Brendan's 5th Grade Graduation

Last night was Brendan's 5th Grade Graduation Ceremony and I had the honor of speaking. Below is my speech:



A couple weeks ago I went to a meeting where I met the new superintendent, Dr. Murphy and he asked what we all liked most about the Arlington County Public Schools. Almost without exception, everyone answered that they liked having the flexibility to choose the school in which to send our children.

Well, you can call me the odd guy out on this one – because I’m here to tell you that having a choice stressed me out! Now some of you have heard this story – so bare with me. Choosing an elementary school for Brendan, in my mind was more difficult than choosing a college for myself. I mean, let’s put this into perspective – I would only spend four years in college. But Brendan would be in elementary school for 6 six years. And if you add Brendan’s brothers, the Novak’s would spend eleven years at any one school. We finally narrowed it down to two schools, Claremont and our neighborhood school, which is within walking distance from our house. Now, as we like to say in Arlington: “there are no bad choices” when it comes to schools. But at the time, Claremont was a new and untested school. This was a difficult and important decision. So to make our final decision we did what any good parent would do. We left the decision to Brendan. And when he said he wanted to go to the Spanish school, we did up all the paperwork and signed him up. It wasn’t until a month later that one of our friends asked Brendan why he chose Claremont and he answered very matter of factly, “I want to ride the bus to school.”

In the end, I’m glad Brendan chose Claremont regardless of his reasoning. I’ve enjoyed watching many of you grow up together. It happened so fast. Birthday parties, play dates and sleepovers. But I particularly enjoyed going to the Outdoor Lab with you a couple weeks ago. I was most impressed with a group of girls who came together to help their friend through some adversity. When Julia’s clothes and sleeping bag became soaked when they fell outside the tent, her friends came to her side. They gave her some of their dry clothing and then tried to figure out how to keep her warm through the night. The most impressive thing – is that this all happened without drama. No one got upset, no one blamed someone else. It was a very mature reaction to a difficult situation and I suspect it is reflective how you have all grown to who you are today.


Here is the cool thing about elementary school – you guys have become good friends with your classmates. In some cases – best friends. Many you will continue to be friends in middle school, through high school and college. Many of you will stay friends even if you go to different schools next year, or in high school. Some of your friends – will be your friends for the rest of your life.

But here is what I as a parent did not expect. I too have made friends – with your parents, your teachers and the school staff. We met and hung out at the bus stop or in the lobby after dropping you off. We bonded while working together on school parties or attending class trips. And we stressed a bit while working on PTA fund raisers. And finally – we called each other when your backpacks were such a mess that all hopes of locating the Tuesday packet were lost. I will stay in touch with many of your parents for years after you graduate 5th grade – and some I will stay friends with well after you have graduated from college.

Much has and will be made of the fact that you are the first class to go through Claremont - Kindergarten through 5th grade. This celebration is well deserved. You have had a lot to do with how this school has shaped itself and personality it has taken on. But you should also recognize the other people who were also key to the development of Claremont – namely my friends: your teachers, the staff and your parents.

Fifth graders – while this evening is about you, I think it is also appropriate to thank those who helped you get here. So kids - please stand and lets say a great big thank you on the count of 3.

So now I reflect back on Brendan’s very first day of school when Brendan’s dad and I walked him to the bus stop where we met the first of many parents with whom we would become friends. As you sit here tonight I suggest that you too reflect back on your years here at Claremont as you anticipate your exciting future.



Congratulations and GOOD LUCK!

Seth lived 912 Years

“And Adam knew his wife again; and she bare a son, and called his name Seth…” Wow, so Seth wanted to continue reading the Bible last night (see previous note/post) and you can only imagine how excited he was when I read his name at the end of Chapter 4 of Genesis. He ran downstairs because he had to tell his brothers that he was “famous”!

As a non-religious person, I have to admit that reading the Bible to a six year old has been a very interesting experience. Seth has a lot of questions that I can only answer in context of the words that I am reading to him. By the time we finished Chapter 5, Seth was wondering out loud if God was in fact good. It seemed to him that God was pretty harsh after Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge. Why did Adam serve over his wife? - A very good question from a six year old. He also did not understand why God was not nice to Cain after Cain offered fruit from the ground to God. Seth did understand that it was pretty drastic for Cain to kill his brother – and he assured me he would never kill his brothers. Good to know!

So there was a lot of begetting in Chapter 5 and hundreds of years passed in a few short paragraphs. People lived many years back then – including Seth who lived “nine hundred and twelve years: and he died” So much for fame.

