How ’bout them Gators? January 9, 2007

So I am still feeling a little blah, but at least I am getting stuff done. In fact, i think i cursed myself complaining about not getting anything done, because now I have an impossible amount I need to get finished.

I really did not watch much of the football game last night, because honestly, I did not care who won. I turned it on near the end of the first half and it was already lopsided, so I just went back to watching stuff on my Tivo.

Speaking of Tivo, mine has been acting really strange. Actually, it may not be the Tivo, but rather the directv. Regardless, the scheduler does not have all the shows. For example, last night, on a whim I checked the shows that were scheduled to be recorded last night and saw that neither How I Met Your Mother nor The Class were scheduled. I checked the guide (on screen) and they were both shown to be on and new. I manually scheduled them and then checked a bunch of other shows and this whole week is missing! If you look to see upcoming shows, they all start after January 12, but the shows are listed in the guide. Very strange. When I left this morning I reset the receiver so hopefully the problem will clear up.

Today I spent getting ready for class. It is hard to believe I have to teach next Tuesday. I have done powerpoints for the first 2 classes, so now I am about 1 week ahead. I want to get a little bit ahead now since the first two months of class are the busiest part of the debate season. I am a little stressed about this class, however. Not because I am not ready, but because the school is being ridiculous. I still don’t have access to their computer system, which means I can’t get parking, I can’t get my syllabus, etc. on the student website and a bunch of other nuisances. In addition, they have not listed me as the professor on the class. Which means, when I get access to the web, I may not be able to post anything to the class. Also, the bookstore has my name on the class, which means a bunch of students are going to be confused and may think the book is not the one they need. This could all be avoided if the department would just do their job. I don’t want to be a bitch, but the person in charge of all this did not email me back when I asked about the status yesterday. I still have not heard from her, so tomorrow I think I will have to try again and maybe cc her boss.

I have also been busy working on new debate cases. I like the case my policy team is going to start running, but it is a little unconventional. Which means I will spend the next 2 hours reading definitions of the word persons. Fun. Fun.

Back to the Grind…sort of January 2, 2007

First off, Happy New Year to everyone. Mine was very uneventful. My parents left that morning for a 3 week trip, so the usual dinner and movie routine wasn’t going to happen. One of my downstairs neighbors (for the record, the sane, nice one) invited me to come downstairs and hang out with her friends. As I had nothing else planned, I took her up on her offer. It was a lot of fun. I have hung out with her friends before and it is always enjoyable. They come from a different world than me and have such different experiences but they never judge or treat me differently because I grew up in the richest part of town and my parents still live there. It is a shame to say it, but so many people judge you differently or inadvertently treat you differently just because you come from money.

So that was my New Years Eve. My New Years Day started too early. My other downstairs neighbor (the freaky weird one) woke me up at 5:30 am. Now I don’t really ever drink, so the only hangover I had was a Diet Pepsi one, but when you go to bed at 2 am, 5:30 is too early. How did she wake me you ask? Her freaking TV. There is a long story here, but I will give you the abbreviated version. About 6 months ago she got an LCD flatscreen, digital cable and surround sound system. When she got it she put it in her bedroom, which is right below mine. After about 1 week of my bed shaking in the morning from the bombs going off on CNN, I asked her if she could turn down the bass and also maybe the volume a little. She did and said she never really watches tv. That was true. She would watch CNN at like 8 am and otherwise I never heard it. Well something changed about 2 weeks ago. Now it or a CD played through the same system is on every moment she is awake, and the volume is cranked up. Now it is not just the bass, I can hear every word of whatever she is watching or listening to, plus my whole bedroom is shaking.

