PrivateTim

There is waaaaaaaaaaaaay too much soccer, it is more overexposed than Beckham.... Euro Cup, Champions Cup, Copa Eurpoa, Europa League, when does it ever end?

Everything is fun about the Olympics from the equestrian, to team handball, water polo, wrestling, basketball, tennis, badminton, kayaking, open water swimming (RIP Crip), fencing, weightlifting, shooting, etc. All of it. Athletes who train and sacrifice in obscurity for the chance to compete on the world stage once every four years. In some sports, one shot is all you have, you are either too young or too old to make it more than once.

Germany looked like they were phoning it in. They didn't look engaged at all and the kind of defense they were playing (which means none at all) a competent 18U could have beaten them. Don't get me wrong, Italy played brilliantly and had they had anyone but Gianluigi Buffon in goal, it might have been a different game. Then again, if Germany hadn't had Manuel Neuer in goal, it could have been 4-0 at halftime. You can't fault him for Germany's porous and lackadaisical defense. The defenders were beaten and beaten badly time and again. The final is a very tough call for me on who to root for. My beloved Jamón ibérico vs an equally beloved Parma prosciutto.

Your views are way too black and white. H-W cares about it kids. It isn't some 1960's caricature of an elite prep school, it is a model 2000's elite prep school where there is a blending of high expectations and discipline with compassion and genuinely liking their kids and treating each one as an individual. They don't have to be a school with crazy black and white rules like a public school has where they'll suspend a kid who has a deli plastic knife to slice their cheese at lunch. You also grossly underestimate the importance of personal relationships in this world. The headmaster doesn't just admire JP, he knows JP and JP knows him. His son knows JP and who knows Peter may have been a guest at Escorial for a meal or two. Yes the money and power of Stef and Brad and Robbie would be a factor too, because even the sky high tuition rates at H-W don't begin to cover all the expenses of the school. But if Will were a bad kid or perceived as a detriment to the school, he'd get the boot. But that wasn't the case here. Will is a good student who hasn't caused the school any real problem and comes from a good family that the headmaster has personal knowledge of. All those factors make Mark's scenario beyond plausible, his are the likely outcomes given the totality of the situation.

The BCS is going to a four team playoff format and I think it will create more problems than it solves.

Well I haven't helped yet because I am still looking for the situation that you are looking to use volleyball in, but PM me with the info you need and I can give you what ever you need. PS, volleyball never has more that 6 players on a side. 2 man and sometimes 4 man are what you see on the beach usually.

Divers are too fat to be interesting.

Are you talking indoors six man or beach two-man? What is the setting? What kind of terms do you need to know? Do you want technical or slang?

Cool chapter as usual. I see future problems with Will and his mom and a reemergence of problems with Tiffany since I don't think they've really resolved their issues yet. I was a little surprised that Will just happened to have a condom and lube in his pocket on a flight to Oslo, but okay... maybe not. Cool that he and Shane connected, Shane seems like a good guy, I hope we get to see more of him down the road.

"Heartbreak again for England" yelled the announcer. Really? Was any England fan expecting something different? I don't know they didn't just send the whole Chelsea team and be done with it.

Yes indeed, hippo birdie two ewe

I doubt any of these kids are actually bad kids. They are junior high school kids which makes them a complete mess. They are in that time between childhood and adulthood. Their bodies are messing with them left and right, they are incredibly insecure about everything and putting down others is a classic reaction to insecurity. The situation escalated from the initial insults because there were no consequences for the initial push. It is the proverbial, "give them an inch" situation. If you come down hard on them at the start you can control the situation and direct them back to appropriate behavior, but once you have lost control it is hard to stuff that genie back in the bottle. In order to regain control you need to use more force and vigor than you would have had to otherwise used if you nipped it early. Believe it or not, kids want structure, discipline and direction. When you give it to them, they respond well. When you leave them to their own devices, they are a disaster.

Oh hell, she'd still make your squirt tears like a little girl.

If she can not be a "hard ass" she has no business working with junior high kids, especially in her role as a bus monitor where she is there to control them. She is not a "defenseless" woman (what does gender have to do with it anyway?), she is a person with the full weight of authority of the school system behind her. And what does age have to do with it? No way in h-e-double hockey sticks would my 82 year grandmother have put up with that BS. She'd have destroyed the little ships. Because Karen didn't nip it in the bud from the first comment, it went on.

Half of my family including my mother, grandmother, two cousins, an uncle and two aunts, are professional educators (or retired) and not one is/was in a private school. My aunt and her husband teach in very tough schools and neither one has discipline problems. My cousins are in better districts, but that doesn't mean it is easier, it can be harder in some ways. And given the amount of time I spend in public schools, I am well aware of what goes on and what teachers can and can not do. I know a bunch of kids who go to a high school where probably 30% of the school are gang members and probably 40% drop out, but these kids exhibit a level of respect and discipline that you wouldn't expect given all the negative things you hear about kids these days, but one of those "kids", now a Stanford grad, will be representing the US in London this summer. It is possible to be a strict disciplinarian without raising your voice, calling kids names or physically touching them. I see it work every day.

How would my Mom, the 30 year veteran professional educator, reacted? She'd have had the bus driver pull over the bus the while she disciplined the kids involved, moved them, and reported them to the school, done whatever she needed. Even my 82 year old grandmother, who spent 43 years as a professional educator, would have had no problem dealing with a freakin' 7th grader. As to what were Karen's duty and authority, here is her job description from the Greece Central School District website. So yes, she had the authority and duty to stop what was happening.

An adult supervisor of 7th graders has no excuse for being "bullied" by them. She is the one in charge. She is the one with the full power of the system behind her. If she can not control them and doesn't know how to deal with 7th graders than she is doing the wrong thing. That is the cold, hard truth. How could she protect any of the other kids on the bus if she couldn't control these kids?

Okay sorry, but adults, especially ones who are supposed to be supervising kids have to be a bit more hard nosed than this. Like a 13 year old could make me cry. The first one who said a thing to me about "you're fat", my response would be, "I might be fat, but I'm not spending next week in detention like you."

I like this look.... heading to the Rider Strong look.

I thought this was an interesting line, "Hot Jeff looked at me, as if he wanted to say something, but I ignored him, and he was hustled off anyway. " It sounds like Jeff maybe wanted to apologize to Will, but didn't get a chance. I don't think Jeff is a bad guy, in fact I think he is quite a good guy. I don't remember how he came to be in Father Tim's shelter, but it would certainly explain a lot of his behaviors. You are bound to be changed by the experiences that led you to the shelter and the experiences at the shelter. It is understandable why he wants a meaningful relationship, not just the usual shallow physical encounters of his age group. It also might explain some resentment towards Will who has all the support and privilege he never had and yet Will still felt persecuted enough to do what he did. That all had to have seemed silly, or more than silly, to someone like Jeff who experienced what he had. On a side note, relating to a comment in the review section, I don't remember surfers in 2000 having long hair, that seems more like a 70's, 80's thing. Top surfers like Kelly Slater, Colin McPhillips, Sunny Garcia, C.J Hobgood and Joel Tudor all had shorter hair.

In poopy diapers for most of them!

Sorry, but I've never bought into that "1990 is really part of the 80's" argument. It didn't work for the millennium celebrations and it still isn't

Ha ha, fun chapter for me. I hope Julian is reading still

As my father says..... when he was a kid only criminals and enlisted men had tattoos

You think that is bad.... how about this one?