Recap: The number of guys fluctuated today, starting with twelve but soon swelled to the dreaded twenty-four, which meant two simultaneous games (four teams, six-a-side) with no subs. It topped out at twenty-eight (one sub per team) but that didn’t last that long.

Health Report: Good. Ankles held up well but the big problem today was sheer exhaustion. I actually stopped playing after 90 minutes because I was too pooped to continue and I was afraid I would injure myself.

Performance: Quite good. Lots of hard running and the guys playing were on the younger and fitter side, but that meant for good passing too. As time wore on the elastic in my legs wore out, meaning I lost some snap to my passes and I stumbled quite a bit. Balance is something I have a new appreciation for, as it goes quickly once the legs start to fatigue. But I pinged the ball pretty damn well before that.

Rating: — I’m being generous with the four-star rating here, but my drop in skill towards the end had everything to do with fatigue. I had a few zipping passes that warped the space-time continuum, two deliberate nutmeg passes, a number of decent goals, and my favorite—squeezing a few passes through a crowd of players that hits the feet of the striker on my team in front of goal with pace and accuracy that they’re not expecting it. (It’s actually quite funny when this happens: the guy runs to goal, calls for the ball, then lets up because he doesn’t think it’s coming. Then zip, the ball smacks him on the instep, and everyone razzes him for blowing a sitter. It’s much less funny when it happens to you of course, and it happens to almost everyone sooner or later.)

No wundergols today, though I did hit two beauties that each smacked the foot of the post, one a volley from distance, another from a tight angle. Until next week…

Recap: A sparser showing today, two teams with about three subs each. Teams were generally equal in talent, although the opposing side had two college-aged guys that really helped carry their team.

Health Report: Fine. My ankle is sore from more from the brace I’m wearing, and man are my muscles sore but no kicks, knocks, or bruises.

Performance: Okay. The first two or three shifts were diabolical but I gradually got into the groove and by the end I was playing pretty well. I scored twice with my left foot and that doesn’t happen often, and I cheekily lobbed the goalkeeper from about eight feet out. That got quite a few laughs.

Rating: — The day averaged out to three stars—two to begin with and four towards the end. Really, I was pretty awful for the first twenty minutes or so and it didn’t help that I kept get on the same shift with a mouthy guy who is quite good but is very temperamental and stops running when he doesn’t get the ball where he wants it, when he wants it, and another guy who is a classic pickup stereotype—the guy whose friends are incredibly good and he’s average at best, but likes to think he’s just as good as they are.

He liked to shoot. A lot. From distance. From impossible angles. Through crowds. Through brick walls. And he seemed to be under the impression that if he could hit the ball hard enough that it somehow made up for the fact that it was generally off target. And if you’re me and you’ve just run thirty yards to join in the attack, I certainly don’t want to be told that I should make a better run to pull defenders away so this guy can (you guessed it) get a clearer shot. Nope, generally not a way to endear yourself to me.

Still, the footie makes me very happy. Even if I will be condemned to wheelchair by the time I’m forty.

Recap: My first outing of the fall/winter/spring noon/pickup/indoor season, which will probably be limited to Wednesdays and maybe some Mondays based more on businesses than anything. Started late (per usual) with about 16 guys that grew to a max of 22 (two teams of 6 plus five subs). Pretty good numbers all around and a good spread of age, and generally high quality of play.

Health Report: Good, although I have my left ankle wrapped up to the point of being just short of a plaster cast. No knocks, strains, or stretches. No foot stomps, blisters, or kicks.

Performance: Actually, quite good. In my first shift I had not one but two nifty backheel passes that earned me the vaunted “ooohs” from the players on the bench. I had one awful shift, but managed to squeeze in some good tight passing and scored on a friggin’ Howitzer from distance that kissed the post. One of the best—if not the best—goal I’ve scored in indoor. In fairness, my performance was enhanced by the fact that my team was better and the demographic was a bit older than the norm, but it was a good day.

Rating: — A solid four-star performance. I had a shift that was dire and two handfuls of bad touches here and there, but more often than not I found myself getting the job done for our side. And remembering the echo of the ball smacking the plexiglass behind the net on my wundergol will keep me pleased for days.

/
I finished Harry Matthew’s The Journalist yesterday and quite enjoyed it although, like many books in my restrictions and obstructions class, it wouldn’t appeal to a broad audience. The central idea is that the narrator has suffered a breakdown of some sort and has decided to write a journal to track the events of his life. He is having an affair with his brother-in-law’s wife, his son is acting strangely, and he’s stuck in a dull job. Early on, he stops taking his lorarzepan, and as the medication wears off, his paranoia increases and he begins obsessively detailing the minutia of his life in his journal and develops an impossibly complex categorization to track his thoughts, feelings, dreams, and “objective” statements. As I said in class, I liked the book’s strong database aesthetic.