So New Years Day, I moved to my couch in the living room. I have never been disturbed by her tv in there. Well not that morning. No matter how loud I turned up my tv, I could still just here hers, or enough of it to make my show impossible to watch. I ended up going back and laying in bed fuming. Finally at 11 it quieted down, so I thought I would take a nap. My head hit the pillow and the phone rang. It was my mom calling. They had an awful trip and she was cranky and pissed because the doctor said if she was going to take a plane she had to wear a mask. The mask plus being bald right now got her more attention than she wanted. So I talked to her for about a half hour and then went back to take my nap, and what happened? Loud booming DISCO music for 2 hours. I wanted to shoot somebody.

I did find solace later in the day by discovering that my Directv now carried the Style Network. So much fun. There are two shows I have been watching whenever they are on. One is called “How do I look” and in it 3 people shop for their friend who need style help, they also pick hair and makeup. Then the friend picks there favorite collection. The other is called “Style Me Famous” where Jay (Mr. Jay from America’s Top Model) helps do a makeover for somebody based on a style of a celebrity. Both were just fun and frivolous, but hit the spot.

Tomorrow practice starts back up, but as the title says…sort of. I am only meeting with a few of the students. My policy kids are writing a new case and I have alumni coming back to help some of the other students. It is always weird going back after a big break. It is hard to get the kids motivated. Hopefully this time it will be ok, since they have a tournament the 12th and 13th. It is also strange for me, since I will work for a few hours tomorrow afternoon and then nothing until Monday when the real stuff starts.

I also need to get ready for the class I am teaching. It is Criminal Law which I am not that familiar with anymore. Yes, I took Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure in law school, but I never practiced in the criminal arena. I have ordered a text book and looked at it and most of what I know is coming back to me. I do need to start getting lecture notes together. Because once the semester starts, debate season is going to crank up with our tournament and National and State qualifiers.

Wednesday Blues December 13, 2006

Last night the kids finished the league debate tournament. Both teams went 1-1 and neither broke. This is the first time I have not broken at least one debater to the finals. We will break 4 in Congress, 2 in extemp, 1 in radio and 1 in oratory, so all is not lost, but debate is why I do this, and not breaking is really disappointing.

In other news, I got a really random call yesterday and it turns out there is an opening to teach Criminal Law at the local university, so of course I jumped on it. I used to teach 2 classes a semester, mostly gender law classes. Then the department I was working for hired somebody full-time to teach those classes, and I was no longer needed. Criminal Law is only taught by adjunct professors, so if I do a good job I should be able to teach this for a long time.

It turns out I got the job because the person who has been teaching it just got transfered. There is little to no time to get prepared, but oh well. In even stranger news, the guy who was teaching the class. He taught my brother in high school while going to law school at nights. Then he went to work for the father of one of my brother’s friends. Yup, small world.

Since I am feeling so blah and I am sure the kids are as well, I am going to show a motivational debate video. Since I suspect most people on the internet don’t know what real policy debate looks like, I thought I would post it here also. Enjoy!

Memo to Bears fans… December 11, 2006

I went to the Monday Night Football game tonight. Well I went for the first half, then my mom was ready to go. She is sick and wanted to go to feel “normal” but did not have the energy to make it the whole game.

Since I came home I have been listening to Fox Sports Radio on my XM. There has been call after call about how Rex Grossman has turned the corner and how wonderful the Bears offense is now. What is the evidence these callers and the host used to back up their point? Tonight’s game.

MEMO TO ALL BEARS FANS:

The Bears’ offense did not improve over night. Rex Grossman did not fix all his problems in the past week. You played the Rams. Yes, that is it. I hate to be the one to break it to you but the Rams truly are that bad. Don’t let the record deceive you, they are a bad team and made your offense look good.

I do not have to go to school tomorrow because we have such a small entry to the last league tournament and the one volunteer judge covers our entire judging responsibility. The one Public Forum team and 1 LDer going really need good results if they was to advance to the league championships. If things hold true to the past years results, the Public Forum team must win both rounds tomorrow to have a chance to advance and the LDer must go 1-1. While normally I would be very confident about their chances, I have to face the fact that both teams went 1-3 last weekend and those records may not have all been about us being school code thirteen. On the other hand, they worked really hard today and usually hard work is rewarded in debate.

