Summer's here. Finally.

Obviously, I can't explain all of the events of the past year. It's too torturous, involved, and I doubt anyone has the stomach (or the time) for it. However, I will say that the main reason for my absence was this:

EVEYTHING I did this past year was new.

Flashback to June '06 - I leave for a month-long odyssey to journey across the country, meet some people (some of whom were on SG), do a little camping, see a portion of the landmass called "North America" that I had not yet seen, pick up some antiques, and make it home by July 4th.

The trip went well. I had the chance to meet the amazing Kleio and her man-friend and had a blast. I also met up with n8tvegrl (who is no longer here), and came THIS close to meeting RubySparkle and Kay - but I guess it wasn't in the stars. I got my car towed in Vancouver, BC and that very same day almost got into a fist-fight with a cantankerous German backpacker. I rally-raced up and down a mountain near Helena, Montana. I read some good books. I was taken in by a wealthy family in Napa, Calif. and spent a day of luxury for FREE, simply because I had the "right" window sticker in my car. I stood in the middle of the salt flats of Utah and heard a silence that was so foreign to me as to be maddening. I had the best breakfast of my life following the worst camping of my life in the panhandle of Idaho. I stayed on an Indian reservation in the Nebraska/South Dakota border and participated in an honest-to-goodness, authentic Lakota "sweat". I saw some Buffalo and dipped my hands in the Pacific Ocean for the first time. I hiked to the top of Half Dome in Yosemite with a co-worker and some students. It was a pretty great trip, and in the midtst of all this, I managed to snap some good photos.

But when I returned - the dam broke loose. Immediately following the trip was a "vertical teaming" of the history department. At this meeting (which took an entire week in mid-July) it was decided that our department was teaching the wrong era of world history. I am more of a "classical" historian and they wanted the curriculum to be more "modernist". Fine. So that meant I had only one month to scrap my old curriculum and create an entirely new one to be ready by mid-August.

Secondly, I was a new forensics coach. Starting in September, I had to teach myself the finer methods of coaching and judging the monthly forensics tournaments as I had no prior experience with it. Starting in late-October, I was coaching both swimming and forensics at the same time. In January, events really took a turn in that I was "promoted" to head debate coach of the forensics team. This was done because we had never had a debate team before, and it was decided that I would probably do a "bang-up job" cobbling a team together and getting them trained in time for the next tournament which was - hmmmmm - only three weeks away. So, again, I had a new format to learn, with no help from anyone since I was creating this department from scratch, and had to learn a new set of rules, regulations, coaching guidelines, etc.

Swimming ended in February, but lacrosse started only two weeks later. Again, there had never been a lacrosse team at our school and so, since I played it in the past, I had been designated the "first ever" head lacrosse coach at our school. And, again (see the pattern?), there was no help from anyone's prior work because this entire department did not exist beforehand. Likewise, Feb '07 was the first time most of my players had ever picked up a lacrosse stick.

.....and all this time, I'm still adding to, and refining, this brand-new, 'effing curriculum that I had been forced to create, with only one month's notice, back in mid-July '06.

But it's over. I'm really quite tired. I actually feel burned out. The good news is that next year I will not be coaching swimming, I will have already created the debate team, I will have already created the lacrosse team, and will have already created the new "modern" world history curriculum. I will be able to relax a bit. But, for now, I'm still a bit shell-shocked.

Perhaps, like some modern Proust, I will look back upon this very difficult year that has just past and say, "It was one of the greatest moments in my life." Maybe. I certainly amassed quite a record. My debate team finished fouth in the state while having experienced only one tournament prior to the state's tournament. Our lacrosse team won our division and was competitive with teams in the division above us (we even beat one of those "better" teams). And many of the students came to me after the year ended and said that my course (with the brand-new curriculum) was their favorite course of the year because I pushed them hard and convinced them that history is actually something interesting to study.

But I'm glad it's over. I need to slow down.

There you have it - that's what I've been up to. It's not so much an excuse....more of an explanation. So be nice to me, okay? Although, perhaps Grimjack said it best when he said, "Retard. It takes what....two seconds to type something? I'm guessing [your last] post was one word per day for the past year. "

Touché, Grimjack.......touché.