I also picked up a number of books from Half-Price books last weekend, all of which will be on my Ph.D. preliminary exams: The Tin Drum, Dorderlands/La Frontera, The Death of Artemio Cruz, Song of Solomon, and House of Spirits. I also checked out from the library Magic(al) Realism: A New Critical Idiom by Maggie Bowers (which looks concise), and Magic Realism: Theory, History, and Community by Zaomra et al. (which looks comprehensive). These two critical books should help me flesh out my “major” area, which is mostly going to be classics of “magical realism” and contemporary fantasy/slipstream.

I also received my mid-term evaluations for the composition course I’m teaching and the results were very positive. There were a few blase’ responses, but the only sharp comments were directed at the assignments (which I have no control over) and the format of the course (small group discussion, large group discussion, and paper writing…is that really a fair criticism of a course entitled “Introduction to College Writing”?).

Otherwise, my semester works like this: busy Monday, crushed on Tuesday, recover Wednesday, suffer Thursday, work like hell Friday, recover Saturday/Sunday. All things being equal, I prefer a steady schedule that keeps me busy rather than this peak-valley-peak-valley routine, which absolutely exhausts me.

The ankle is feeling almost back to normal after rolling it Saturday—a four-day turnaround, about par for the course. I will probably give indoor a go on Monday, so wish me luck…

Current Mood: Sure |
Currently Listening To - The Hold Steady - “Almost Killed Me”

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So, Spurs ditched the magic Juande in favor of ‘Arry Redknapp. I think axing Ramos was the right move because he clearly did not command the respect of the players, winning a grand total of four league games while in charge. In one game, ‘Arry accumulated more points than Ramos did in eight. And as most sensible people realized, Spurs are now three points (one more win) from pulling out of the drop zone—provided other teams keep losing. I think three out of Bolton, Fulham, Stoke, and West Brom will get relegated. It’s early days, but I can see Newcastle and Spurs muscling out enough points over the long haul to get to the comfort zone before spring. (Speaking of which, can you believe Hull? You’d have to think 40 points would keep you safe, and they’re already half-way there in just 9 games with 29 more to play.)

I’m pretty excited about Liverpool beating Chelski today, and hope to high heaven that they’ll still be contenders come January. A certain Ars* lead the table for long periods last fall before falling apart in the New Year, so early results do not guarantee late returns. Still, it’s better to win than lose…

Back to ‘Arry Redknapp for a second, it’s an appointment that seems solid but doesn’t get the heart racing. He generally has had a galvanizing effect for the teams he’s managed, but he’s also been dodgy in the transfer market. Spurs savior? Not hardly. At least he should keep them up. Emphasis on should.

In good news, last weekend Man City United spanked the opposition 8-2 on a lovely, sunny afternoon. Yesterday however, we lost 1-0 on a cold, windy day on an abomination of a field that had a serious slant to it and a huge patch of mud in the center of the park. The conditions were almost unplayable and I figured it would either be 0-0 or someone would score on a fluke or mistake, and unfortunately that’s what happened. Our keeper slipped throwing the ball into play and it landed at the feet of one of their strikers, who popped it into the empty net and then celebrated like he’d actually done something incredible. We went on to miss about three chances that were nearly as easy, only to see our strikers get in each others way (twice) and blaze over the bar from a ridiculous position.

Worst of all, I rolled my ankle getting shoved over in a mud patch and will be hobbled for a week or so. (sigh) Titanium breakaway ankles…

You can say what you want about MLS’ two-conference system and the playoffs (I often say they’re dumb) but it does set the stage for some pretty good late-season drama. Colorado vs. Real Salt Lake was a perfect example. Because Amy trumped me on the remote, we ended up watching some real estate shows and, during the commercials, I’d seen that the Rapids went up 1-0. I figured that while we were watching Trading Spaces, two things would happen: either Colorado would score another goal and ice the game, or they wouldn’t. Turns out they wouldn’t, which led to frenetic last ten minutes that I did get to watch, including RSL’s dramatic and late, late equalizer that saw them go through to the playoffs for their very first time. Good stuff.

On the writing front, I was boosted by the news that a friend of mine who has a boatload of sales to highly respected literary mags says he sends out his stories to about twenty markets at the same time. In the same conversation, he said he was amazed that I had the publications I did from sending out my stories one at a time, due to the restriction most f/sf markets have on not accepting simultaneous subs.