As I have nothing real planned for tomorrow, I am going to try to figure out how to knit socks on two circulars. I have knit several pairs on double pointed needles, but I have always been interested in learning to knit on 2 circulars. I I bought the book Socks Soar on Two Circular Needles by Cat Bordhi and hopefully will be knitting socks using this method in no time.

Lucky Number 13? December 9, 2006

This weekend we were number 13 at the tournament. I am not a superstitious person, but one of my debaters is. He kept telling me that we were doomed, and by the end of the tournament I had to agree. Over the course of the two days, these unusual things occurred:

1. A kid canceled 5 minutes before the bus was going to leave because his house did not have power and his clothes were in the washing machine. Which begs the question, were all his clothes in the washing machine at the same tme?
2. The policy kids left there Affirmative case sitting out on their tubs. Needless to say somebody picked up the case and now has a really nice Affirmative, while my first affirmative had to squint at a bad backup copy of case
3. One of my orators got an 8. They rank students 1-6 in round. I have never seen somebody actually get an 8.
4. A novice LDer fell down a flight of stairs
5. The bus that was scheduled to pick us up at 6:45 am showed up at 7:05. So me and 10 kids huddled in 20 degree weather waiting for him.
6. My policy team received a ballot that claimed that they were the reason policy debate was dying. While I agree policy is not attracting a lot of students, I really don’t think two juniors are the cause of the decline of policy

Frighteningly enough, I could actually go on with that list. It was crazy. By 8:00 tonight when I fell on ice in the parking lot at the school, we all just yelled “Thirteen”. Even more strange, with the exception of my policy team, all of the other debaters went 1-3, which obviously is “13″.

I have made a coaches decision that if another school ever gives us the school code of thirteen I will nicely ask for another number.

Shuffle and Run December 8, 2006

Big tournament this weekend. I am not sure how it will go. New topics for both the LD and Public Forum kids. The policy kids are hit and miss, they just need more experience. So anyway, I need to run, so lets just shuffle and go:

1. Birdhouse in Your Soul – They Might Be Giants
2. Needles in My Eyes- The Beta Band
3. Dusk: A Peach in the Orchard – Eels
4. Lucky Star – Madonna
5. Level- The Raconteurs
6. Use It – The New Pornographers
7. I’m a Terrible Person – Rooney
8. All of the Gin Joints in All of the World – Fall Out Boy
9. Ten Years in Mexico- The Bacon Brothers
10. Your Heart is an Empty Room- Death Cab for Cutie

Currently Reading December 6, 2006

Tonight at the tournament I started reading the above book. It is surprisingly good. It is a joint effort by husband and wife mystery writers Jonathan and Faye Kellerman. You may know him from his very popular Alex Delaware series of mysteries. You may also know her from her also very popular Peter Decker/Rina Lazarus mystery series.

In this book they each wrote a novella. In the first one, that I am reading, a CA state representative who is an open lesbian fighting to pass a stem cell bill in Congress is murdered in her office. In this novella, Peter Decker makes a cameo. Overall I am really enjoying this story.

In the second novella, a rock legend who battled drugs and alcohol comes out a retirement to play a charity benefit concert and is found dead after the concert. Alex Delaware plays a large role in the case.

As I said, I was not too sure about this book, but was willing to give it a try because I really like both authors and their established characters. While the use of Peter Decker in the first novella seems a little forced, the story itself is really entertaining, and the stem cell politics as envisioned in the book is interesting to compare to the political minefield stem-cells were in Missouri in the recent election.

