January 2013

Best Book of January 2013--before you get to the good stuff--

Bring Up the Bodies--there's a reason that this won the Booker Prize.  Just as intense as the first part (Wolf Hall), in fact, maybe more so, because the timeline is so condensed and Anne Boleyn's demise happens so fast.  

January 2013 Pictures: 

January 1: 2013 hit the ground running--Aimee's wedding gown fitting was scheduled for the first day of the year! 

January 2: I was studying hardcore
for the Spanish test I was taking in a few
days.  The best study method? Reading
Harry Potter in Spanish.  

  January 3: One of the things I was trying this year was to do a themed picture if nothing particularly interesting was happening that day.  This picture, the cafeteria at Little Run after the kids had left for the day, captured repetition perfectly.

January 4: This one to me is about just how weird getting wedding clothes for guys can be.  Aim and I headed to Men's Wearhouse to look into options for Timothy.  

 January 5: I hate manicures because of how easily they chip, but these are the sophisticated version of the stickers we used to put on our nails as kids.  They stay on for two weeks and look like they took me lots of time, and talent.

January 6: Downton Abbey is back for the season--Aimee and I headed over to Sarah's to watch the season premiere!

 January 7: It was go time--time to see if I could translate 500 words of Spanish into English in two hours.  I just got in under the time limit and felt blessed--it turned out that I recognized the passage from Like Water for Chocolate.  Please pass me.  

January 8: Our recycling day had been Christmas Day and then New Year's Day the last two weeks.  No one was sure if they'd be picking things up the next day or not, so what ended up happening was this--a mountain of recycling by the curb. 

 January 9:

Best news ever--earlier than expected.  Spanish test passed, 

stress level way reduced.  

 January 10: I was pumped to try some things this year--reading Heart of the World, a book Jade had gotten me a little bit ago, and trying to remember to pray for Jackie and Andrew down in St. Maarten.  Somehow the rubber bands were perfect--I would put them on each night before bed and pray for them, then do it again the next morning before I took them off.

January 11: Coming down with a bad cold, scared that it's the flu.  (It doesn't end up being one, thank goodness.  Especially since I had plans this weekend!)

January 12: I headed to Woodstock to see Ash, runny nose and all.  We went to see Les Mis, but the real highlight, the real reason I was super glad to see her was finding out she was going to have a baby!

January 13: I'm not usually too pumped to leave Ash and Jake's and especially considering I was feeling even worse than before, the dreary day perfectly matched my mood. 

January 14: So good to see their (tan) faces! Even though I'd just see them at Christmas, Skyping down to St. Maarten was the highlight of my day!

January 15: George Mason takes on (and beats!) James Madison.  One of the funniest parts--our student section chanting 66 to 81 at JMU's players near the end of the game.  

January 16: Caribou was pretty new to our shopping complex, and I'm not going to lie, having a coffee shop right next to Trader Joe's is both awesome and dangerous. 

January 17: The day was cloudy, but not snowy.  Even though the weathermen were calling for snow, I was waiting a mile away from work, sadly saying goodbye to our snow day possibility.  

January 18: Kid Pic

January 19: Theme inspired--bright light.  I love the way the sun streams in through these (kind of ugly) curtains.  

January 20: Continuing to get rid of my old fat clothes is a really healthy, cleansing thing.  Except for the part where most of them were cute clothes that I liked.  But these are all going away.  

January 21: Inauguration Day! I wouldn't have braved it by myself, and I might not need to ever do it again, but with Christiana and Tony, I went into DC to see Barak Obama sworn in for his second term. 

January 22:  A Bracing Cold as Sheldon Cooper would say.  If we were lucky it might get to 20 degrees today. 

January 23: Back to buying books again--the semester is about ready to re-start.  I love buying a few new books, especially since my textbooks tend to be fairly inexpensive. 

January 24: It wasn't a huge dumping of snow that got us out for a few days, but it was good for a two-hour delay.  And especially after a late Carolina game the night before, it was perfect. 

January 25: I took Ab to PinkBerry after she came for an afternoon mall trip and got stuck here for the night.  She missed Timmy, and I did too a little bit since I was planning to drive home with her and see him last night too.  But this was a pretty yummy treat.  

January 26: Making up for last night I had a blast hanging out with Tim at Mom and Dad's house.  

January 27: Timmy Bear at church in Newville.  He looks so strangely bald right here since he has hair now!

