FIELD TRIP!!!!

On Friday, the whole 7th grade at my school went to see a play at the Chicago Shakespear Theatre, at Navy Pier. The play we saw was The Taming Of The Shrew, and it was a comedy. I enjoyed it a lot. It wasn't hard to understand because we went over the play in Language Arts class so we wouldn't be confused. But, the language in that time was really weird. It was about this girl who was really mean, but her younger sister was very sweet and nice. The sister's father says that the younger sister Bianca can not marry until her mean sister, Katerina, does. Bianca's suitors try to find someone to marry the mean one so they can marry Bianca, and they do. The guy doesn't care if she's mean, just wants to marry her because of her money. It gets confusing because people pretend to be other people. Especially because almost all the character's names end with "io" so they are confused very easily (Hortensio, Luccentio, Tranio, Grumio, Petruchio, Vincentio) At the end of the play we got to ask the actors questions. Another cool thing was that the theatre was made to be just like the Globe theatre.
I would recamend going to this play. It was funny, and there was sound effects played by a percussion player backstage. I think that they do more productions of it. On the website it said it was for families. You can go to the website at http://www.chicagoshakes.com/ That's where I got the picture.

Lots of hoops

We continued a holiday tradition by attending games in the Proviso West tournament the week after Christmas. Only a 15-minute drive from our house, the tournament attracts many of the area's best teams. John and I, along with one of his friends went on consecutive nights. Clare and Chris joined us for the semifinals games. If you've seen the documentary film Hoop Dreams, you might recall Gene Pingatore of St. Joe's, who recruits the two boys who are the focus of the movie. We sat behind his bench and saw his animated style close-up. St. Joe's won the tournament for a "three-peat," the first in tournament history.

Last night, Clare, Chris, and I saw the DePaul University women's team play Marquette. DePaul lost in a close game. DePaul's coach, Doug Bruno, runs the basketball camp Clare attended last year. The local rivalry attracted a large and energetic crowd. We could see that Bruno, a big advocate for women's basketball, was having a lot of fun. While there, I bought tickets for the DePaul men's game Wednesday against #4 Pittsburgh. John's Christmas gift to me was funding a ticket for a college basketball game. I was able to get a good price for him.

To round out the weekend with more hoops, Clare played two basketball games, the first of her league season. The team won them both, which was a good boost of confidence. They had played in two tournaments in November and were overmatched against nearly every team they played. (Although they did beat a team coached by Uncle Joe's friend and coaching partner with past teams of Charlie's. Joe has enjoyed the bragging rights.)