Dinosaurs and Genesis

Seth (my 6 year old) loves to be read a book before bed each night. Last night he went to the bookshelf and chose the Bible. We are not a religious family, as a matter fact, I don’t think Seth has ever been in a church, so I found his selection curious. This particular Bible was a gift from my Great Grandmother when I was probably 10 years old and it has several colorful pictures throughout the book, which is probably what drew him to it.

I read the first chapter of Genesis. You know - the fist six days in which God created the earth, the heaven and all that inhabit them. Perhaps it is the way in which the bible repeats the same thought over and over again much like a child’s book, but Seth understood the content surprising well. He stopped me every couple of paragraphs to talk about what was happening or the meaning of a word. I had to admit to not knowing what firmament was except that the Bible defined it as “heaven”.

Seth noted on the sixth day, that God created “beasts” which in his mind had to be the dinosaurs. But this is also the same day that God created “man”. He knew this was not possible since dinosaurs and humans did not live at the same time. But he didn’t just dismiss the Bible as wrong. Instead, he thought about how it might work and perhaps God created monkeys on that day since humans evolved from monkeys.

His thought process reminded me of a scene from Inherit the Wind, a play based on the Scopes Monkey Trial, where the Clarence Darrow character argued that conceivably creation and evolution were not separate doctrines. I have not read the play since 10th grade, but I clearly remember the concept put forth that since the earth was created before the sun, it was possible that a “day” could have been millions of years.

I love that kids can take seemingly complex concepts and make them so simple.

Ethan's Adventure Race

I presented the idea of doing the NV Racing Family Adventure Race to my kids several weeks prior to race. I have to admit, I was a little taken aback when they did not respond enthusiastically. What kid would not jump at the chance to ride a bike through mud puddles, run through thickets and balance on fallen logs across a bubbling stream in search of checkpoints? So I kept asking them. I asked them the week before the race, the day before the race and the night before the race. It wasn’t until the morning of the race that Ethan, who I am convinced only said yes because he felt sorry for me, finally acquiesced. So we rushed to change clothes and load the bikes on the car. Within an hour we were in Gainsville, registered for the race and studying our map and passport.

The race consisted of 12 checkpoints around three bike drops. Each team, consisting of an adult and a kid had to visit all three bike drops (bikes could not be dropped anywhere else on the course) in their quest for checkpoints. The kid’s age group determined the number of required checkpoints and Ethan’s age group - the 8-9 year olds - had to find 8 checkpoints. They could get any 8 of the 12 checkpoints and in any order – thus some strategy was required.

In an effort to stretch out the field before everyone jumped on their bikes, Mike Spiller, the race director led everyone in a quarter to half mile forerun. It is always fun to see who is pulling whom when adults run with kids. I’ve done several Girls on the Run races and love watching the girls who take off only to leave their buddy runners (often their Dads) in the dust gasping for air. I am not at all embarrassed to say that Ethan led me the whole forerun, but I held my own!

We were among the first teams to finish the forerun. We jumped on our bikes and headed to the first bike drop. It was here that Ethan learned his first lesson of adventure racing. Never follow another team. A father and daughter team arrived at the bike drop at nearly the same time we did. They jumped of their bikes and headed to the left and into the woods. I took out my map and quickly got my baring. Ethan wanted to know why we weren’t going into the woods like the other team. I showed him the map and where three of the four checkpoints were up the path and to the right. We reached Route 29 and turned into the woods. Ethan spotted the first checkpoint and yelled “I found it, I found it”. I had to remind myself that this was a family race, though my competitive nature wanted to hush him and not give away our location. We headed down the path to the next checkpoint and followed the stream to the third checkpoint. As we followed the stream, Ethan took every opportunity to cross it via downed trees. Perhaps it was not the most efficient path, but he was having fun.

In fact, he was having so much fun that when we jumped on our bikes in search of the next bike drop, he yelled back “This is the BEST DAY of my life!” I smiled and didn’t stop smiling for the rest of the day. Ethan used this phrase with me once before when we were on an all day canoe trip last summer. Near the end of the day, after paddling for nearly six hours, we hit some bubbly “rapids” on our return trip. He just loved maneuvering through the rocks and having the water splash into the boat. I think I may have a budding adventure racer!

We arrived at the second bike drop where we quickly picked up two more checkpoints. Ethan was looking forward the next drop, because this final stop included checkpoint 6. At the beginning of the race, Mike gave a little color on several checkpoints, including checkpoint 6 – which required crossing a log over the stream for quite a distance to the flag. As soon as he described it and suggested that some parents may want to cross the instead of their kids, Ethan was intrigued. He must have asked me 20 times, when we were heading to checkpoint 6. When we arrived, Ethan ran across the log and back like he was on solid ground. Me - I stayed on the path and watched. I’m sure if I had run as fast as he did, I would have been swimming in the stream!

