Plenty to blab about this Monday morning. Last week of work, praise the Lord.

At long last, UHR 2000 pictures have been posted. This was the one that got the ball rolling. Jed and Skip came out to Washington State for a backpacking trip in spring of 2000 in the North Cascades Nat’l Park. During this trip we kicked around the idea of doing an annual backpacking trip. Since our post-college years had scattered us around the country we only saw each other at weddings, and that would end once everyone got hitched. We all liked the outdoors and backpacking, so it seemed like a good thing to bring us guys together. All it needed was a cheesy handle (Ultimate Hiking Reunion!) and the UHR was born.

In all honesty, it’s been a complete success. Some have been in grander locations than others but they’ve all been a blast. The UHR has survived marriages, grad school, babies, and unemployment. This last trip on the Superior Hiking Trail marked our seventh (!) year getting together.

This pictures of UHR 2000 aren’t great (too many backlit photos with dark shadows) and they’re further compromised by the fact that they’ve been scanned in, but now the set is complete. Go to the pictures page and scroll down to see other years (2006 forthcoming.)

Put good time into Don Quixote this weekend and should be done this week. My attention has wandered a little (it’s about as thick as a phone book) but I’ve still really enjoyed it. I’ve got lots of thoughts about it as well but I’ll wait until I’m done to post any.

Got the Oct/Nov F&SF in the mail and it looks good. I’m excited to read Paolo Bacigalupi’s “Pop Squad” as well as Charlie Finlay’s and Peter Beagle’s latest efforts. I have to say the last several issues have not blown me away, so I’m hoping this one does.

Our housecleaning included going through a bunch of elementary and secondary school report cards, a project that both amused me and made me mad. Looking back, I believe I received a poor education from the Green Bay Public Schools. I have the benefit of twenty-odd years (some very odd) and maybe hindsight’s 20/20, but year after year the story remains the same: I start strong, get bored, slough off, and get reprimanded for being the class clown. My SRA scores were consistently above the 90th percentile yet teachers couldn’t figure out (or chose not to) why I wasn’t trying very hard. The answer? Boredom.

The number one thing I remember about my schooling is being bored. All the time. I tend not to do well when I get bored—it’s a problem I still have to this day. If I’m genuinely interested in something, look out. I obsess. I used writing as a creative outlet but I don’t ever remember being encouraged by any of my teachers. Writing stories was akin to memorizing sports stats—a quirk to be noted but nothing more. In my twelve years of schooling, K through 12, I had exactly one teacher who encouraged me to take writing seriously, even after I’d won the public schools writing contest three times. Is it any wonder I didn’t take my own writing seriously until I was well out of college?

So that pisses me off. I understand that teachers have a rough job and can’t change their lesson plans to suit each student. What makes me mad is how language arts (which is what they were called) were consistently devalued by my teachers, even the ones who taught reading classes. Students were recruited for science competitions and were pushed into AP math whereas I signed myself up for writing contests. The whole institution basically told me that what I was most interested in wasn’t important; it didn’t matter if I had a natural inclination for reading and writing or not.

Would things have been drastically different for me career wise? Probably not. But I would have been a hell of a lot happier in high school knowing that writing was worthwhile in and of itself. Instead of my guidance counselor telling me that the armed forces was always an option and advising me to go to UW-Oshkosh so I wouldn’t be so far (<1 hr.) from home. Pissed? Bitter? Me? Never.

Tottenham looked like utter, utter crap against Everton this weekend. The less said about it, the better. In better news, the Ars* also lost 1-0 to Man City which pleases me greatly. Who’d have thought that both the Ars* and Chelski would have losses in their first three games against modest opposition?

You may have noticed that I signed players from teams I can’t stand on my fantasy EPL team. I do this to stay happy. So while I’m unhappy Chelski beat Blackburn, Petr Cech kept a clean sheet and earned me 16 points. Elsewhere, my striker Terry Henry blew chance after chance which sucks for my fantasy team but meant the Ars* lost. I’ll take it.

Current Mood: Five Days to Go |
Currently Listening To – Bob Dylan – “Modern Times” ()