Well, it has been a long lay off from ye old fritzwinkle, and for that I sincerely apologize. With the beginning of the school year, it seemed like everything went into hyperdrive. Coaching a team of freshmen girls, with a much longer commute than with past schools, kept me pretty much working until seven or eight o’clock virtually every night. Then I usually got to plan for the next day or week or however long I could. The whole thing left me fairly estranged form my pet project of this site. Fortunately, things have finally settled down and I can commit some time to keeping whatever readers that are left mildly amused with some more consistent postings.
Much has happened since the last few meager postings. When last I wrote, I was commenting on my freshmen girl’s soccer team finished an undefeated campaign with only one blemish, a 1-1 draw with the only team that served up any competition whatsoever. Quite honestly, we should have snuffed them easily, considering we had already beaten them on a day that we hadn’t played our best ball. Unfortunately, that was the day they learned the hard lesson of taking opponents lightly. At the time of the rematch, my team had been pretty much dismissing teams for nearly half a dozen games and beginning to play rather sloppily, much to my protestations and warnings. Then when we finally played a team that we weren’t thrashing by 4+ goals, they took the whole first half off before realizing that they were in a game and that our leading scorer didn’t have the touch that afternoon. It was still quite instructive and it was pretty obvious that they learned, because for the remaining few games, they ramped up and hammered the opposition handily.
By the end, I was quite proud of them, in terms of field performance. I can definitely say that in all my years of coaching, I have never had that many truly talented players on a single squad. Usually I consider myself pretty fortunate to have two or three players that can really play the game. This group gave me four truly strong players and another six that were right on their heels in terms of ability. I mean I got goals scored from eight of the eleven positions on the field. They were a remarkable bunch, and for never having coached girls before I think it will be a long time before I have the likes of these again. Of all the teams that I have coached in the past, only one even comes close to having been as much fun as this group of silly young girls. I even get to celebrate their achievements at a banquet very shortly.
Aside from all that soccer, it has been one set of papers to grade after another. Plus, being at my third school in three years started to catch up to me a bit, in terms of the preparation required to teach all the new material. So the combination of the soccer team and all the aspects of teaching, not to mention being new at it, meant a whole lot less time writing for my own pleasure and a whole lot more reading and writing for the benefit of my young charges. I finally started to feel a bit of burnout, after all those 12+ hour days that seem all but a certainty at the beginning of each school year.
On other fronts, Ali and I have also had some adventures with and without Keri that are noteworthy and should get some electronic ink in the not too distant future. Along with the whole Terwedow family, we went to our first Harvard football game, which was quite a treat. In fact, that escapade led to the securing of tickets to this weekend’s fall New England classic: Harvard vs. Yale, in Cambridge. I definitely anticipate waxing about that anticipated event.
So please accept my humble apologies about the lack of postings but more are on the way, now that first term’s grades are in and I have a life again.