January 28: Really, these have been the same price for more than 20 years? It almost makes me think they were overpriced then...

January 29th: Aimee models her bridesmaid dress and the necklace she thought about pairing it with after a long day shopping :) 

January 30th: I tend to be cranky driving home super late from class.  Especially in the rain.  Especially when a minor accident totally slows down traffic right before the highway.  Grr... But the colors look pretty. 

January 31st: Applying for jobs--both for next year and summer time--is like a full time job itself!

Project 365, Year Two

Year in Review

So for the second year in a row, I've been working on Project 365--taking at least one photo every day and capturing what's going on in my life and things that catch my eye.  They could be funny or odd or quirky, or endearing.  And as of, and including, today, December 16th, I've managed to take a picture each day.  Which is better than 2012 when by this point I'd missed two days.  So provided I don't screw up in the next two weeks, I'm in good shape.

Unsurprisingly, I've also kept track of the books I've read this year, so along with the pictures for each month, I'm including the best book of the month.  Not officially of course, just in my opinion.

So each month will be a different post, and even though I took a picture each day, there are some days that I took them of kids that I was working with at that time.  Those pictures won't be on the blog for obvious reasons.  You'll just have to trust they exist, but that I'm not putting them on the internet for the world.

Happy last few weeks of 2013!

After 40 Days

Crow

"Courage man, the hurt cannot be much..."

I’m not sure exactly why this is the line that sticks in my mind over the past few days.  It’s not really appropriate at all considering that the line is from Romeo and Juliet and the ‘hurt’ is Mercutio’s fatal stab wound.  But courage has been on my mind lately.

Today is my last day of my 40 Days of Yoga.  I’ve loved it for the most part—there was one day where I did not want to be there.  I wasn’t just sort of annoyed—I actively wanted to leave.  I’m not sure if I wasn’t hydrated enough or very well rested.  I don’t know if I was just having an off day.   All I know is, I couldn’t force my legs into the deep squat of chair pose for the 42^nd time that class, and I struggling to hold wheel for the ten breaths that Churck wanted.

        In a lot of ways, my 40 days of yoga (and by the way, today will be my 33^rd class in 40 days) has been about things that didn’t really happen.  I didn’t go to the coaching sessions after the first two times.  I haven’t done the increasing time of meditation each day.  I haven’t lost a ton of weight—actually if my scale is to be believed I’ve gained two pounds in the past 40 days (I’m going to say it’s muscle).  I also haven’t had to think nearly as hard lately about making sure I’m drinking enough water—it’s become a pretty solid habit especially since I was already drinking a decent amount of water to begin with.  I haven’t become a totally solid yogi who can do ridiculous arm balances at the drop of a hat.                 

               I have also lost my perspective of what’s normal for a person’s body to be able to do.  I feel like a slacker because I can’t do a headstand or side crow, which are totally ridiculous expectations for about 99% of people in general in the world.  But I have this perception because more than half the people in a lot of my classes can do these things, that I should be doing them too.  So yoga, for me, might be about letting go of that idea of what “should be” and just being impressed with what is. 

                I’m going to miss belonging to this studio, but I’m also excited to not feel so chained to the classes.  It’s been one of the first things I’ve had to plan around when I’m trying to figure out what I’m doing in the evening, and there isn’t really a way to do it from home (at least not really as effectively) if I can’t or don’t want to head over to Dancing Mind.  I’m also sort of glad I didn’t lose a ton of weight.  If I had totally changed my body into a lean, mean, yoga machine I would probably be trying harder to make myself find this affordable.  So as it is, I’m walking away from Dancing Mind for the next little while.

                If there’s something I am disappointed about, it’s about that fact that I still can’t do crow.  I understand better how to, know what I was doing wrong before, but I still can’t do it.  And as Maggie, the hardest instructor I’ve had for any athletic class anywhere, ever, told me, it’s fear that holds me back.  And she’s right.  The moments I’ve been just about there are when I can feel that I might actually do a total face plant into the ground and that has made me come out of the pose early. It’s totally fear.

                The interesting thing about being in pretty warm yoga is that, even now, there’s a small element of fear—will I get too hot, will I be able to make it through this class, will I fall flat on my face—much more so than any other exercise program.  And not to sound too much like a cliché quote with a pretty background that you find on Pinterest—I sometimes wonder how much I would be able to do if I wasn’t afraid.

