Tiger taking hiatus from Golf

After much soul searching, Tiger Woods is taking an indefinite leave of absence from professional golf. He has apologized to the PGA tour and all of his sponsors for his mistakes and the embarrassment he has caused all of them. He states that he wants to completely focus on his family and the personal healing that needs to happen in the privacy of their home. Will Tiger and his wife stay together or will she file for a divorce? Kobe and his wife stayed together, and they remain together still to this day. This will be interesting to see what Elin will do, and where will she go if she decides to leave. Rumors are surfacing that she has purchased property back in her home country of Sweden. Will she take the kids? Find picture at: www.tigerwoods.com

One thing that upsets me now after the fact, after everyone knows that he has cheated on his wife, with multiple women, is the idea that he is so sorry for his mistakes and now asks for every ones respect when he now has to deal with this private matter. It is almost like he is trying to get people to feel sorry for him, that he was caught and now has to put his family through this awful time. In my personal opinion, I believe Tiger is a sociopath, and he doesn't really care much about anyone except himself. If he really loved his wife and children, he wouldn't put them through this, or even think about it. I think Tigers mind frame when he is on the course, being unstoppable, untouchable, the best.... carries off the course of play and into real life, because he didn't put much effort into keeping these women private, with text messages and emails directly from his account and cell phones. I will miss watching Tiger during his leave, and will look forward to seeing him return after he handles his business.

The importance of maintaining your routine

During this time of the year, it is crazy with different holiday events and programs that are going on in school. The students are practicing for the holiday concert and are very excited about Christmas and winter vacation. We also have a lot of time off in November and December, just having thanksgiving and now winter vacation in two weeks. The students still need to continue to learn and work hard during these exciting times. For this to best be possible it is vitally important that the teachers keep their regular routine during the day. Even though the kids will be taken out of class for special events and activities, we need to keep it as normal as possible. The excitement can bring certain behavior issues from students who are normally on their best behavior. We need to remember that they are young children, who get very excited about the thoughts of Santa and presents. Just think back when you were a small child, and how excited you were when the holidays came around. We need to plan in our schedule how we are going to incorporate the holiday season into our lessons and make sure that you are being respectful to all religions, beliefs and customs. This is a beautiful time of the year to spread joy and be cheerful. Lets make it a great holiday season for not only our family but also our students when they are in school!
This picture can be found at: www.poofcat.com/christmas.html

1st week of Officiating

This was the first weekend of officiating Suburban basketball games for the 2009-2010 season. I first had to complete my floor training on Friday night as I refereed 3 games in a row. I learned so much from the other officials that were there, as they helped me during time outs and the halftimes. After my first game I became much more comfortable and it started to come more naturally to me. So on Saturday I was ready for my first paying games. I did 2 games in Granby with my father, who is also a referee. They went really well and we had a lot of fun with the kids. Today I did 2 games with my uncle in Amherst, and I learned a lot from him who is a veteran referee who does High School games. This a perfect side job for me during the different seasons, but I can tell you that refereeing soccer is much, much easier than basketball! I am slowly learning the proper mechanics and hope that by the end of this season, I will have had plenty of experience and have great confidence to do High School games next year. I still have a lot to learn but I hope to learn quick and be a good and fair official!

You can find this picture at http://www.callitinc.com/

Nick's view from the Couch

The New England Patriots have now fallen on the road in Miami and fall to 7-5. Tom Brady and the Patriots offense could not come back late in the 4th quarter for the win. The Colts and Saints move to 12-0 and remain undefeated. Brady jogged to the locker room after his 58 yard touchdown pass to Randy Moss and it was later reported that it was an arm injury. He already was coming into the game with a swollen finger that was black and blue. The Patriots now can only do one thing to justify these loses. The New Orleans Saints and Indianapolis Colts need to go undefeated into the playoffs, then the Patriots will beat the Colts in the AFC championship game, then beat the undefeated New Orleans Saints in the Super Bowl! Only this sequence of games and wins will make this a successful season! I still strongly believe that they can win the big one if they get stronger on defense and Brady steps his game into All Star mode!

You can find these pictures at: www.patriots.com

Tiger apologizes to media for personal indiscretions

The Tiger Woods car accident has grown from a mysterious late night crash in his driveway, to public confessions of personal indiscretions. Tiger apologized for his "personal sins" and hoped that the public will grant his privacy on this family matter. It is evident that Tiger has cheated on his wife, Elin Nordegran, who is a former Swedish model. It has been reported that she has started to renegotiate her prenuptial agreement, and her payout is huge. There have been rumors ranging that the payout is close to 80 million dollars, if she decided to file for a divorce.

You can find this picture at: www.examiner.com

I have to give credit to Tiger at least for admitting his wrong doings. He could have tried to hide his problems but he came out to the public and apologized. I hope that Tiger and his family can work this out, and they do not damage their relationship with their daughter. I am extremely disappointed in Tiger, because he is a popular role model for many young people. Hopefully Tiger can learn from this and be a better person in the future.

Armor & Minutemen off to rough start

You can find this picture at: www.masslive.com

The new NBA development league team, "The Springfield Armor," brings excitement early to the city of Springfield, but has started off to an 0-2 losing streak. I am going to see a game because a former Hampshire League All Star is on the team and there is also many talented players that are in this league trying to make the NBA. They are fun games to watch and I think more people should take advantage of this high level of basketball that is being played in the city. The MassMutual Center is great arena and a fun atmosphere to have a great time at the game.

The Umass Minutemen (2-4) have started off on a rocky road with big loses from teams including the number 2 ranked team in the nation, Michigan State. Coach Derek Kellogge is in a rebuilding stage of his coaching career at Umass, and hopefully he will be over with it soon! This is a test of Kellogges character and coaching strategies that will either prevail him into the coaching world, or greatly hurt his reputation and pride. I am routing for him because I can remember how great of a leader he was when he played point guard for Umass back in the 90's. I hope he can bring the "glory days" back to Umass basketball in the near future!

Personal & Social Responsibility Model

I think that this is my second favorite instructional model presented by Metzler. As an elementary PE teacher, my favorite model is the Peer Teaching "I teach you, then you teach me". This model is very similar in many ways. As Meaghan and I described, the first domain priority that we agreed upon is the affective domain in the Peer Teaching Model. It is the same for the Personal and Social Responsibility Model, which enforces students to individually take part and "hold their own" with respecting and cooperating with others. These two instructional models are very diverse and are highly recommended for only effective teachers who clearly understand how to implement the model successfully. They can both be highly successful at the elementary level as well as the middle and high school as well. I really like this model because we are now focusing on teaching our students how to be respectful and cooperative individuals. We teach them what they need to do to successfully communicate with each other at an efficient way. As teachers, we are now focusing on how the affective and cognitive domains more so than the psychomotor. I really enjoy teaching these lessons because we are developing our students to be successful students! I am very excited about Lewis' and Virginia's presentation on Tuesday! Good luck !