Summer nights on the eve before the last day of school

I could be on summer vacation as I write this, but my classroom is not put back together, and I have much to do tomorrow. I'm intent on going through all of my papers and files this end-of-the-year rather than throwing everything back into the file cabinet. Organizing my classroom life is a constant goal. I'll never be a neat and highly organized teacher, but I sure wish that when I begin writing, say, my Frankenstein unit next year, that I can open up a file with all of my Frankenstein materials from the previous years and figure out what I want to do with it. This year, finding all that stuff every unit was a scramble and a half.

So, tomorrow I will not set my alarm, and head back into school and hope to finish everything I need to finish. I'd also like to take a trip to North Avenue and turn in paperwork about finishing my coursework, so I can get that salary bump without a problem next year.

Otherwise, life is good. I joined my third softball league tonight, and pitched all innings well but played fairly badly otherwise - three pop-ups at the plate, some poor handling of my position at balls hit back to me. What a frustrating and fun sport this is. It's also pretty cool to play alongside a young man who I cut as a sophomore in 2003, who was my starting first baseman in the 2004 and 2005 seasons, and is currently a Junior at Hopkins. He's somehow on this softball team as well. And he's a better hitter than me, or at least he was tonight. I'm now playing softball on Sunday mornings, Wednesday nights, and Thursday nights.

After my game, I walked across the park to check out the R.B.I. leagues playing; they're a wooden bat league for 16-18 year olds. My team captain this year, who I wrote a letter of recommendation for earlier in the day, was playing, as was my team captain from two years ago. It was great to see them, and great to sit back and enjoy a youth baseball game when I'm not coaching it. The weather was amazing and the kids played well. There's really a great baseball culture in the city, surprisingly, especially in the northeast Baltimore regions. I'm going to try to see a lot more of my kids play this summer, if I can, by biking over to Northwood and seeing some more games.