In other news, the tournament went well. It is always interesting going to this particular tournament. It is the only one we go to the entire year that is held at a St. Louis City School. It is held at one of the magnet schools in the City that promotes International Studies. It is a beautiful building, but just different from what you see in the county, especially as far west as our school is. I live in what would be considered Midtown nowadays. I am about as far east (towards the city) as the kids would ever consider going (and I am still 8 or 9 miles from the actual city limits. What I find interesting is how the kids react when they realise the area is not a ghetto and the school looks like theirs (just a little older). These sheltered county kids really have no idea what the City looks like. They just envision the inner city they see in movies. It is why it is so important that the 3 city schools who compete in our debate leagues are so crucial.

A long day into night December 4, 2006

Practice was, well interesting. Much as I expected, the kids were all over the place, and in a lot of cases just plain bitchy. I think we all need winter break. I was going to lose it if I got one more eye roll. I swear, I talk to their parents and they all say how much better behaved and easier their kids are to deal with now that they joined debate, I truly think that is because their kids get all their teen angst out on me. Now don’t get me wrong, I love my job, but some days like this, I am just counting the days to break. Next Tuesday is the last tournament and then we will have a after school party and then an out of school party and then NOTHING until January. Trust me when I say, I need to not be around 13-17 year olds for a few weeks.

Tonight when I got home I tried to find something on the TV or my Tivo to watch, but since television sweeps are over, everything is reruns. First I watched a few of the Tivo’d Gilmore Girls reruns from ABC Family: The episode where Jess first comes to Stars Hollow and the episode where Rory comes out to society, which remains one of my favorite episodes. In fact, I think it is only surpassed by Rory’s graduation, the dance marathon, and the test run of the inn.

After some Gilmore Girls, the good seasons, not the crap that David Rosenthal is doing this season, I decided to give Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip another chance. Let me preface this with the following: I loved Sports Night, it remains one of my all time favorite shows. I can handle that type of show and message and usually like it. I also liked the first two seasons of the West Wing. Then I think it got preachy and lost its appeal (at least to me). I want to like Studio 60, but I just don’t. I like Matt and Harriet and think their storyline is fun. I like some of the behind the scenes stuff at the show. I HATE all the network stuff and the Jordan stuff and I find Danny extremely annoying. I feel like this show is all about Aaron Sorkin’s issues with the network, the FCC, the censors and how the media handled his drug arrest when he was writing the West Wing. I guess I will keep giving it a try because I feel like I should like it, I am an extremely liberal over-educated American…isn’t that who he writes for?

What are your opinions on the show? Am I missing something?

Did somebody say practice? December 4, 2006

This afternoon we have our first practice after all the snow and ice. Last week was laid back since the Public Forum and LD debaters had to write new cases. Originally my plan was to do rebuttal redos and ballot review from the KC tournament this past weekend, but since that tournament did not happen, none of that can happen.

Decembers are so weird in the debate world. They have 2 more League competitions (next two Tuesdays) and a really big tournament this weekend and then we shut down until January. They have already been to 6 or 7 tournaments and just want a break, but this last tournament is perhaps one of the most important of first semester. So the pressure is on to do something that will help them for this weekend but that will not be that boring. Plus, I really want to try to get out close to 5 pm, rather than being there until 7 or later.

So the question remains, what to do today? I am thinking maybe some practice rounds, a little prep for Congress tomorrow and who knows what else. Who am I kidding- this is going to be a wing-it day, which is always interesting.

A quick note from my rant yesterday. I was listening to Fox Sports Radio on my XM when I was going to bed last night and the host made an interesting point. He explained that before this weekend, the BCS standings were as follows:

1. Ohio State, with a big lead over
2. USC, who had a small lead over
3. Michigan, who had a huge lead over
4. Florida

So, if USC had managed to win, the standing would have been something like this:

1. Ohio State, with a big lead over
2. USC, who had a small lead over
3. Michigan, who had a smaller lead over
4. Florida

Which brings me to the punch-line, how did Florida jump Michigan just because USC lost? There is no logic that can explain that.

Ok, I promise I am done with the BCS rants, at least until the games actually get played.