Angry Kate

My angry side comes out during basketball, mostly. I sometimes wonder what the girls doing score-bench think (being current students at my school) when they see me giving incredulous looks at the ref and arguing calls.

I dunno what it's like in the men's league (Jon and Morgan?) but the women's league has what we call 'family rules' where certain teams are pretty much all cousins with the referees. So they get away with pushing you in the back when you're cutting, yanking your arm when you're getting a rebound, breaking early on free-throws, etc. It's annoying.

Tonight was our semi-final. We were playing a team that we've actually beaten the last two times we played them, in fairly close games. I think we surprised them both times - they're a pretty savvy, experienced bunch and they play a physical game. So we knew they were going to come out really intensely tonight - they even did a proper lay-up drill during warmup time (while we sat around going, 'Pfffft - we're not wasting our energy..... (uh, we don't even have a ball anyhow)').

I got angry when I said to the ref, before a free-throw, 'Can you watch the breaking, please?' really polite-like..... to which the ref said, 'I have been' hautily... and proceeded to let someone go in blatantly before the shooter had released the shot, right in front of me.... at which point I just stood still, thinking, 'Well he HAS to call that - I just pointed it out to him - he's the base-line ref....' Nope. Grrr. Family-rules. That player tipped the ball and her team got the rebound. For flip's sakes - that's one of the easiest calls in basketball.

The satisfying part was scoring 7 of our 23 points (which is a pathetic total, really) on decently strong inside moves and holding them to 29 (which obviously means they won, but we were within four for the last few minutes, which is winnable, and not a lot of those points came from inside, so I did my job decently). I blocked lots of shot again.

We get a second-chance final next week, which is against an easier team (who somehow finished ahead of both of our teams). They're a team full of those annoying players who have awful, unbalanced, unco-looking shots they just kinda throw up randomly, but an unfairly large proportion of them go in.

* * *

Had parent interviews tonight. They were fine.

It's awkward when you get the end of what you have to say about a kid..... but the parent just kinda sits there, expecting more..... and you just say, 'So uh yes, she's doing fine,' and they nod, but don't budge. I think they're trying to take their full 5 minutes.

Seriously - I teach their kid 5 hours a fortnight, at the same time I'm teaching 28 or so other kids. I can remember the basics (clever/average/below-average/noisy/quiet/organised/lazy), and refer to a few notes in my markbook.... but I don't have a photographic memory of every piece of work she's done all year.

I think they're used to primary school where they have teachers who may have had them for several years, or who have them for most of the day, or at least teach them every day of the week. I teach about 140 kids.

I'm just happy I know all of their names (most of the time, as long as they sit in their regular seats).