Just Because I Feel Like Posting...

Guess what I was interested in for the first time in my life last night? The NBA draft! What?! you query. Ah yes, I reply. These are the effects of listening to sports talk radio (WEEI) every single day during my commute.

Speaking of effects, I finally learned, after I started teaching, a fool-proof way to remember the difference between effect and affect. Effect is a noun. Affect is a verb. It's so simple!!! Why didn't someone TELL me?! Actually, I did figure that out one time, but then I couldn't remember which was which. When I started teaching, however, my dear senior (I'm going to miss him so much!) said he remembers it by the saying "cause and effect." In that case it's a noun, and in that case it's spelled with an "e." And now I can always remember! Yay!

So. NBA draft. Apparently if you are REEEEALLY bad, you are nearly guaranteed a good draft pick. There's this lottery, with ping pong balls, see. And if you do badly your chances increase. This year everyone wanted pick one, so they could get this young phenom named Odin. Well, out of five picks, the Celtics got..... FIFTH! Poor souls. Just when they needed it the most I jumped on the bandwagon, practically guaranteeing them the worst possible outcome. Sigh.

Speaking of sports radio, my students are aware of my strange listening habits (classical and talk radio? are you serious?), and it comes up every now and then. A couple of months ago I was following the basketball team to their game, and saw them put up a handwritten sign for me to read. Sadly, I couldn't quite see what it was without rear-ending the coach. So I zoomed up to pass him, and they put it in the side window. "Sports radio?" it read. Hee hee hee. I nodded, got back into my lane, and giggled away to myself for the next ten minutes or so.

I'm reading "Much Ado About Nothing" with my SEVENTH AND EIGHT graders! And, what deserves even bigger letters, THEY ARE ENJOYING IT!!! It's so awesome to see them laughing and comparing things to their own experience!

Don Pedro and Claudio talking behind Benedick's back, and tricking him into loving Beatrice by saying things like "he's way too awful to be worthy of loving her," made one of my students say "Hey! That's like when I want my older brother to play a game with me, and I do it by saying 'There's no way you could beat me...'" What a clever comparison! Hee hee hee. I love it! I can't believe they like Shakespeare at such a young age. HOOKED!!! Mwahahahahaha. :)

YIPPEE! What a beautiful world.