Getting on Track Again: teaching and the 'drome

Lesson planning has been all the rage lately. My guide teacher and I have spent a lot of time analyzing my lesson plans for 12th grade Government. As a proficient writer and speaker and organizer, it has been tough for me to hear, many times daily, that my lesson plans are sub-par. For a week or two, I was becoming quite deflated. All of my efforts to improve the plans were inevitably ruining the plans. After another week of grinding and planning, I was finally able to turn the corner. I came out of Spring Break with the guns blazing and really made some large strides in both planning and executing.

It took some time for me to understand that having a strict guide teacher is the single best thing that could have happend to me this semester. When comparing myself to other student-teachers' experiences, I felt overly analyzed: many of these teacher never see their master teachers! Others have master teachers that use (read: steal) their student-teacher's material (and I've been told that this stems from a lack of preparation on the MASTER teacher's end!!!). Compare this to the beatdowns I was taking. Wow...I was angry. It didn't take me long, however, to realize that I'm the one standing to benefit the most from this scrutiny and evaluation. As it stands right now, I couldn't be happier. Every mistake that I make in the classroom is acknowledged, noted, and immediately improved. Having a guide teacher who really cares about what you do: Priceless.

The velodrome is here. Wow. Has a year really gone by that fast? This will be my third year racing, but my first year actually being prepared. Funny, how naive I was, thinking that my mediocre fitness from rowing was going to rule all. I've taken many lumps in cycling, but I've really tried to learn from them. As I type right now, the Ridley is in the back of the truck. Tonight will be fun. The racing will surely be fast, competitive, and hopefully safe. Opening night was an excellent time; lots of friends and good racing. Since I'm caught up on school and planning, I might even type a race report for tonight's effort.

Here's to a safe season! Speaking of 'safe,' look what I found!


Somewhere along the line, this picture came to me. My first ever wreck in a crit. Island View Classic, Santa Barbara 2009. That's the fooji there, all thrashed and torn up, myself to the right, and center stage is the freakin' goon from UCSB who might've wrecked 17 times that weekend.