Coaching... kinda, maybe not

---

So there is this under 19 soccer team that practices at a "stadium" (fieldhouse with attaxched fields) that i often go to to play ping pong and soccer. They are all very committed and individually very good, even in comparison to Europe and the UNited States. I played with them everyday for the first week, but they don't pass, and have such a lack of soccer knowledge that it was too frusturating to continue. They have a coach, whose only job it is to coach him, but he rarely comes to practicve and when he does, just sits on a bench and watches his sizable belly inch outward. So last weekend I went ot play with the adults, on saturady but they didnt come, so instead I played with this team. "Don't complain about the situation, don something about it" I said to myself. So in played weith the young kids (around 15) against the older ones. I coached and told all the kids on my team what to do and you know what... we destroyed the older team who were better in every way... except tactically. The next day I came to play with the adults and they were there again. Before I started playing the kids came up to me and were wanting me to teach them more stuff. It felt really good for them to want me to coach them, so I got the idea that maybe the coach would want an assistant. When I went to talk to him the next I found out just how wrong I was. He wasnt as dismissive as he was angry. I guess he thought it a slight that I would even offer to be his assistant. Too bad... but on the weekend I will still play with the kids and help them out. It just pains me to see taletn so wasted due to poor coaching, a plague that America is only now starting to cure.

One of the most hilarious moments of my life happened in Tamil class a couple of weeks ago and luckily I have recalled it while in front of my computer for once. We were in Tamil class, the 8 of us and the teacher and my fellow students had been especially talkative and I could tell that the teacher was starting to get fed up. I felt really bad, and the thoughts that went through my mind were something like, "These guys, theyre showing no respect. I wonder if I should say something. This is very rude." We were arrayed in our chairs in a semi-circle with Geoff to my right. All of the sudden everyone on the right side started laughing quietly in Geoff's direction. My frustration with them grew. Then Geoff turned around and I fell to the ground laughing! He had, while chewing on his pen chewed throguh the plastic and ruptured the thing that holds the ink resulting in a mouth that was fully blue. his teeth were completely dark blue, his lips, his tongue. You really have to see it to believe it. What amde it so funny though was the mindstate I was in. As he turned around all I was thiking was, Im sure whatever they were laughing at was minute, definitely not funny.

I am currently reading "The Conquest of Happiness" by Bertrand Russell. It was written in the 1930's but is still very applicable to today's world. I hadnt read any Russell before, but he has already won me over as the most lucid, clear thiker in history. Read that book if you can anyone, and everyone.

Of course, most of the things I wanted to say jumped out the back of my mind like a seaman from a burning ship, but I guess that just means that when I remember It'll be anoterh blog in the making.

Peace.

---