                Fear doesn’t rule my life—it doesn’t have nearly as much control as it did at other parts in my life—what if I don’t do well in this class, what if this person doesn’t like me, what if I let this person down—but there are still things I shy away from because I’m afraid.  Yoga has taught me something about what I can do—and also what I’m not doing, but maybe could.  If I tried crow, really tried, I would probably fall the first time or first few times.  But it wouldn’t hurt that much.  Certainly not as much as Mercutio’s wound.   

NaNoWriMo

"You better [start writing] now because you know how to write, and you have fingers, and you have this one life, and during this one life, you should put your words down, and make your voice heard, and then let others hear your voice. And the only way any of that’s going to happen is if you actually do it. People can’t read the thoughts in your head. They can only read the thoughts you put down, carefully and with great love, on the page.  –Dave Eggers

So I have another project that’s come up in the past two days.  I mean, I haven’t decided it in the last two days, I’ve started it in the last two days.  November is National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo for short.  I didn’t actually come up with that particularly strange nickname, but I have decided to participate in it. 

            What is NaNoWriMo you ask? It’s a decision and commitment--not financial, just personal—to write everyday for the month of November and to have that writing come to at least 50,000 words. It’s the writing of your novel (usually you first one I believe).  The one that needs to be written that you can’t seem to do and this is the thing that pushes you into actually doing it.  You don’t finish with a final draft, ready to send out to publishers book, you have a first draft that you can then do some things with it—revise it and then move on to getting your novel really finished enough to send off to publication. 

            So I’m doing it. 

            It isn’t the best timing considering my forty days of yoga doesn’t end until November 15^th, so having two things I’m committing to do pretty much everyday is going to be a stretch.  A pretty big stretch and maybe a sleepy one on some days.  (So I already apologize for the times I’m cranky, especially the beginning of this month.) But it’s also something I need to and that I’m excited about.  (On a side note, yoga is continuing to go really well.  I made it six days a week the first two weeks and have gotten there five days a week the past two.  So with two more to go, I’m aiming for six times a week once again. My arms are getting much stronger and maybe it’s only me that thinks my triceps are less flabby, but I’m feeling more tone overall.  The only strange part is that I’m starting to think that being in a hot yoga room for about ninety minutes almost everyday has lessened my tolerance for other, cooler temperatures.  Not that I can’t deal with the cold, just that I never used to get cold before and now I always feel cold.  Sort of weird.)

            So I’m pumped to write my novel.  Other than the part that I’m not writing a novel.  Not really.  I’m writing a memoir of sorts—the book that has been inside of me that needs to be written is not fictional.  I’m not writing about something that’s imitating life, I’m writing about a key part of my life.   I’m writing the story about the student who has been the most meaningful of my career, the student who taught me more about life and what it means to struggle and to have a wonderful life even with struggles.  It’s the story I’ve been meaning to write for a long time, the one that one my best writing mentors, Patrick, told me he hoped grad school would help me write.  Grad school has gotten me ready to write this story even though I didn’t write it for one of my classes.  So even though it should be a novel, I’m going to write a book-length, novelesque memoir. 

            So I started the book over that I’ve tried to start half a dozen times and this time I might actually be able to finish it.  I will actually finish it.  This month.   

            I’m not slightly terrified by those two sentences.  Not at all.  

I Don't Get It

“Nothing could be as hard as middle school.” –Zooey Deschanel

There are many things I don’t understand about middle school—things no one really understands like why they smell the way they do, why some of them are haven’t started to grow yet and some are over six feet tall, and exactly why they react to things the way they do.  But there are two really strange things I don’t understand about my specific kids, and they are as a different from one another as the populations they represent.

The first is something that at first really annoyed me.   Many, almost all, of my minority students—my Hispanic students and my African American students—call me “Miss.”  Not Ms. Short, just Miss.  And often times it’s “Miss! Miss! Miss!” in rapid succession.  I thought at first that they didn’t know my name and that they were saying the first part of my name until they could locate my last name in their brain.  But after asking in what I’m sure was an annoyed voice—after all I was annoyed—what my name was, they could all say “Ms. Short” almost immediately.  So it wasn’t that they weren’t sure of my name.  It’s that they think that the appropriate and respectful way to address a teacher or an adult is to just say “Miss.” And if they really want my attention it’s “Miss! Miss! Miss!” because then they’ve asked three times for my attention.  They aren’t stuttering or struggling, they think they’ve called me to them thrice.  Which I suppose I’m learning to deal with, but still strikes me as odd and I really wish it weren’t uber-respectful in their minds.  At least I don’t have any of them who call me “Teacher” the way that some kids over the summer did to friends of mine.