This is certainly good news and helps me get my head around how to succeed in the lit mag world. I typically get very cordial, personal rejections from the f/sf mags I submit to and rarely, if ever, get so much as a hand-written “thanks” on the form rejections I get from lit mags. Rather than taking this personally, I’m guessing I just need to cast nets a little farther and a little wider.

Who has time for reading books in grad school? My reading list is way down this semester for a variety of reasons, mostly because my time is devoured by teaching and my admin position, and my reading time is dedicated to articles, not books. In a word, this sucks. I have a long list of stuff I want to read but it will have to wait.

Current Mood: Bleh |
Currently Listening To - The Hold Steady - “Almost Killed Me”

The secret to watching the United States play some good attacking soccer? Have them face a tiny Caribbean nation playing with one man down. The US whipped up on Cuba to the tune of 6-1 last night and featured some pretty decent attack play. I was really happy to see DaMarcus Beasley bang in two well-taken goals and Heath Pearce, who I have been moaning about for the last several months, had a really good game, serving in great balls from the wing.

Still, I can’t be all positive. The US started with essentially the same lineup that’s been boring us to tears since qualification began. I was excited to see Altidore, Adu, and Torres in the squad, disappointed that none of them got the start. I thought Altidore and Adu played quite well in the minutes they did get, scoring and getting an assist respectively, and Torres looks like he could be handy too. But I don’t want to draw too many conclusions as Cuba was well-beaten and exhausted at that point. My sincere hope is that these fellas don’t step off the field for the next two irrelevant games and force their way into the starting lineup for the final round of qualifiers.

I watched portions of England’s win over Kazakhstan and was fairly unimpressed. The first couple goals game off set pieces and the team looked awfully plodding until the goals finally started dropping in late in the second half. So a big scoreline, yes, but watching England reminds me a lot of the current US squad and I find myself asking this question: what happens when these teams play somebody good?

Like Spain. 3-0 against Estonia might not have been a devastating performance by the Spaniards, but they sure do look tasty all the same. Iniesta and Xavi are ridiculous in the midfield. During the Euros I said you couldn’t get the ball off them if you had a pool cue to help trip them up; I’m raising that to a shotgun. If you want to criticize (and I don’t) you could accuse them of trying to walk the ball in the net, but it’s still fun to watch, and they still won handily—away, on a rain-slicked pitch. I wish the World Cup was this summer…

The less said the better. My prediction was that it would be ugly so I watched the US national team instead. It turned out to be uglier than I ever would have dreamed. Pure awful. After the Michigan loss I said that this team tends to lose in streaks, and boy, have I been proven right.

Mad City FC won again yesterday, 5-1, and I had nothing to do with it since I wasn’t in town. I should make the next two games though and hopefully close out the season with a pair of wins.

Current Mood: Fine |
Currently Listening To - Joe Strummer & the Mescaleros - “Global A Go-Go”

We saw Beck at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago on Thursday night and a good time was had by all. He opened with “Loser” and, surprisingly, played almost a dozen other songs before finally playing “Soul of a Man” off Modern Guilt. In fact, he only played five songs off his most recent album during the show, and was heavy on Guero and Odelay!. I was more than fine with that.

The whole set list and a good (if slightly hyperbolic) review appears here.

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In case you were wondering, this semester isn’t the worst imaginable but neither is it the best. I am not a morning person and my schedule demands that I become one. I do okay in the morning but it’s the mid-afternoon crash that gets me, even when I get a full eight hours of sleep. That and between balancing the various and disparate responsibilities of teaching my classes, taking classes, and doing the program admin job, it will be a minor miracle if this semester doesn’t eventually grind me into a fine powder, mix me with some water, spread the resulting paste on a cracker, and devour me whole.

, , ,
And it’s been an awful few weeks for teams I support. The Packers blew yet another winnable game against Atlanta yesterday, as did the Badgers against Ohio State. I have become a big Aaron Rodgers fan and pin very little of the blame on him for the losses, but his durability might be an issue. The Badgers are a far more depressing proposition as I don’t see where this team goes from here, and there’s very little to get enthused about.

On the footie front, Tottenham has become such an abject failure that the streak of losses don’t even phase me anymore. Can they get relegated? They surely can. They shipped out two proven Premier League strikers with virtually no backup, and the midfield is decidedly lightweight. Conventional wisdom would suggest that once they find their footing they’ll be okay as the side has lots of talent, whereas teams like Fulham and Bolton look like they might struggle again this year because there’s not much to work with. Yet there are no guarantees and if things don’t turn around soon, there’s real danger.

