Graduation

Went to McLane's graduation tonight. Wow, it was so encouraging! To see quite a few students I know from coaching was great; I can't wait until two years from now when my first group of TPA students will be graduating!

Today was an incredibly good day of getting some real work done, hanging out with the kids, and then graduation. I also got the Triathlon and Water Polo Team Suburban oil changed and tuned up.

What a privilege it is to live and teach in Fresno, at McLane.

eating healthy

this week i'm going to start eating healthy. and just trying to be healthier. for as much as i work out, i shouldn't be getting more body fat. but i definitely am.

today at the grocery store i got some salad, yogurt, fruit (banana's and strawberries), lean chicken and cheese, and orange juice. oh and low fat granola bars. we'll see how it works this week. should be cheaper than always buying taco bell too!

less than two weeks left

That's right. 2 weeks from now we'll all be done. crazy stuff. i'm feeling more energetic and optimistic about the students' learning and less like a general charging into battle (even in the 12pm class).

but i'm going to bed early for a nice run tomorrow morning at 6am and then Stairs after school! (i'm still gonna try for that Olympic Distance Triathlon in less than two weeks! I'll have to do a lot of training I guess tomorrow, Friday there's no time, Saturday night, Sunday, then all next week!)

- grading tests is not fun :-) almost all but one class done though!

energy

the energy it's wearing thin!

taking the city bus

Two cool things today:

1) No sports practice of any kind (Although i will probably go running tonight by myself).
2) I dropped off my car at Midas to get its brakes fixed (been meaning to do that for months...) and then took the city bus home! It took about an hour, but was filled with great conversation and knowing that I did the right thing... great to connect with the city and live as my students live!

- tomorrow is a Jeopardy-style review game, which I'll need to prep tonight, but other than that I don't even need to bring anything tomorrow except markers... so I may just ride my bike! If I leave early enough it won't be that warm! Craziness... I'm all serious now about getting in shape! For sure gonna do the June 10th Olympic Distance Triathlon even though I don't think I'll be fully ready for that yet... just to see how it feels and get back up there.

the beauty of pre-season

Water Polo pre-season started this week! It was fantastic. 14 kids on Monday (3 new!), more on Wednesday and Friday. Even 10 today (saturday) at 5:30pm! I was impressed. The best part is at least 4 of the newcomers are totally loving the sport. One guy already went and bought jammers and stuff. Pretty cool. It's been so encouraging for me and also to see that most of the triathlon team will be transitioning to water polo...

i'm not sure how I'm gonna manage water polo and triathlon and summer school though. at least a lot of the kids will be "cross-over" kids - doing both water polo and triathlon (and for a few, in my summer school class too!) that's too much Dorman for even me to handle...!). but it'll be fun.

last night and today all day was lifeguard training. not bad; there are quite a few cool people there and it's fun to be the "coach" to several of them (kids who did winter water polo) and yet talk with them normally about water polo and the like. i even let them call me Brandon with a stern warning to call me Coach Dorman when they see me in my regular role. good stuff. but... 8 more hours tomorrow! Then since i didn't do any planning/prepping tonight, i get to do all the recording and stuff tomorrow!

should be a good week

This week will be the first week since starting the school year that I am not an official student at Fresno Pacific University, or an official coach of a sports team. Wow.

- I'm looking forward to using feedback from the letters into my classroom lessons this week. Tomorrow going to make volume flipbooks and do a few problems with some homework. i'll have to think of a cool project we can do for TPA Day/Symposium in two weeks. The other teachers have been working for weeks on them. Hmm.

- Coaching-wise, should be a fun week. I'm actually looking forward to getting some working out in myself - swimming M and W maybe, and water polo Tuesday night. I need to get back in shape if I'm gonna do that Olympic Distance Tri in June. WATER POLO starts tomorrow after school and I can't wait to see who is there and get started on that!

- The biggest thing I will do to change my practice in the classroom is collect homework and provide feedback on it every day. If nothing else that will help change the tone they say they've noticed in the class. My bad for not being better at handing back work, etc.

Again, I'm optimistic about this week!