Books to Read

First off let me say that I have no idea why I am still awake.  It's 3:35.  It might be because the scary movie I just watched (Exorcism of Emily Rose) shocked my senses to a point of total alertness.  But besides that there is no other explanation..  I've been working on this list for a long time but up until very recently I've decided to put it to paper (so to speak).  A couple of these books I was forced to read in school but either stopped reading after I had all the questions answered or did a very poor job of grasping the material so I put them back on the List.  The list is in no particular order, Although I think I'll start with The Invisible Man because I have that in my possession.

So with out further adieu:

Hemingway – For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Sun Also Rises, The Old Man and the Sea, A Farewell to Arms

Irving – The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon

C.S. Lewis – Chronicles of Narnia

Joseph Heller - Catch-22

John Steinbeck - The Grapes of Wrath
F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby 
Ralph Ellison - Invisible Man

Ken Kesey - One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Richard Ford - The Sportswriter

Harper Lee - To Kill a Mockingbird
Philip K. Dick - Ubik

James Agee - A Death in the Family
Saul Bellow - Herzog

James Joyce – Ulysses, The Dubliners, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Finnigan’s Wake

Dickens – Great Expectations

Dostoyevsky – Crime and Punishent

Swift – Gulliver’s Travels

Twain – Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Tolstoy – War and Peace

Martin Luther King Jr. - Why We can’t Wait 

So there ya have it folks.  Feel free to add on to the list but bear in mind I'll have my hands full, especially when I get to Joyce.  But I figure I have till I'm dead to finish these so who really knows how far I'll get.

Spring Semester

It has been some time since I last wrote to you all (4) but I'm pretty bored and I let Kevin borrow my external hard drive that houses all my music and movies so I guess it's just you and me tonight.  Since March 1 I have been doing a bit of double duty as a civics teacher and a gym teacher.  Basically they wanted another set of eyes to take some kids outside and let them play some baseball everyday.  I decided that wiffle ball (tennis ball) would work out great because of the varying skill levels among my students and their propensity (I'm not even sure if I'm using that word right) to forget their gloves at home.  This way all can play and hopefully learn something about the game, or at the very least enjoy being outside in the sun.

Civics class is wrapping up nicely I think, our last class is Monday the 18th with a final on the 20th.  I'm pretty stoked to be done with that subject.  I enjoyed my class but the nature of civics isn't exactly for me. I should have been more open to creating my own course in the very beginning.  If I had to do it all over again (and believe me, I would) I would make my course focus more on the Constitution and American government instead of one's Civic duty..  There is something about the freedom's of society and this sense of Civic duty that just doesn't seem to click for me.  If people don't want to vote or help out their community they certainly don't have to.  there are enough good people in the world willing to put the work in to make this place we call home livable.  So I have a hard time honestly fielding questions about civic duties some times and I can't lie to the kids, for one they'll see right through me and two, I have a terrible poker face, pa pa pa poker face.   But it's important for the future adults of this world to be able to know the situation and make an informed decision.  Whatever that decision may be is up to them.  Vote don't vote, I don't really care because some one is going to vote for somebody, that's how it works.  So fear not everyone, we will always have a politician to blame for our problems.

Looking ahead, St. Benedict's has a gem of a system we like to call project phase.  It's like a may term basically, it's 5 weeks long and students have one class a day that meets from 3 - 5 hours.  They work towards a project (get it).  I know what class I'm teaching but I'm not sure what the project will be at the time of this publication.  The syllabus has yet to be written.  I'm teaming up with the baseball coach, Mr. Ross and we are teaching a course on Baseball to some 7th and 8th graders.  Hopefully the weather will cooperate with us and allow us to go outside and actually demonstrate and practice some fundamentals but there is also a reading component and probably a research paper at the back end of this class to I'm sure.  In the works is going to an Amateur Baseball game (the Newark Bears) so the kids can learn how to keep score, a lost art among today's young ball players I've found.

Side note: I am basically the bench coach for the Varsity team here and I've recently decided that these older kids are a lost cause and can't be trusted with keeping the book for the games.  So I will be taking care of that from now on as well as my regular bench coach responsibilities.  For those of you who are unsure what those are, It's not a whole lot.  I basically make sure that the guys on the bench, relief pitchers and non starters are staying focused on the game and are ready to play at a moments notice.

I'm going to wrap this up and you may be wondering why I chose not to include updates on the team's young season and there is a reason for that.  We have several games left and I'm hoping there will be good news to report eventually.  Once we find our rhythm, you'll be like the 37th person to know.

Regards,

Mike