A few days ago, Kristen and I came across the following note while rummaging through some of my old school papers. It’s from my first grade teacher, written at the end of the school year:

“I would like to mention again how strongly I feel about involving Lance in some kind of team soccer. In twelve years, I have never suggested to a parent any outside activity that I felt their child could have benefited from. However, it appears to me that Lance needs that extra release I feel he would receive from competitive sports. Lance is a superior student but he also shows talent athletically. Please call if you have questions. Good luck!”

– Mary Kase

Soccer, it seems, was the Ritalin of the 80’s … and I was a prime candidate. We laughed so hard … I guess that explains some things!

I’m tired of hearing people complain about the outrageous salaries of professional athletes, actors, and musicians then seeing those same people pay $8 to see a film, $15 for an album, $20 for a dvd, $30 for a concert, or $50 for a ticket to the game.

Check out this interactive map of words that were Twittered (a kind of mini blogging) across the nation during the Super Bowl on Sunday … it’s truly fascinating to drag the slider right and left in each category and see what the general public in each location was talking about at each crucial part of the broadcast.

Man, I love it when technology is used well.

I woke up this morning, a scant two hours after going to bed, and watched the video. And I wasn’t satisfied. So after going to school and quickly setting up for chapel, I rushed up to my office and did some editing, cutting out about a minute of footage and rearranging it with a narrative that I thought was much more dramatic and compelling.

The result? When we showed it in chapel this morning, the kids were totally entranced. They cheered for their favorite athletes, gasped at the failures, and went absolutely berserk at the end of the video. They had no idea what “CHCA Olympics” are (we didn’t intro the video at all), but they went crazy anyways.

Here’s what they saw:

Yeah, this is gonna be a fun year. Oh, and incidentally … this was my first time using Vimeo to upload videos. It simply blows Youtube out of the water.

One of the first things I’m implementing here in my new job here at the middle school is a giant competition called CHCA Olympics. It should be a great opportunity for the students (and teachers) to connect with each other, use some creative energy, compete in a safe and fun environment, and build a more positive and encouraging culture throughout the year.

In short, CHCA Olympics will be like one big year-long Field Day. All students in the building will be divided up into four “countries” containing students from each grade level. Starting on September 1st, then, each country will collectively pick a national anthem, create a national flag, choose a theme verse, and come up with various other ways to identify themselves (cheers, tshirts, mascots, etc). These choices will all be revealed during the Opening Ceremonies on September 12th, when we’ll also have a Torch Relay and a Parade of Nations.

Throughout the year, then, we will have CHCA Olympic Events … competitions where countries can earn medals for their team based on their skills, craziness, dedication, knowledge, spirit, service, and whatever other criteria we come up with. For example, we might have events called “Rock Band Tournament”, “Capture the Flag Extreme”, “Bible Memorization Challenge”, “Intentional Acts of Kindness”, or “Weird Food Breakfast”. Events will sometimes happen during advisory time, sometimes for a few minutes during chapel, sometimes as an ongoing weeklong competition, and sometimes for an entire Friday chapel.

To build excitement and suspense, I created this teaser trailer tonight to show to the whole school at chapel tomorrow:

But YouTube not only limited the file size to a measely 100mb … it also somehow also stripped out all of the fades, leaving my work jerky and incomplete. Needless to say, I’m pretty dissatisfied and will soon be switching to Vimeo. But right now it’s 3:40am, and I have to wake up in a little more than 2 hours to get ready for school … so that’ll have to wait!

To me, the interesting thing about these Olympic broadcasts is how “Chinese” NBC chooses to be. They don’t release a detailed schedule of what they’re going to broadcast and when … instead, they keep viewers in suspense, forcing us to watch all of it and “become” interested and attached to things we wouldn’t necessarily choose to see. They’ve decided for us … and have no intention of handing over the information or the reins.

Is this lemming-esque experience par for the course when it comes to television viewing? Personally, I think it’s insulting and backwards … but I guess that’s what I get for liking something that’s so corporate!

One of my hurdlers this year has a lot of potential … but her confidence level is really really low. I often catch her standing there on the track for minutes, totally immobilized by fear and overwhelmed by distractions. I wouldn’t be surprised if she has a history of falling … a lot of memories of risks that just didn’t turn out very well or times when others let her down.

I’m the same way with love … I think that I’ll eventually be pretty good at it, but I’m simply terrible at getting over that first hurdle. I don’t really know how to discern what’s real and what’s not … to figure out who’s worth chasing. And when I do seem to get that right, I always end up falling flat on my face. I’m a total loser … never in my life have the time, place, and person lined up well.

And I wonder if my repeated tumbles have left me immobilized too.

• All-you-can-bowl
• 10 - 11:30am Saturday
• $5 (plus $2.50 for shoes)
• Crossgate Lanes
• You’re invited!