We ran to the last two checkpoints at a pretty good pace and along the way we approached a father with his son. Both were clearly exhausted – and as we passed them, I heard the Dad say, “I think we need to talk your Mom into doing the next race.” Go Mom!

We finished the race in an hour and half or so during which Ethan and I rode or ran nearly entire time. He ultimately placed in his age group and won a pair of biking gloves –He loves these gloves so much that he as not taken them off since the race!

When we arrived home, we told Ethan’s brothers all about the race. You can bet that all three will be signing up for the next race in October. Thanks NV Racing!

Thank you to Dan Hicok for the photos http://danhicok.smugmug.com/gallery/7922082_x7Krz/1/513938522_XaXsg#513938522_XaXsg

Death Valley Marathon

A quick note for those who have asked about the race in Death Valley this weekend: It was definitely not the race I signed up for – but was, without a doubt, an adventure!

Quick run down:

• The average rainfall in Death Valley for the month of February is 0.42 inches and only 2.33 for the entire year. On the day of the race it rained nearly an inch. And it rained the day before!

• I saw the most incredible scenery including a double rainbow (the day before the race), one of which was so vibrant – you could see the violet end of the spectrum.

• I was so excited to take pictures of the rainbow, I jumped out of the car before it was in park – and it ran over my foot. Okay – not entirely, but enough to snuff my shoe off.

• Due to flooding and 15 inches of snow (yes – snow) in Titus Canyon, we had to run the alternate route (trail run) to Badwater (below sea level).

• It rained nearly the entire race.

• It was windy.

• The new course was an out and back. It was a significant two mile descent to start and a gradual decent to the turn around. The reverse was true for the return.

• I think I added significant distance to the race weaving around the puddles and avoiding the mushy sand to find the best line to run.

• On the return – I no longer tried to avoid the mud puddles. There were just too many!

• Mud can be slicker than ice.

• You could see the finish line for three long miles.

• I only stopped once to walk for 20 seconds. I yelled at myself to keep running.

• The last two miles were the longest two miles I’ve ever run. I shuffled the entire two miles. I think it would have been faster to walk.

• I was a wet, cold, muddy mess when I finished.

• They had the BEST tangerines at the finish line. I think I ate the equivalent of 8 before they dragged me away!

• I wore shorts and a long sleeve shirt. My legs were freezing and my shirt was so wet – it stretched over my hands.

• My feet were pruned.

• My shoes were full of mud and water.

• They may charges us extra to clean the rental car!

• It was miserable.

• It was incredibly fun.

• And I shared the experience with some great people – a couple friends I’ve known for a while and some I just met. I am in awe of the athletic talent of my friends!

And yes - I’ll definitely do this race again!

A

Cliff

10-24-2008

By: Brendan Novak

Ms. Mich's 5th Grade Class

I dedicate this to my mom and dad, Laura and Micheal Novak

I heard the bell at 6:30am. I passed my groggy but awake tent partner Wilson on my way to breakfast. At 8:00am after breakfast, (soggy instant oatmeal and water) we started to make our way to the cliff.

When we got to the cliff, I couldn't peel my eyes off the scene. I could see the vast mountains and steep valleys, dotted with trees. I must've stopped walking because my counselor was yelling my name.

When we got to "the bowl"(a pit on top of the cliff) they came up with the order. I was third to climb and last to repel. As I got my helmet on to climb, I gave my counselor my camera to take a picture.

I hooked my rope to the carabiner as my counselor put me on belay. I hopped onto the cliff and started climbing. At first it was easy but when I got to the "wall" there were no handholds!

After a couple minutes of struggling, I decided to jump. As I soared up, I grabbed for handholds left and right. When I got as high as I could, I got ready to make a second attempt.

I had a lucky break as I spotted the perfect handhold. I grabbed it and started climbing. When I got over the edge, I felt as though I won the lottery. The scene was more beautiful than before. The afternoon sun was sparkling on the lake.

When they called my name, I got up to go wait in line to go repelling. I strapped my harness on as the line inched forward.

When it was the person in front of me's turn (Wilson) they clipped him in and he muttered bye, and jumped.

After Wilson was done descending, they called my name. I walked over and they started hooking me to all kinds of carabiners. After they were done, I backed up to the edge.

I could feel the adrenaline pumping through my veins. I could feel my legs pushing off the edge and myself plummeting toward the ground. As my feet touched the ground I knew, I was doing that again.

Svageman Pictures