The other issue is just weird and doesn’t have anything to do with being respectful to me; it’s just strange.  I have a few boys—not a ton, but definitely a consistent few--who wear a special kind of shorts almost every day.  Friday, one of them was wearing a light, pastel pink version of these shorts.  They’re called Chubbies and they are perhaps the most ridiculous fashion statement a man could make.  So on a middle school man-child, they are even more absurd than usual. 

If you aren’t familiar with the short-shorts known as Chubbies, they are intended to come to about mid-thigh on men and they have elastic waistbands and they also are generally made in noticeable colors or prints.  One of the most famous ones are the ‘Merica shorts that are an American flag (see them here http://www.chubbiesshorts.com/collections/the-originals/products/mericas).  The entire concept of them visually is strange, although I suppose if you’re an adult male and you want to spend a lot of money on these shorts, I suppose that’s your prerogative.  The really strange thing to me is that middle school boys own them. Which means their parents are purchasing them for them. 

Why do men wear these shorts?

The part that really sets me over the edge is looking at the website where one could purchase a pair of these shorts.  The culture they represent seems to be future, current, and former frat boys.  The worst stereotypes of frat boys.  If you look at the website you’ll find that these shorts are designed to help you get laid and it outright states that any sexual relations you have after purchasing a pair of Chubbies are directly related to said ownership.    So truthfully, harmless enough in general among stupid adult males who think they are being funny and embodying a certain culture that (hopefully) they will someday grow out of.  But why on earth are there several 13 year old boys who not only know about them, but own multiple pairs of these shorts?  They don’t actually even get the reference of why these are called chubbies, and when we told them to look it up on urban dictionary at home, rather than being scarred by it, they didn’t really seem to care all that much.  And even as it’s getting cold outside (it was in the 30s this morning) they are still wearing them.  Apparently on Fridays they wear Chubbies.

Kids are crazy.  They will always do things I just don’t understand.  They’ll do things that they look back on and think, “What was I thinking? That was stupid!” At least I hope they will.  

Forty Days of Yoga: ¼ of the Way Through!

I totally look like this during yoga. Always.

“Exercises are like prose, whereas yoga is the poetry of movements.” –Amit Ray

Day 10:

I hurt.  Everywhere pretty much, but especially in my arms.   I’ve taken nine Baptiste yoga classes in ten days and I feel stronger and cleansed in a I’m-drinking-a-gallon-of-water-a-day-sweating-a-lot kind of way.   And I love it.

I sort of fell in love with Dancing Mind Yoga, the only Baptiste yoga studio in the Metro area (okay, the only one I’ve ever heard of ever) a little over a year ago, but I couldn’t afford to do more than the Groupon deal for a month and they don’t let returning students take advantage of Groupons after that first time.   But I didn’t forget about the studio either.

Baptiste Yoga is regular yoga, in a pretty hot room (95 degrees or so), on speed.  It’s not the traditional hot Bikram yoga which is 104ish degrees and involves standing in the same (generally sort of crazy) positions for long breaths.  It’s a flow class that involves most of the popular yoga poses like Chair Pose, Warrior 1, and High-to-Low Plank.  Low Plank, also known as Chaturanga Dandasana, is the pose that’s causing my arms to become stronger, but also to hurt like crazy.  If you don’t believe me, you try hovering just off the floor in plank, with your elbows close to your side.   Just hang out there for awhile.  Do it two dozen or so times in the next hour.  You’ll be sore too.   But this sort of yoga doesn’t just encourage these normal poses, it also goes all crazy and has people doing headstands and side-crow and splits frequently.  And most of the class is done at an extremely rapid pace.   Until that moment when you’re in Chair pose, just squatting deeper and you realize everything has slowed down.  And at that moment I always want the rapid-fire instructions back.   It kicks my ass every time.  I totally love it. 

So it’s not that Dancing Mind has suddenly become more affordable to me.  It’s a treat I gave myself, sort of a I have a real job now and can take part in a special offer they’re running.  It’s 40 Days to Personal Revolution.  Honestly, I’m not sure how much of a revolution I need in my life right now, but 40 days of unlimited yoga was the selling point for me.  It’s a 40 day challenge I want to take, and I wanted to see if I would get stronger as a result of yoga every day.  No cardio or weights or P90X, just damn warm yoga. 

