I’m typing this while coming down off of a Sharpie induced brain fog. I’ve been doing art work for the past three plus hours and because I’m still old school and draw/sketch, then ink my stuff out with actual pens, I’m blessed with pen headache.
That’s okay, I’m over it. Today was also the very first day of high school for my littlest brother!! He’s the fourth and last (by word, he better be the last at this point…haha) of the Chock kiddlets to work their way through GB High. My sister is also a Junior there now…cut to picture…
…Wes on the left, Shay in the middle, the one of the right is my brother’s good friend. Again, I wish I looked half as stylish and amazing as my sister.
I still can’t believe how old they are getting. And upon writing that I’m feeling more and more old fartsty and like a parent myself!
Second thing, last night I watched a movie called ‘Racing for Time.’ Or at least I think I’m remembering the title correctly, I’m horribly embarrassed and appalled to admit it was in fact a Lifetime Movie, but hear me out before you automatically close this window.
I read the little recap on it and it was about a man who starts a track team for a girls’ youth correctional facility. It had running so I thought I’d try to force the Lifetime credit down and hope it didn’t come back up. 😉
Of course it was laced with the typical feel good, warm and fuzzy subtext, but overall I think it was pretty decent. I did like how the corny ending was staved off from being unbearable by the fact that (spoiler alert…haha) while they did rise above and end up technically winning the big race against ‘normal high schools’ they were DQ’ed for a bad handoff on the last leg. The trophy went to the catty girl’s team who made some snippy remark at the starting line.
Though the message at the end was that despite being DQ’ed they were still winners. They’d overcome personal and social barriers and at least been given a chance to feel like a part of a team. Hopefully they would carry over that discipline upon their release and create a better life for themselves…yada yada yada. Before I go all Lifetime on us, I’ll just say that I think the movie was pretty inspiring but for a couple other reasons.
First, implementing sports, especially running or ones that involve a great amount of discipline, WILL build character for those who participate. Along with plenty of other things. I think what this guy did by starting the track program is admirable (I’m not sure if it was based off of a true story or not) and should be done in these types of places. That said…it should be continued or reinstated in any other school, YMCA, rec league, etc everywhere.
In the Runner’s Log I made for one high school, GB actually…haha, I heard from the coach that just to participate in a sport a student has to pay some ginormous fee (it was close to $200 I think) and on top of that pay to the individual sport that they are participating in…each separate sport. On top of that, parents are again nickel and dimed for all those other things…thankfully running doesn’t require too much equipment.
Yes, we should even save football...haha. 🙂
And this is a school lucky enough to even still have sports to their students. Don’t even get me started on cutting youth sports, then even their phys. ed classes…I mean I could go on about how wrong that is for days. I also just think it’s wrong that you’d have to pay an arm and a leg to take part, what about the kids who don’t have those kinds of resources? To coin a playground phrase….no fair!
Back to the movie, the other thing I liked about it (while it was a sprint 4×100 race and it would have been way better if it was a long distance one) is that it did show how our sport really is the best. So brownie points for Lifetime on that one.
1) Do you feel like an old fart when you listen to yourself sometimes?
Yes, not just in the above example but anytime I make a comment about the weather…really, Cait?! I mean, really?
2) Cutting youth and high school sports teams and PE classes, what’s the situation like where you live? I think the whole thing is just disgusting.
3) What’s the last movie you saw?
4) Did all your siblings go to the same high school as you? Was one of them there at the same time as you?
I am already well prepared for my future in an old age facility. I mean, I get excited by documentary re-runs (I have some weird thing for David Attenborough’s accent) and having rice bran cereal with soy milk is my favourite afternoon snack. Wanna be senior’s movie day buddies?
In all seriousness I feel really old when I walk past the first year university students on the campus I work at. or when I see my high school aged cousin getting shy about boys.
In Australia its expensive for kids to play sport outside of school, but being on the nerd side of the high school rather than the sport side when I was a teenager I actually don’t really know. In retrospect I wish I had played some sport, or taken up running (obviously the best choice) much earlier than I did.
