Day 1: Monday

Play Ball! We kicked today off with this year's Write Alaska cohort slowly, but steadily, trickling into the classroom. By 9:30, pretty much everyone had made it in and completed the survey. Astonishingly,our survey's results showed that everyone was super pumped about being here. This seems to be the case year after year. We did a little housekeeping (introductions, classroom expectations, and the like) then got down to this summer's firstquickwrite. Despite everyone's eagerness to share, we only had time for a couple people to read excerpts from their writing. Don't worry, guys, you'll get your chance soon enough.

After lunch, we filed onto the bus and headed out to the batting cages. Not only was this fun, but it was great practice for the game that would be played this afternoon. Some batters performed so well that they even worked on their switch hitting, although I'm not sure how that ability will come to anyone's aid in slow-pitch softball.

After knocking a few balls out of the park, we all headed out to Javier De La Vega park for the first-ever Write Alaska All-Star game. The teams seemed pretty evenly matched from the start, but after one and a half scoreless innings, the boys' team rallied for an 8-0 win! I'm just going to go ahead and say the play of the game was Ben's bases clearing double, which drove in three runs. I think everyone who was there would agree it was a majestic entry into the annals of America's pastime.

I'd say, all in all, it was a pretty good day: one that just might stand up to the coming days of poetry reading, writing, and hiking in the wind and rain.