I love it enough that after every class I wonder if I can afford to continue to have a membership there.  At $99 a month for unlimited classes, it’s not a small financial commitment, certainly more than any other gym that offers a much wider variety of options for classes and equipment. (If anyone would like to privately fund my continued classes at Dancing Mind and end my internal after-class struggle, just let me know J.)  But it’s the best full body workout I’ve ever gotten, it’s so much fun, and I feel so accomplished when I leave, having almost done a headstand, or doing Bird of Paradise for the first time.  And so I go back and forth every time.

The other part of the personal revolution—the coaching on Wednesday nights is actually a lot harder for me to deal with than I thought.  Most of the time whenever we’ve done meditation or deep relaxation, it’s a time of prayer for me.  So even though I know some people who are anti-yoga because it is part of an eastern religious way of life (love you Ben!), I’ve never felt like there was anything wrong with it.  My sister called me a post-modernist recently, which I’ve never thought was true about me (and by most people’s standards, I’m not at all).  I believe in absolutes too much.  But I do think that the command to “Be still and know that I am God,” can be achieved, even in a sweaty studio, lying on a yoga mat. 

So I didn’t expect to struggle with the other parts of the 40 Days program.  But as we sat there on our mats in a studio that was slightly cooler than normal, our coach, the owner of the studio, was encouraging us to realize that though things “seem” difficult in your life, they only seem that way and all the power to fix those problems is already within us.  We can fix any problem by believing in ourselves. 

I’ve heard this sort of thinking before, but for some reason I really struggled with hearing it now.  Maybe it was because of all these people, who truly want something to change in their life putting their faith in themselves.  I know there are people who’ve had some sort of success with this way of thinking, but I am not one of those people.  If it was up to me, if I had everything within me for strength and understanding and power I would be more terrified than anything else.   It’s liberating to know that it’s not all up to me.  That I can just be the clay rather than being the potter.  It’s a freedom that takes some getting used to and there are a ton of days where I’m determined to be the potter.  But I’m not supposed to be and honestly, when I try, I fail.  Utterly. 

I knew I probably wouldn’t agree with everything that they said in this 40 Day journey.  I just didn’t really expect to want stand up and say, “With Jesus,” after almost everything that our leader said was possible for us.  I didn’t say it, but the fact that I wanted to, sort of intensely, was pretty weird for me.  And maybe that’s an unexpected road for me in this journey.  Which I suppose is sort of the point—trying new things, seeking stillness, and desiring God in that stillness.

 I think I’m going to go back to the coaching session tonight.  Not necessarily because I think I’ll get anything life changing out of it, but because I think it’s worth trying things more than just once.  Also, because I somehow made a friend last week and I want to try to honor that friendship and get to know her more.  But after tonight, we’ll see.  Between getting there, practicing yoga, a short break, the coaching session, and driving home, it’s a four hour weeknight commitment.  So it may not be a thing I do for the next five weeks, but as I remember my almost headstand, I realize there are a lot of things that have been unexpected in the first ten days of the forty, and there might be many more to come.

Composed upon Watching Penn State and Indiana

"Life is filled with adversity. The way you travel through life is how you handle adversity, and that is how you're defined as a man." –Bill O’Brien

I love basketball enough that I’ll watch it alone.  It’s not my all time favorite—given the choice I’ll watch it with people everyday of the week, but I haven’t managed to convince many roommates they want to watch it with me very often.  It might have something to do with the way I yell at the screen or spontaneously add more items of Carolina blue as some games progress.  (To be clear, I know they can’t really hear or see me, it’s just a habit that makes me feel better.  Also, despite some fears, I would never actually throw anything at the screen.  It had never even occurred to me.)  So the only times I really know I’m going to watch the game with someone is when I go home for the weekend and when the game is a late one since Dad usually works weekends through tax season, which corresponds with the best part of basketball season.   I don’t know how much Dad loves it when I come home to watch the game because I talk during sports.  Not incessantly.  Not about nothing.  And ever since 2009 it’s substantially less because I finally got a taste of my own medicine and hated it when Andrew and I were trying to watch the second round UNC/LSU game in March.  The guests over at my parents’ house to celebrate my dad’s birthday didn’t seem to even realize there was an important game on TV and I suddenly realized what I had been doing to Dad for years. 

