May 01
2006
Tony| Category: General |
Spring is still here.
With the advent of spring cometh the Sport Formerly Known as the National Pastime: Baseball. Here at the homestead, we are rabid baseball fans. Not crazy over-the-top-broom-carrying-voodoo fans, but pretty excited about the change in season. It is not limited to me, either.
TLEMK loves baseball. In fact, her pedigree is much better than mine when it comes to baseball; her father pitched for the Illini, her grandfather was in the Cubs minor league system, and her uncle was a relief pitcher for the Schaumburg Flyers until this season. Needless to say, (but said anyway!) baseball is in her blood.
Ask her to sing the Dodgers song to you some time. Just make sure you have five minutes to be wowed.
We are fortunate that we live all of six minutes from a minor league baseball stadium. Elfstrom Stadium is currently home to the Kane County Cougars, a very minor-league affiliate of the Moneyball famous Oakland A’s. Last year, we purchased a five game pack of tickets; one game a month over the course of five months, always on a weekend. How many games did TLEMK get to go to last year?
Zero.
Now some of you may think that is unfortunate happenstance—summer is a busy time, with weddings, reunions, and The Plan to be done. I happen to believe she is jinxed.
Bear with me.
Despite her previous history of not being able to go to the games last year, we nonetheless purchased another 5-game set for this year. This first game was this past weekend, versus the terrible, horrible, no good Clinton Lumberkings. Our seats are 5 rows behind the first base dugout, but we left our gloves at home, lest we raise the ire of Siberia, Minnesota, and headed to the ballpark under dreary skies and the occasional drizzle.
When we got there, the tarp was on, and they made announcements to the effect of, “We are in close contact with the weather service. We are planning to play this game. We will let you know at 4:30.” It was 3:45. And it did stop raining, for like 10 minutes. They took the tarp off, lined the field, and the players did their hoppy stretches.
We thought that maybe they would play through the drizzle. We were excited.
Then they put the tarp back on.
TLEMK is jinxed. She’s destined not to see an actual game. We got refund tickets for this Thursday. It’s supposed to be sunny. But I know what’s next: locusts.
In other news, to satiate my need for minor league baseball, I recently finished The Last Best League, which is the story of the Cape Cod Collegiate League. They’ve made a movie about the Cape Cod League, called Summer Catch. Haven’t seen the movie; I’ll add it to my imaginary queue. (After reading the IMDB synopsis, the movie seems nothing like the book. Don’t see the movie. Read the book.) The book, even though it wasn’t the best baseball story I’ve read, made me want to go tour Cape Cod and catch all the games. Interesting stuff– if you like baseball, you’ll like the book.
I’ll let you know if we made to the baseball game on Thursday.
May 01
2006
Tony| Category: General, School Daze |
(warning: Stuck: It’s long.)
You may have noticed a gathering taking place in Chicago. Planned for months, demonstrations, exhibits of free speech, and camaraderie for the fellow human took center stage here in downtown Chicago.
The immigrant workers’ march?
No, the International Reading Association Annual World Convention.
The 51st Annual Convention, to be exact. You see, gentle readers, I am a lucky dog. This year I am participating on our district’s literacy framework committee, a group of overzealous teachers who are interested in the future of how reading is going to be taught in the district. Adoption is still three academic years; this group is focusing solely on the philosophy of what should be taught. Because of this, I heard about the IRA annual convention early, and asked my principal if I could go. She said yes. So here I am, between sessions, relating to you the innerworkings of these fancy conventions.
I started out my day at McCormick Place, or as we in Chicago like to call it- “McCormick Place—Hey, we still have conventions! Ignore our hotel and convention taxes, and come here! To McCormick Place!” I was greeted by a throng of humanity— at least 5,000 people, 85-90% of them angry women. Why were they angry? The line. Most of us had pre-registered—we just needed to pick up our ultra-spiffy lanyard to mark us to the pickpockets as a rube/out of towner/lost tourist. Lord, the line. It wound around most of the exhibit hall— horror stories of teachers waiting in line for two hours, just so they could be stamped and allowed in the door. Thankfully, I overheard one of the only people directing human traffic say, “You don’t need your lanyard to go into the general session,” which was the only reason I would have stood in line. This was the first of my good fortune of the day.
The next piece of good fortune came when I walked in the huge exhibit room where the opening address was taking place. Ten people after me, they closed the door—it was full. Who are the first people I see? Three administrators from the district, and they have an extra seat in the second row! Of course, since I’m friendly (I’m not always snarky—you should see me at school…) they offered me the extra seat. I made it in time for both the IRA president (who said teachers rock) and Jonathon Kozol (who also said teachers rock, and made me feel bad for teaching in suburbia). I ducked out of Kozol early, and found the line (yes, another one) for the shuttle bus. On the way, I ran into another teacher in my district. She’s only here for the day, so she was VERY angry about the lines. As I’m standing in the bus line, I hear a voice call out my name. I turn around and see a teacher I used to work with in Champaign! Crazy, considering all the people. She joins me on the bus, and we chitchat about our changes in life. I get to the Palmer House, where my next seminar is, and find the pre-registration line, with all of four people in it. I pick up my lanyard/homing device, and head into a symposia on responding critically to literature. Seven presenters in under three hours. It was a whirlwind. Another boon granted upon me by the teacher gods- the meeting room had wireless, so I was able to look up the websites the presenters gave in real time, a good use of technology. Unfortunately, my laptop died after two hours, and I was unable to reconnect to the web because the user/pw I used to get on expired (or the Palmer House figured out I was “using” their wireless connection). So here I am, writing to you, because Past Me thought ahead to plan both sessions in the same room. I should have brought a book. Instead, I wrote one for you today.
My next session is entitled: Designing Reading Lessons for Diverse Learners. I hope it doesn’t suck. More updates soon!
