Where's my Thursday Night Primetime?

Let me preface this submission by stating a sad reality: I did not know which day yesterday was.

I blame the mid-week vacation day for this, along with a grossly obese schedule consisting of work, night classes, NESHOF obligations, writing obligations, parish obligations, volunteering for the DebateWatch program on campus, and making waffles. Really. Waffles.

Here's a brief stream-of-consciousness interlude...

After a thrilling three hours of Advanced Creative Writing: Nonfiction, I drove my car along the central/northwestern quadrant of Route 44 from North Providence to Smithfield en route to Barnes & Noble Booksellers. Upon my arrival, I reclaimed "Bush at War", a telling account of our beloved president's motives for going into Iraq. This is an exceptional read. Bob Woodward is perhaps one of the best journalists to ever grace this earth. Period. He has no peer. The man is simply brilliant. He...

Sorry, about that. I read a couple of chapters, return the book back its home shelf, exit said bookstore, and then make a short, 30-second trip to the adjacent Target store. After trolling the aisles looking for Honey Nut Scooters*, my brain froze my body to a dead stop.

(*The official breakfast cereal of prospective soccer bloggers. A bargain at $3.99 per 28 oz. family-sized bag.)

"Holy crap - I totally forgot about Thursday Night Primetime. "

I checked my cell phone - it was 7:54pm. Forks and knives!* I hurried my shopping, checked out my cereal and a dapper hooded sweatshirt, and made a B-line for my car. From there, the journey to East Providence took about 13 minutes, and upon my entrance, completely forgot about MLS Primetime. I then ate a delicious chicken breast meal prepared by my dear mother, and followed it up with some homework assignments I'd avoided for the past six days.

(*Actually, it was more along the lines of a choice curse word that I'm not at liberty to print here. Hey, it's a family blog, ok?)

Midway through my reading of "Tell it Slant", the official textbook of Creative Writing: Nonfiction, the thought of televised MLS primetime rebirthed. "Oh crap!"

I clicked on the TV, and searched ESPN and the Deuce. Baseball. Poker. Respectively. Where the heck is the soccer at? 010101110110000111111101010101!!!!!!

I went to bed last night particularly disturbed, thinking I had missed the game. I woke up this morning. I remembered it was Thursday.

The "back to school for the first time in four years" rant

Yes, you've read correctly: I am back in school!

Yesterday evening, I attended my first college-credit course since my graduation from RIC in 2004. I have to admit, though I was somewhat nervous about the prospect of going back to school, I was also very enthusiastic about being back at the alma mater for the same schoolin' I despised in my early-20s. Now, I've come to embrace it.

Kids - stay in school AS LONG AS POSSIBLE. Go to college. Get your master's degree. Get your doctorate. Return and get a second doctorate. Avoid the real world as long as you can.

By now, I've lost half of my reader(s), so those of you still here are probably wondering "are you gonna get to soccer at all?" Why, yes. Yes I will.

*The most interesting aspect of going back to school (wait, wait...this deals with soccer) is introducing oneself to others during the first class. However, our first exercise of class was to interview the person seated next to us, find something interesting about them, and tell the class. When I disclosed to my classroom collaborator that I was a soccer journalist, and told the class as well, my new classmates found that quite interesting. In fact, I was somewhat embarrassed that my peers had found my little hobby rather interesting.

Of course, now that the professor knows of this, I fear some heightened expectations from her. The class? "News Writing 240".

*The Revolution's invitation-only tryouts are tonight at the Dana-Farber Fieldhouse. As much as I would like to attend to watch some 20-30 hopefuls, almost all of whom will fail to impress, I have yet another class tonight that will keep me a safe distance from Foxboro until 7:30pm.

Some view these tryouts as just another mundane exercise. Yet, I find these tryouts pretty entertaining, since they are somewhat the soccer equivalent of American Idol. Here you have a group of young gentlemen all vying for the same thing: a shot at becoming a professional footballer. Through the course of the few hours they have to open some eyes, there'll be bad passing, lousy goals, and stupid fouls. But at the same time, there will also be wonderful shots (a brilliant scissor-kick still fresh in my mind from last year) and tremendous saves (courtesy of tryout success story Brad Knighton).

Call it American Footballer, if you will.