2nd Semester

Thanks to a not-so-subtle email from Dear Old Dad (not that he's old, just staying true to linguistic tradition), I'm back online.

My goal for the first few weeks of school will be to go back to the way I was doing things at the beginning of the year. At some point I stopped doing things the way that I started out, and it was at that point that the wheels came off. I've renewed my dedication to my clipboards, always printing off daily lesson plans, and keeping a "rough draft" gradebook on my clipboard. It adds some extra steps, but I just write down any grade on a copied sheet from my gradebook and then transfer it into the book later (when I put it in the computer).

I need to also start making some positive phone calls. I made one last week to a boy whose mom pulled him off the basketball team after my last phone call home. Speaking of basketball, we got shellacked on Saturday. We did nothing we practiced (except not listen to me), and nothing we tried to do during the game. However, we played the best team in the league (or so I've heard from several sources). They looked really good, and the teams that played right after us looked significantly worse. Hopefully a combination of motivation in practice this week (as a result of our loss) and a decrease in the quality of competition next week will make for a better game. I'm hopeful that it will go that way, but a few of my players were much more disrespectful than usual in class this morning, so the exact opposite may happen. They may all just ignore me and do their own thing.

Next weekend I am leaving town for Richmond to attend the inauguration of Governor-Elect McDonnell. I'm really looking forward to that - I'm going to see and spend time with some friends from Notre Dame. Plus, it'll be a great way to spend the 3-day weekend.

By the way, another way that I am hoping to be more like I was at the beginning of the year is to update this thing more often. I got way away from that over the course of last semester, so I'll be bringing this back too (hopefully).