I like to move it, move it

Things are winding down and getting started. We now have only one practice left in volleyball. We leave Thursday night for regionals in Kotzebue and won't come home until Sunday morning. Long trip to play 3 or 4 games. I will be excited if we win and get to go to State, but if we don't I will also celebrate the end to a successful season, and the end to early morning practices and coaching. When the season is done, I am just so glad. This big burden and time-allotment has been taken off my shoulders. I had a great year, with fantastic girls playing, but it will just be nice to be all over. Sort of like the end of the run of a play. We did a drama class play in high school and prepared for weeks, but when it is all over there is a certain sigh of relief.

I actually took the day off yesterday. It was blustery and snowy and I just didn't feel up to facing the day. Odd. I need to get back on that gingko biloba I was taking, I think. It was in my vitamin supplement. I always noticed a good feeling from it. I am on this new multi-vitamin that doesn't have it and I think I miss it.

Career-wise, I have been looking around wondering what a guy with my credentials DOES. Really. What does a guy with an English major and masters DO? Who really besides a teacher will know the stuff I know? Poetry? There isn't a strong market for that knowledge, sad to say. Grammar? I can edit like nobody's business, but can I get paid well doing it? (Maybe--more research needs to be done.) Teaching is great, however, sometimes I struggle with that whole "starfish" concept.

That's my buddy's story. There's a man walking along the beach where millions of starfish are stranded. You go up to him and ask him why he's throwing some back into the ocean. He can't possibly expect to save them all. "Ah, but I saved this one!" he'll say and keep throwing. I understand that and try to save what I can. Now though, with NCLB and all this testing, testing, testing, I have to actually TRY to save them all. That old man on the beach saving the starfish must now on paper quantify and qualify how he is trying to reach the starfish he cannot save. Each starfish must have a plan. Even if the starfish grows human legs and runs away as fast as it frickin can, that old man must figure out some way of tackling it, while still trying to save the millions of others. And if more grow legs and run away?

This turned into a bit of a rant.