My little sister and I went to the same school from kindergarten all the way through to graduating from Grade 12. For 10 years we were at the same school! I loved it 🙂
hey, so long as you eventually find the sport/activity that gives you passion then that’s wonderful! 🙂 wow, you ARE lucky to have a sister BFF riding along for every single year…ummm, i wish my sis was closer in age so i could do that. oh, and seriously, the pictures of u and ur sis are way too cute! 🙂
Thanks sweetie 🙂
Yeah, I might be the older one but she is definitely more mature. I swear she is the Vista to my Windows 3.0!
The age difference gets less the older you get as well. Scary though, my lil sis is getting married in January!
married?!?!?! omg, i will flip the day my younger sis gets married, and i’m sure it will happen before me too! at least ur sis isn’t that much younger than you, i’m rocking 9 nears her senior. PS-Vista stinks so make her Windows (whatever the next upgrade is, i’m not techie cool). 😛
I feel so old all the time–not least because I think 10pm is pretty late, even on a weekend! The high school I went to was really small, and had pretty limited sports programs, BUT everyone was required to play one sport! They had an option where if you really didn’t want to do anything, you could do “walking” once a week around the school with one of the teachers. But it was neat how everyone belonged to a team in some way. I would hate for students to miss out on that because of really high fees!
All my siblings went to different schools since we moved around a lot–even I went to 3 different high schools in my life!
haha…okay, i’m gonna have to hold myself back from making any snarky comments about the ‘walking’ class…but i’m sure u can imagine what i’d be saying. 😉 oh man, i can’t imaging moving around so much like that! i would think it fun to see lots of other places but then again that’s a tough age to have to keep making new friends…u handled it so well!
definitely feel old all the time. my little sister is finally in college…SO CRAZY. the money it takes to play youth sports these days is getting ridiculous and pretty sad really. i would HATE if they cut youth sports. sports played such a huge part of allowing me to become who I am today and really helped give me confidence as a kid…plus just kept me healthy. i couldn’t imagine my life without the sports i played back then! yay!!! for your sibs being all grown up. such an exciting time for them and a seriously sweet pic!
i know, i totally though of you when i was writing this….both ur little sibs are growing up and tacking the next life step too!! CAH-RAZY!!!
I don’t think I act my age at all! I swing between granny and 5 year-old most of the time! 😛
And WHY are they cutting those classes? Over here they’re trying to do MORE to get kids active to prevent childhood obesity and stuff! And $200 for it?! Man I would NEVER have been able to sports if you’d had to pay that for it!! That is craaaazy!!
Oh, and your sister is SO pretty!! Just like her big sister then I guess 🙂
“swing between granny and 5 year old most of the time” <—- PERFECT description of the category i fall in too!! luv it! 🙂
Okay. First off, what is your comment program??? Can I get it on blogger? I hate not being able to respond to people’s comments. I know you feel me. Urgh. Should I switch to wordpress? Did you lose anything when you switched?
Our current Phys Ed program makes it mandatory for all to take it in grade 9. Some provinces (you yanks call them ‘states’) 🙂 have adopted it up until grade 10, and that’s pretty much all we can do. We have an AMAZING curriculum, one of the best in the world, but I feel like I have to try SO hard to get any kind of respect from parents or even kids as it’s often looked at as a joke. I’d love to get more technical- make it more of a course (which would suck, more marking, but it would be more professional). We have one university course in grade 12, called Exercise Science which is AWESOMEness. It is mandatory for anyone entering Kinesiology at ONE school in Ontario- hopefully more (so more of us folks get more Phys Ed courses instead of teaching science or whatever the hell else is thrown my way).
The programs at my school are fantastic, but I believe highly underused. I also know I am very privileged to be where I am- we have a supportive principal and department that is happy to help out when needed. Now if we could just get paid to coach! 🙂
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