoints, in a completely different country where I have no say in what happens.

So, maybe I'll pay for all this "face-to-face" learning when I get home a week before school ends and have major jetlag and try to finish about three weeks of school in one week. But that's the beauty of iQ, you can put it off until the end and then be mercilessly attacked by such procrastination, only to completely wear yourself out and be left for dead when the clock strikes midnight on May 29th.

As a side note: My sister, who graduated with iQ, misses that huge adrenaline rush the last week of school brings us procrastinators.

Anyways, just as a summary, my thesis statement of sorts, iQ is great because you can do it absolutely anywhere and if your parents are okay with it (or you're old enough), you can go to a foreign country and learn stuff face-to-face without having to be "away" from school technically.

That was long.