More about sex

"How do you feel about having your V-Card when most of your students have lost theirs?"

--Actually, it makes me sad.

Welcome to the conversation held today in one of my classes.

Add this to general lack of clothing worn by high school and junior high (!!!) student groups recently, and it's just reminded me once again how warped societies views on sex are. It's not something that's taboo, or even rare, but it's commonplace and doesn't seem to be something that special, just something that's kind of fun.

Sex is such an important part of how God views marriage. It's a wonderful gift that I look forward to exploring with my (hypothetical) wife, and an amazing gift that I get to give her. I find it very sad that so few people these days are able to live that, or even to claim that as a belief.

Ok, end of rant.

Lesson plans, please

So, I spent most of my break sick. And, when you're sick, you don't feel like doing lesson plans. So, instead of having all this week planned out like I had intended, I had the joy of staying up late last night to write out plans for today. And, as you can probably guess, because I bailed out Coach and refereed a couple basketball games tonight, I just finished my lesson plans for tomorrow. Tomorrow I'll be planning for Wednesday, and then I have a stack full bills and whatnot on my best that will *finally* demand my attention. Hope none of them are late...we'll find out tomorrow (hopefully).

And now, it's time for bed. But, anyone who wants to make a lesson plan for section 4.7 in my geometry book or Cramer's rule/using matrices to solve systems of equations combo lesson for algebra 2, I would be incredibly grateful. Or I could just improv it and see what happens...do you think they could tell? :)

First one down

71-61

Sullivan is now 1-0.

We shot 32-36 from the free throw line, including a school record (for number of makes in a gmae) 20-21 from the line for our point guard. Definitely a first game of the year, but a W is a W.

Good mascot?

I did some thinking before our scrimmage tonight, and I'll share some of my thoughts.

--Am I going to get a lot of grief for getting food from Burger King, where two of my students were working?

--What would be Sullivan's mascot? Their nickname is the Golden Arrows...

--Is a Golden Arrow supposed to strike fear? I mean, gold is malleable, right? If you got shot with a golden arrow, it would sting a little, but probably not even break the skin. Just a nasty bruise as the arrow gets scrunched up. Is that a bad rally cry? "We're going to leave you with a really colorful mark in the morning!!!"

--Hey, at least our school "color" (note the quotes, bum) isn't plaid...

I really need to get a life.

--I missed all you Carmel people...would have liked to be dancing! Hope the dance went well.

I'm serious about the holy water

We had a few more injuries since the week started--can you believe it? Today, at practice, at one point we had 11 guys available to scrimmage. Total. Varsity *and* JV combined. Out of the 20 or 21 we kept. And, of course, out of those 11, at least 2 of them are severely banged up and not near 100%. Did I mention our first game is in less than a week?

Anyone got some holy water?

We seriously need it. And by we, I mean, the Sullivan guys basketball team. We don't have a lot of numbers as it is, but as of today probably 3 of our top 8 guys are injured and not playing in some form or another. Now, two guys are kind of on the mend and in the process of coming back, but it would be nice to have them for our first game...

...which is in 9 days. How crazy is that?!?! I'm just trying to learn all these plays and the system Coach runs, and we're already talking about our first game. This is intense. And so cool!

Speaking of which, if anyone happens to be free next Saturday evening or a week from Wednesday (the day before Thanksgiving), you should come to Sullivan High School. On Saturday we scrimmage against a school from Evansville, and on Wednesday night we open our season. Especially since I'm going to be spending a lot of the break in Terre Haute, it'd be great to see people at the game. Come one come all!

More on my jump shot

So, as you probably guessed, I got to shoot a little more today. And I realized, surprise surprise, that the reason I was shooting poorly was my form was very inconsistent. Who woulda thunk it? In particular, I had to work on really going straight up. When I really focused on doing just that, things started to fall into place, and I started getting into a groove.

Overall, though, practice had a lot of information to digest. Coach introduced a bunch of plays, and (of course) they'll all new to me. So, I'm trying to cram them all in. But, I'm starting to pick them up pretty well, and even seeing problems with how things are being run (at least, relative to how it was being defended).

All in all, I guess the big thing is I'm feeling more comfortable with the team, the details we need to be paying attention to, and even the speed of the game (it has been many years since I played, after all). I'm excited about this season!

Out of touch

I got to play basketball today! Well, kind of. We do a two-man shooting drill in practice pretty much every day, and today we had an odd number of people. So, I filled in so everyone could do the drill. Which means, for ten minutes, I'm doing the shooting drill. Now, to be honest, I wasn't going 100% all out, which almost for sure affected things. But, it took a really long time to become consistent with my shot. I was really rusty, and my shot felt really inconsistent. For the first eight of the ten minutes we did the drill, I had no idea where the ball was going. Now, I finally got frustrated and focused a little more and put a little more effort into it, and things finally got straightened out (somewhat), but I'm still incredibly rusty. It was almost embarassing...

One thing was for sure--it was a ton of fun. I wish I was back running drills and playing more basketball...as you can probably tell by the very nerdy way I just wrote 2 paragraphs about a 10-minute shooting drill.

Profound or not at all?

On Sunday, I was on the highest of highs. After a week off, church reconvened in Yorktown, and God came down in a powerful way. In particular, He met me personally, and helped me to refocus on Him. With all that's going on in my life right now, God has gotten put on the back-burner--not a place He particularly likes to be. I recommitted myself, so to speak, to serving Him first and foremost, regardless of what that does to my free time.

As you can imagine, Satan did not appear to be very thrilled about this. I was attacked/challenged in a very powerful, and I came crashing down hard. I failed, and sinned. Today, I even got to see some of the effects of a sin. It doesn't just effect me, but effects everything in my life, from my relationships to my job and my students. I was really disappointed in myself, and kind of depressed at how stupid/weak I am.

In the back of my mind all day, though, I knew I was going to spend some God time this evening after practice. I knew I needed to get back to Him. And nothing earth-shattering happened, and yet it did. He just (again) refocused me on Him. Jesus is my identity, not this sin, or past sin, or future sin, or my job, or any characteristic I may have. He purchased my sin, it's over and done. Again, nothing earth-shattering or particuarly new to me, but a new glimpse into the grace God gives us. And, I feel like I need to tell everyone about it, and yet I have no words for it...

And then there were none

Conditioning is over! Let the season begin! Basketball season, that is. I am so excited to actually start real practice. Conditioning is good and necessary and whatnot, but at times it can be kind of boring. Today I actually got to do something and feel productive, but practice will be a whole new kind of activity and usefulness. Monday at 5:30 the season officially begins for Sullivan. And let's face it--it doesn't get any better than basketball in Indiana!