Sports Update and Music Club

Sports have officially taken over at Emmanuel High School. Last Thursday, we had our first event - heats. The school is split up into four teams - green, red, yellow and blue. For heats, each team runs races against other members of the same team, basically an intra-team competition. The winners of these races are the ones who will compete at Sports Day, when the teams compete against each other. I have been placed with the blue team - blue for blue ribbon, of course.
So, heats. I was really excited to watch the races, because even though I am not athletically inclined AT ALL, I'm surprisingly competitive and I love to trash talk (only with the other teachers...I support all students be they green, red, yellow or !blue!). I went early, geared up in my blue attire, and signed on as official 4th place timer. The day's events ranged from the 1000 meter to sprints, and all-in-all, I found the day to be rather disappointing. There was a lot more walking than I had anticipated, and many of the students refused to participate at all. I was hoping for a lot of school spirit and excitement, but I think apathy kind of took over. Plus, I got a wicked sunburn. I guess it beat being in class, though.
Tomorrow is our second sporting event, the road relay. The road relay is a relay race that is run on the road (we're pretty literal here). It runs from Mespo to the Windward Highway and back. I'm not sure how far the course is, but at least 9 miles? There are 6 participants from each team, so each person runs about 1 1/2 miles? This is quite a bit further than any of the heats events, so I'm slightly doubtful of the students' abilities to run such distances, but still hoping for a better show. Sports Day is next Friday, so I will post more after that time.
Today was our first Music Club meeting, and it went a bit more slowly than I had anticipated. We've been learning about the music basics and we've learned the C-major scale in class, but it appears that retention hasn't yet occured. I brought in a piece of music today that I thought was workable, which may not actually be workable. As with anything, adjustments are a part of the process, so we'll see how it goes next week and modify accordingly. One really positive thing is the kids definately don't want for excitement! We may not have any Beethovens in the class, but it can't hurt to have them excited about music.