But it’s not basketball season yet.  It’s still football season and even though it feels like summer outside today, it’s autumn and that means Penn State games.  Maybe it was because I was at home for the first game of the season this year and heard my mom trying to pronounce Stephen Obeng-Agyapong’s name and listen to her think aloud through who her favorite players are going to be this year for various reasons.   It might even go back to last season when I happened to be home for the last game of the season—the one where Sam Ficken redeemed himself as a kicker by winning the game in overtime with a field goal against Wisconsin after failing to successfully complete field goals against Virginia in a 17-16 loss for PSU.   Maybe it was seeing the raw emotion from Bill O’Brien—whose face on the sideline was the strangest part about last season---after the final game was over when during his interview he may have called his players “fighters” (or something far less PG… http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/24/bill-obrien-curses-f-bomb-penn-state-wisconsin_n_2185860.html).  Whatever the reason, I’ve been trying to watch Penn State games whenever possible this season.  I’m really not a fan of watching football alone—I’m not as used to it and I don’t love Penn State like I love Carolina—I won’t plan my day around making sure I’m home for the game.  It makes me miss my dad when I watch it alone.  Partly because I don’t understand the subtleties of football quite as well since I’ve never played it.  Partly because I think sports are really meant to be watched communally—otherwise you end up doing things like writing blog posts about your philosophical views on watching sports. 

           But maybe the point is I’m willing to not only make an effort to watch Penn State again, but to admit that I’m a Penn State fan at all.  It wasn’t an easy thing to say for awhile.  To admit that I still have some love for the now-deceased Joe Paterno.  To say that I still have anger and frustration about most of the aspects of the Penn State scandal.  But that I’m still a fan of the Nittany Lions.

This year college football has a new rule about players targeting with their helmets and there are severe consequences, with the intention being to keep the players safe.  It’s a rule that seems to make a lot of sense—if you are doing something that could cause possible harm—you, the person who committed the foul—are penalized.  This should have the effect that it will happen less often and the college football game should then be safer as a result. 

This is not what happened in the sanctions delivered by the NCAA to Penn State.  There are so many ways I feel about the whole situation.  Sickened that people didn’t do enough, didn’t make absolutely, 100% sure that children were safe.  Angered that a clearly sick and disgusting man had the continued ability to interact with children who couldn’t protect themselves against him.  Annoyed that said sicko continues to try to appeal what seems to be a very just prison sentence.

There are only a few things I feel good about—that the victims have justice, finally.  That Sandusky can’t hurt any more children.  That the money Penn State is paying in a fine is going towards child victims of sex abuse.    

It also makes me sad that a legendary coach who taught so many young men good things about football, and hopefully about life, has died not a legend, but a tainted figure.  It makes me sad that he died at all.  It’s unscientific but a big part of me thinks this whole situation was really why he died.  It also makes me sad, as a person who also works with young people, that he didn’t understand his real job was to protect those who couldn’t do it themselves.  That he didn’t go further than just the minimum.  That he didn’t do any and everything that was necessary.   

If you look at the Penn State football team today, you see they are led by true freshman quarterback Christian Hackenberg.  He wasn’t even old enough to walk when the events of the scandal began and yet he won’t be able to play in a bowl game until his senior year of college.  If you look at the sidelines of the players, coaches, and people involved in Penn State football you won’t find anyone who was there when Sandusky was doing unspeakable crimes.  Those people have been fired, or jailed, or have died.   But you do see the players who are feeling the greatest impact of the NCAA sanctions—no bowl games which means they won’t be ranked.  Not as many scholarships, which means they aren’t playing with the highest caliber players like they could have been.    Dad and I have talked about—it doesn’t make sense to punish people who have absolutely nothing to do with crime.  It doesn’t make sense that a body like the NCAA which has no authority in criminal cases is punishing a football team for something that criminal that a former football coach did, even though that coach has finally been punished by the criminal system. 

I understand intellectually that this is just the way it works—the current team gets punished for mistakes those who have come before them have made.  It’s not the ideal situation, but it’s the only solution they’ve come up with the to the problem.  It reminds me a lot what I’ve said about standardized testing—it isn’t good, but it’s the only solution they’ve found so far to the answer of accountability.  If you don’t know me well enough to know this already, this is not a compliment. 

I’m glad the day has come where I can admit to watching Penn State again. I hope that soon there will be a day when I can watch a Penn State football game without thinking about all these things in the background.  I hope there will be a game where the announcers don’t mention Sandusky, the sanctions, or any of the whole mess.  I hope that day will come soon.