Pride Becomes Them

So its Wednesday and I've been riding all week - except for today. I've had some good rides and there is nothing like the feeling of taking a descent at 40+ mph at 7:00 in the morning and only slowing down because the cars are going too slow. Okay, maybe a nice MLT - ya know, mutton, lettuce and tomatoe sandwich (skip to 2:47 if you don't want to see the entire thing);



Yes, these have been some great days for riding. However, that's not the main reason for writing tonight.

From my wife and my in-laws I have learned some interesting phrases one of the biggest (although I don't quite pronounce it properly) is qvell (or as it is sometimes spelled kvell).

Main Entry: kvell
Pronunciation: \ˈkvel\
Function: intransitive verb
Etymology: Yiddish kveln to be delighted, from Middle High German quellen to well, gush, swell
Date: circa 1952
: to be extraordinarily proud : rejoice

And that is exactly the feeling I had watching the girls from Advanced Dance do their project this evening. I was hoping to have a video from youtube to put here but I haven't been able to find it yet. I do have this clip from facebook; http://www.facebook.com/?sk=messages#!/video/video.php?v=1344528098045&ref=mf at least you can click on that and see if for yourself.

All in all it was a hectic year and I have to apologize to the girls for it. Getting myself motivated for first period (i.e., 7:40 in the morning) dance class was not easy this year and it was made doubly hard when the girls weren't into it either. I think next year will be much better with the classes being 3rd and 4th periods. Be that as it may, I feel like I let the girls down this year in that I never really got as excited about the class and therefore they never got as excited either. Next year my goal is to make it fun and interesting for all involved.

Part of how I'm going to do that is start wit my classes this summer at Sunrise Day Camp. As many of you may know I've taken a decidedly different path this summer. Since I have to take two college courses this summer I wasn't going to be able to work at Park Shore for the summer and devote all the time I would need to do the job so I contacted Sunrise about working with them for the summer. I've just attended my third orientation session with a few more scheduled over the next week. There are a lot of orientation sessions but its for a reason. They are really working on us creating a real sense of community not only for the kids but for the counselors as well. Already I know about 15 of the counselors by name and I can only imagine that number will grow.

I also feel like this summer I'm going to make a real difference in the life of a child in a way that will be immediate. If I can get these kids to be motivated and have fun in dance and drama, then I can do that with my kids next year.

So you see, I don't look at this summer as a drain and as if I have to work - my hope is that the rejuvination that these kids will also rub off on me and I'll be ready to bring a sense of fun back to SHS and my daily classes as well.

Okay, enough waxing philosophic and kvelling all over the place - next post will be about riding, I promise.

Stay well and I'll see you out there!