Shopping Tips and Guidance by Mandy Claire

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," where it's root, root, root for the home team! If they don't win it's a shame. Perhaps there's a faerie to blame.

Tonight there was a varsity basketball game rather later than usual at the Vo-Tech where I teach. I'd had a tough day in the trenches, so I ambled down to see the action.

It's a funny thing about high school students. When they come to school as freshmen, they're often tiny little runts. Especially the boys. A few years pass, and the testosterone ramps up, and all of a sudden ... runts no more!

On the morning announcements I kept hearing a name of a student I had as a freshman. He is now a junior varsity point guard. I never would have picked this fella to be a terrific basketball player -- when I had him he was tiny. Even now he's not LeBron James, but he's one fabulous point guard, all muscle and movement. Best of all, he's an "A" student. The colleges will line up for him! Bravo!

It was fun going to the game. Our team won handily over one of Camden's charter schools.

I suppose that after awhile, teachers get used to seeing their students grow up from kids to adults. For me it's still a novelty, at least with the boys. I raised two daughters, so I never went through the whole male hormone thing.

Anyway, in the case of my former-student-now-star-point-guard, it's growth that's not lost on a bad plant. He's a winner, in every way.