Makin' Blog Titles Ain't Easy

I know, I know... you're all experiencing withdrawal due to the weeklong drought of blogs. So here's your fix.

Pam was up here this weekend! We went to the air show at Fleet Week and saw the Blue Angels fly in tight formation literally about 200 feet directly over our heads. We also found other things to fill up the time while she was here.

I also have many excitin' thangs on the horizon to report.

First, my street hockey team is looking FANtastic. See how I wrote "fan" all in capital letters? That was purposeful. Mainly I did it because as the coach, I am also a fan, and by golly they're a fun team to watch. We're 4-1 and tied for second place currently. We've had two great tests of character so far, and we passed both with flying colors. In the first, we went down 3-0 right away, within the first 5 minutes of play. But did they give up? Nope - they held the other team scoreless for the next 40 minutes and ended up winning 4-3. That's a sign of a championship caliber team - that die hard spirit, that unwillingness to give up. The second test was last week when we played in the rain. Everyone was slippin' and slidin', and we were getting great shots on goal. I mean, REALLY great shots. Shot after shot. It was raining shots (hehe). But nothing was going in. But they kept at it. They didn't get rattled or frustrated, even when we went down a goal. They just kept shooting and they starting finding holes. We won that game 4-1. I like my team. I also like how when we arrive for games, the other teams, inevitably all boys, look at our team which is 1/3 girls and scoff, and by the end of the game they just stare in awe because my girls are hands down the toughest players out there.

I have also taken the first steps to get our school newspaper off the ground. I've published a school newspaper the last three years during summer school and I've always wanted to do it during the school year, but I've never had either the time or a plan. But the Journalism Club has now met twice and has 28 members. Look for the first issue to be out by the end of the month.

This Thursday I'm taking a blues harmonica class. Apparently in just 3 hours I'm going to learn how to play the blues on a harmonica. Just 3 hours? Well, that's what it says. It's just that one class, no follow-ups. With the current levels of most of my students, the blues is just the right genre. I'm just astounded every day by what they don't know - once again, I'm not just teaching 5th grade stuff. I have to teach 4th, 3rd, 2nd, and in some cases even 1st grade stuff. How you can you be only 10 years old and already be four years behind? Yeah, I got the blues.

This Saturday I'm taking a test to join Mensa. That's very elitist of me, I know, to even attempt. But it's something to do. For $30 and a couple of hours of my time, I can give myself a chance to be part of an organization that really is quite ridiculously presumptuous. But I've always wanted to try, and so I am.

November is coming up and you know what that means - novel writing! You might remember my novel writing escapades last year. I'm going to give it another go. This time, Mark is also joining me in the lunacy of it all.

I also just accepted a position to be the math instructor for an after school program for girls. It's a program that provides academic support to 5th grade girls and mentors their parents in how to check in with teachers, how to keep their daughters organized, what classes they'll need to take in high school to be ready for college, etc. The program will follow the girls through the end of 8th grade. I'll be teaching them two days a week and some Saturdays using some hands on math program developed by the Lawrence Hall of Science.

So in my last year at Garfield I'm looking to go out with a bang.