What? Its snowing again?

March 12th already, and this is the first entry for the month... it's been a minute. The progress report is that I have, in theory, two thirds of the thesis written now, and what I think is the most difficult chapter (the middle one) done.

"done", what do I mean by done (Briggs, 2007)? In a rough draft anyway; it is now a platform from which I can build up and out. Done has a lot of finality behind it, perhaps to much, we are never done, not even in death.

I had a conversation with Briggs about the proper use of the ';' today. Apparently it is the abused child of the punctuation world, being incorrectly employed by more people than any other. Poor thing. I'm sure I have been responsible for victimizing it a time or two. It should be used as a pointer; it should indicate that what follows is an elaboration on the idea of the words preceding it.

The other important topic that came up was placing more emphasis on 'I'; putting more of myself into the project by weaving in personal experience. One of the critiques of the first chapter was lack of, not context, but something similar. What would be a useful addition in the first chapter is more examples of how the theories might be weaved into the practice of soccer, by weaving soccer into the discussion of theory.

One way I can achieve this is by bringing in a picture to analyze that can tie in all the elements of the theory. My first thought was a picture of the French National team from 1998. The team was composed of players from the remaining or former colonies. This would give me a reference point for race, colonialism, multiculturalism and nationalism. For power and civil society I would need a different one, but maybe I could work it in.

Then I thought I could just use the picture of CD El Salvador and the Somali Youth from the final of the Fathers Day tournament. It's a picture of a Latino team next mixed in with a Somali team, and a few Europeans mixed in. Black next to tan, next to white. All is soccer kit, all in America, unified by the game and competition, yet divided by color, history, class, and team.