Baseball and Literature

Young Epic's team has been in the area for their conference tournament, and we've enjoyed the games and getting to spend time with the guys. My favorite moments came yesterday morning. Before the 9:00 AM game, Young E came over to the fence and said "Achilles was not a Spartan, right?" When I confirmed his belief, he responded "The Canadians are stupid," and walked away.

Shortly, another ballpalyer came to the fence, grabbed a bucket and sat down. In complete seriousness he said, "Okay, Achilles fought in the Trojan War, right? Who were his parents?" For several minutes we had a literary discussion, and the incorrect Canadian players joined us. All had a great time, and then the warrior/ballplayers went off to do battle.

Young Epic came in to pitch in the top of the eighth with an 8-5 lead. He got a fly out, walked one, and had two ground outs. In the ninth he had a 10-5 lead, gave up two singles to start the inning, and then got three fly outs in a row to earn the save.

Epic Dog is in her element. The players call her "Rally Dog" and rub her ears for luck. She does adore her guys.

All is right with my world.

Reeling Them In...

I'm an ESPN/baseball junkie-but I only use my super-girl-power-sports knowledge for good. Today before class started some of the boys were discussing Kinsler's 6 for 6, hit for the cycle game last night. One of them commented that he bet that had never happened before. I suggested that he not bet too much on that. It's happened three other times, and the last time was in 1894. When the jocks realize that I know the REALLY important stuff like that, they are much more cooperative in our studies of literature...

Change

I don't like change. Never have. As a kid, I ate fried chicken wings, rice, gravey, and green beans every single day after school during my freshman year of high school. It probably would have lasted longer, but my mother finally refused to cook that meal more than once a week.

Now, in the age of exponential technological changes, change is a way of life. Our district switched to Microsoft Outlook for our email, and I am not a happy camper. My desktop and laptop did not accept the changes, so the tech child came in to handle the issues. His attitude at first was "This won't take a second," but then quickly moved to murmmers of "Huh, that should have worked," "that's odd," and "Hmmm, that's never happened before." He finally got everything running, and now I can no longer access my email from home unless I go online.

What We'll Teach...

I will be out of the classroom tomorrow participatng in curriculum writing. I HATE leaving the kids with a sub (even though mine is a certified English teacher), but being on the curriculum writing committee is my way of making sure that I have some say in what happens.

It's really frustrating though because we are planning the curriculum with our current materials (10+ years old). TEA finally finished rewriting the English Language Arts TEKS last spring (and am I BITTER about that whole process...), and new textbooks have been developed for those. However, it will be more than a year before the new textbooks are available.

Teaching never frustrates me, and the kids never frustrate me, but boy do the grown ups in Austin make my head hurt...

Technological Wizard...

...or not. BUT-I did figure out how to hook the laptop to the TV and watch the episode of Lost that we missed while we were in Brownsville. Now I'm thinking of cancelling the $22 dollar Blockbuster subscription, switching to a cheaper Netflix account, and getting the movies online. Maybe I'll give the Netflix thing a trial run first.

Insane lady?

We are finishing The Odyssey, and the kids are incredibly proud of themselves for finishing it, but most of all for "getting" it. Though they do think I'm a little nuts over the whole thing.

Yesterday we had schedule changes during second period, so there was some down time when over half the class was out of the room. The jocks wanted to hear about Young Epic's pitching, so we chatted about the baseball games over spring break, and I told them about the most recent game. I commented that it's frustrating now to have to depend on the typed, online play-by-play to keep up with games, but it wasn't too bad because last game Athene called and gave us instant play-by-play as Young E pitched.

One of the guys got a strange look on his face, stopped me and said, "You talked to ATHENE?" He exchanged a look with the guy next to him and continued, "On the PHONE?"

I could tell he was ready to leave the room and go fo help until I reminded him that Young Epic's girlfriend is named Athena. His relief was palpable...

Life is good...

Spring break has been amazing, and I'm sad that we're headed home tomorrow. Brownsville is a charming city, and South Padre Island is beautiful. We drove to the north end of the island (no spring break madness there) and enjoyed a little time on the beach. The dog loved romping on the sand, but she had no use for that crazy water that chased her.

The baseball has been wonderful, and Young Epic pitched well. On Wednesday night he closed the game-2 shut-out innings. Following the first inning he pitched, Coach asked if he could throw extended innings the next day. After the game Coach told Young E that he would start the second game the next day. Yesterday he pitched 5 and 1/3 shut-out innings, but ran out of gas. The reliever gave up the lead, but they came back to win in the bottom of the 7th. It was a bummer that Young E didn't get his first college win in his first college start, but all are most pleased that he pitched 7 and 1/3 shut-out innings in two days.

We missed this week's episode of Lost, but I would gladly never watch again if instead we got to watch Young Epic pitch. I DO hope we can catch a rerun though!

We are having lunch today with the parents of Young Epic's girlfriend, and then it's back to the ballpark for another double-header.