And sadly, Mad City United lost its first game 2-1 to the perennial league champions last weekend, and I wasn’t able to make the game. It’s looking like I might not make this weekend’s match either but I hope at least we can return to winning ways.

Current Mood: Beat |

Mad City United won again, this time 5-2. I again opened the scoring early in the first half, and again it had to be one of the most god-awful goals in league history. I shot from about 20 yards out (again, almost the same exact circumstance) but didn’t hit it all that well. The ball dipped at the goal line and the keeper, expecting it to bounce up into his arms, had to be mortified when it nutmegged him for a goal. Oops.

MCU played really well today with lots of fluid passing but we were a bit profligate in front of goal. We passed instead of shooting, and shot instead of passing. The opposition got only a handful of shots on goal and they were awarded two penalties (one pretty clear-cut, the other not so much). From the run of play they had made a shot or two, and scored on a corner with the last kick of the game to make the score seem somewhat closer than it was. On that same play, a dickhead on their team who was routinely going in with perhaps too much gusto decided it would be a good idea to shove me from behind as hard as he could to get open, and now my neck and back are out of whack. Had the game gone on another two minutes I likely would have found reason to return the favor. So it’s probably better it ended when it did. And I need to do more physical therapy on my right leg—it seems noticeably weaker in the last few weeks and I am having the occasional twinge of pain walking up and down stairs. Not good, not good.

Speaking of profligate strikers, can you believe Ars*nal surrendered their perfect home record at the Emirates to Hull City today? Hilarious. I was just starting to think that maybe, just maybe, they could actually be title contenders this year, but today offered a good dose of reality—they did not address their defensive problems on set pieces, they don’t deal well in general with physical teams, and as the season wears on and injuries come into play. They still play some pretty stuff when they’re on their game, but I honestly don’t see them being able to keep pace with Man Ure and Chelski.

This article on Spurs suggests why the club is always in a state of crisis, but Hubbard misses the real point: business has always taken precedence over the squad for at least the last decade. They have bought up every young player in England (and increasingly the continent) they could get their hands on with the intent of selling them. The Berbatov bit was a good piece of business, and the bottom line is that for all the talk of going fourth, Spurs have not bought any of the big-time, world-renowned players who would help them get there. The reason? It’s too much of a risk and doesn’t make enough business sense.

I skipped through most of Wisconsin’s loss to Michigan today. In truth, Michigan tried handing them the game about a half-dozen times but the anemic offense couldn’t seal the deal. Blowing a 19 point lead is ridiculous, and it’s this same ultra-conservative play calling that the Packers do to protect a lead that allows teams to get back in the game. Stupid, stupid, stupid and what’s worse is that losses tend to beget losses for Wisconsin, and that doesn’t bode well for next week’s game versus Ohio State.

Current Mood: Okay |

We’re having student conferences this week (15-20 minutes per student, 20 students) in lieu of classes, so I arranged the appointments on Mon-Tues-Fri so I’ve had Wed and Thurs at home and man, has it been lovely. The difference between driving three days a week versus four is pretty significant and I’ve gotten a lot done with that extra time. It’s amazing how getting just a little more sleep and getting a little more time away from driving reaps generous rewards in terms of alertness and productivity.

In case you hadn’t noticed the trend, check out my “Current Mood” history for the last couple weeks:

9/22 - Current Mood: Zzzzzzzz |
9/17 - Current Mood: Pretty Goo…zzzzzzzzzzzz |
9/14 - Current Mood: To Continue a Theme, Tired |
9/13 - Current Mood: Victorious but Beat |
9/12 - Current Mood: Pleased |
9/12 - Current Mood: Okay, But Tired |

I’m really enjoying the teaching and I think the students are learning, which is a good thing. The course on composition teaching theory is pretty frustrating at times since practically everything we read is counter intuitive (and is not how any of us were ever taught). The general theory is that the instructor must constantly push against being an “authority” (on anything, really) and always push the students to explore, struggle, and discover on their own. Again, generally speaking, any sort of directive or qualitative remark (i.e. “You should change this confusing sentence”) closes down ways of thinking, limits possibilities, and reconfirms hierarchies of student/teacher and novice/expert.

Of course, running against this is the fact that most of us instructors are twice as old as the average freshman and have learned a thing or two ourselves about reading and writing given that we are all, you know, Ph.D. students in English. While in theory I appreciate the idea of making these students to struggle to figure out how they can write better, I also think it’s silly to pretend that 1) an institutional student/teacher hierarchy doesn’t already exist (and will exist as long as teachers submit grades) and 2) that sometimes a student will be helped more by just being told something straight-up rather than always redirecting them into avenues of flailing and frustration.

