If you are wondering what basketball season has to do with me getting behind on my blogging, let me tell you what the schedule is like... out here in Havasu we are very isolated, yet we are a big enough school to require us to play other big (city) schools - like Phoenix and Yuma. Well, playing in Phoenix or Yuma requires a bit of travel. So on top of the practice schedule (5 days a week for two hours) our game schedule in Lake Havasu is pretty rigorous. If we travel to either Yuma or Phoenix, we leave school at 10am and return home at 1am. Now this isn't on a weekend either. It is usually on Tuesdays. So we have to turn around and be back at school (and still have practice) the next day. During one strecth at the end of the season, we had 7 games in 11 school days. Four of those games we traveled to. And it's not like I can cancel practice during this stretch, cause you have to fix and work on things as you go.
Needless to say, it was brutal. I especially feel bad for the athletes, cause they have to get their homework done or they risk being ineligible (I can just tell my students "to bad. I'll give your essays back tomorrow").
But most of all, it is very difficult on my wife (she is truly wonderful to "put up with" this kind of a schedule). I am not very helpful during these stretches. I appreciate so deeply her sacrifice so I can do something I really love.
So the season ended and I am working my way back to normal (by the way, my team went 15-3).
I have not been real involved the last few months (see above), but here are some reflections I have had:
- First, Avatar is simply one of the best movies I have seen. I was glad to see it do well at the Oscars. If you haven't seen it yet, find a theater and go! You need to.
- One thing I have done a lot of (with all the time on the bus, and the need to have something to slow my mind down) is read. I have read more books in the last 3 months than at any other time in my life. Fom academic to thriller to faith-based to sports to fantasy. Let me just say for the record that Michael Crichton is one of my new favorite writers. Thanks sis for suggesting State of Fear.
- Lost has started its final season. I am somewhere between a casual viewer and what some may call a "Lost-ie" or "total nerd". All along my wife and I have had so much fun figuring things out (if you watch the show, you understand what I am talking about) and I might add that we did a pretty good job of figuring out the nature of the island (the space-time continuum thing) before they revealed it to us. But I think we are at the point where trying to figure things out is futile cause although we know the nature of many things, we just don't know how things are going to end. I do have one final speculation (one I have had since sometime in season 3 and I still think it is true); events on the island have cycled over time with different groups of people and it isn't necessarily a good thing. So this group (led by Jack) are going to take this island to an end-game and break the cycle. I have always thought Jack would be the one to save the group (hence the last name "Shepard"). How that is going to happen? Can't wait to find out.
** haven't seen last night's episode yet
- One last thing that I just HAVE to put in here. Many of you have probably seen this story simply because it is so ridiculous.
Lindsay Lohan cried to her mom after seeing the E*Trade Ad during the Super Bowl broadcast. The ad features a baby boy apologizing to his girlfriend for not calling her the night before because he was on E*Trade.
"And that milkaholic Lindsay wasn't over?" the baby girl then suspiciously asks.
Lindsay took this add directly to be mocking her and her struggles with substance abuse. How presumptious and self-centered does Lohan have to be to really believe that?
Lohan's mom says that it must be about Lindsey because when we hear her first name, like Cher and Madonna, Lohan is the one we all think of. Really?? After reading this next quote, I have a pretty good idea what the biggest problem for "Lindsey" is... her support group/advisors/mom/enablers.
Said her mom, "They're little babies doing this, mocking another child who's just trying to survive Hollywood, basically."
So big, bad Hollywood is doing this to your daughter. Here's an idea: if Hollywood is so hard to survive in, get out. Nobody is forcing her to make bad movies.
My take? Cause I am having a hard time believing that a sane person really views things in this way...
either, all the Lohans are totally cracked (very possible)
or
this is the publicity stunt of a desperate actress struggling for relevance.