I also feel that a lot of this theory we’re reading is to keep us honest, so we don’t stand before the class and expound Writing’s Necessary Truths from on high. But often it sets you to feel as though nothing you’re doing is “right,” even though I also understand that this frustration and struggling to come to terms with how to teach college composition is also part of the comp program’s master plan: make the student question, reassess, find his or her own way of making meaning. Only in this instance, I am the student.

Just because I recognize this doesn’t mean I have to like it though, or even buy into it.

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I’ve been putting in some serious work trying to develop a book list for my preliminary exam, which looks like I will be taking next fall or spring. Originally I intended to do Modern Fiction as my major area and Native American Literature and Slipstream/New Wave Fabulism/New Weird as my minors. A few things have changed.

First, I wanted to focus more on world literature so I included a mess of Latin American writers along with a few Asian and African works that all loosely fall under the umbrella of “magic realism.” That meant booting some of the American and Europeans. In addition, as I’ve been reading Brian McHale’s excellent Postmodernist Fiction I’ve learned that a lot of the books I like comfortably fall under the even broader category of postmodernist writing. Then a faculty member suggested that the “slipstream” minor might seem to similar to the major area, and that I should consider a minor that takes advantage of my computer/web skills and my interest in visual aspects of storytelling.

The “new” minor looks to be something along the lines of Visual Narratives, Hypertext, and Textuality. This means looking at non-traditional books like House of Leaves and A Humument, e-texts like Patchwork Girl and Afternoon, A Story, and probably some graphic novels. Overall, this possibility excites me.

Anyway, that’s a long post to make up for weeks of relative inactivity.

Oh, my O-30 team Mad City United leaped to the top of the league with a 3-0 win last Thursday, putting us at 3-0-0 on the season with a +13 goal difference. Alas, I wasn’t there since it was a weeknight game, but I’m looking forward to this Saturday’s match after a week’s layoff.

Current Mood: Good (and not that tired) |

Mad City United won by a convincing score of 8-1 today on a gray, rain-soaked morning. The field was actually not in too bad of shape and we managed to pass the ball pretty well (obviously) despite the conditions. I did not play all that well, but did manage to score a goal (the opener and almost the game-winner) and chipped in with two assists.

I’m playing center midfield and that entails a lot of running, tracking back, getting forward, etc. My goal came when I got the ball in acres of space, wound up, and hit a long-range effort. After it left my foot I thought “That’s destined for the top corner,” but it dipped down towards the keeper. He lunged for it and tried to catch it instead of punching it over. It skipped off his hands, hit the post, bounced off his head, hit the crossbar, rebounded off his thigh, hit the post, came off his elbow, and landed on the line, rolling away from him. He dove to swat it away but it had just barely crept over the line. 1-0 on my first league goal, and certainly nothing to write home about.

The team we faced did not track back well, which meant lots of midfield space. This meant you could carry the ball and dish it off as the last defender approached, or hit it wide for crosses. Once the defense was split, it was pretty easy pickings for the strikers.

That’s twelve goals in two games and only two against. Not bad. Alas, we play another top team on Thursday night and it looks like the squad will be pretty depleted due to the 5:45 kickoff. I will be stuck in Milwaukee, but I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed that we go 3-0-0 on the season.

Really, I can’t tell you what the hell is going on in England at the moment. Man City now has more money than God and Robinho looked pretty damn handy for the first half against Chelski, but the Russians just had too much quality. You have to think that they’re the odds-on favorite for the title.

It tickles me to no end that Man Ure lost to Liverpool 2-1, but I’m not ready to say that this result, along with the Ars*’s 4-0 clubbing of Blackburn, has drastically changed the title picture in this oh-so-long season. For my money, I’d bet Liverpool will rack up a couple of hapless draws against the likes of Wigan or Fulham and not realistically be in the race by New Year’s. Ars*nal may have found their form over the last two games, but the squad is so thin—even just a few injuries to their starters will be a massive headache.

What can you say about Man Ure? I dunno since I didn’t watch the game, but reports universally claim that Liverpool dominated the last hour of the game and were deserved winners. My suspicion is that Man Ure will be hard to stop once they get rolling, so the big question for me is whether Chelski will slip. Based on the early impact Scolari has had on the team, my guess right now is ‘no.’

The relegation scrap should be interesting too. I thought Stoke and Hull were clear favorites for the drop but it may be trickier than that. It’s way too early to tell, but the squads that came up look just a bit handier than I—or virtually anyone else—gave them credit for.

Things are never dull…

Current Mood: Victorious but Beat |