As I entered the YMCA this week, it occurred to me that there is a lot of energy being expended that if it could be harnessed and some how channeled into a force of good, we'd be an unstoppable nation.
Yes, my friends, the impossible has happened. I started an exercise program this week. I decided that if I spent hard earned cash on a membership, I might actually go. I have a very complex relationship with the thought of exercising and weight loss, but basically I can see the writing on the wall with obamacare. I can either pay an insurance company scads of cash for pitiful, measly insurance or I can pay the Y and try to get some benefit out of it. Either way, I'm paying money that I don't want to fork over because I'm fat. And, because we have a country that really isn't all that free anymore and there are too many people who have decided that my extra poundage is more of a problem than deadbeats who want handouts instead of working for a living. Never mind I'm one of the tax paying middle class that is getting squeezed in that area too. But, enough of my soap box issues.
I have started out on a treadmill that knows my heart rate, calories burned, and has settings from a stroll in the park to death mountain footrace. As I walk the pounds away, I keep imagining what my grandmother would make of this. She, of the generation where you did hard farm labor which kept the pounds off, would have been stymied that I'm paying money for the privilege of working my ass off (hopefully, literally) instead of pulling weeds in the garden, mucking out the barn, or cutting hay. But I don't live on a farm and as this country steadily loses the family farm we have put on poundage galore. When we were laborers, we didn't need gym memberships but as we "progress" as a country and evolve, so does our waist line. However, I have always been big-boned. I have a fluffy, sturdy frame from hardy farmer stock. But, there is no denying that when I got a desk job, the pounds came along with it.
As I pound along the belt of the treadmill with my fellow fitness buffs, I feel like the kid struggling to keep up with the older siblings. Today was the perfect mixture of "in-shape" people who not only knew what they were doing, but looked good while doing it. And, mostly younger than me too, but there were a fair amount of oldsters on the outer ring (looking in at the beautiful people) using some contraption that looked like it had heavy bars of iron on the end of a rope. I'm sure I will find out what those are in due time as my "trainer" promises to show me in two weeks. For now, I have to master the treadmill and the recumbent bike. The death bike from hell, more likely. I got on this contraption after a half hour on the treadmill and thought I would be ok. Yeah. Well, it has a mind of its own too, and decided that I wasn't working hard enough so it kept increasing the resistance so that I could hardly push the pedals. Then, because apparently I'm unable to realize I've stopped pedaling, it beeps at you and tells you to pedal. Well, stupid bike, if you would stop increasing the resistance maybe I could keep pedaling???? Just sayin'... Actually, I'm sure I probably hit the wrong button, but honestly, does it really have to keep beeping at me and announcing to the whole gym that I'm incapable of understanding the buttons? Or that I'm incapable of pedaling? Bad enough I'm in a baggy tee shirt and sweats and not the tight, form fitting fitness wear that promises to do all sorts of bodily functions for you, but does the bike have to draw attention to me too? I very fit gentleman came over to help me with it, and had that "oh, look, she's trying to exercise, how adorable" look on his face. I didn't know whether to smack him or thank him. For the record, I thanked him.
As I watched the number go higher for calories burned, I kept thinking of how pitiful a number that is for the amount of work it takes. Why again, can I consume in a mouthful what just took me an hour of hard walking to get rid of? How does that motivate a person to work that hard only to understand that with the eating of supper the expenditure is erased? Yes, I know. Rabbit food and water. Maybe I will feel differently when I've lose some weight. But in the mean time, I will keep searching for that "exercise high" that is supposed to carry me through the work out. And, it doesn't help that the tv I'm watching plays pizza commercials. How rude!
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
Spring break musings
I had the thought the other day of what if everyone in the world got every wish they wanted? I'm sure that thought has been done as a story somewhere, but for me it was something that made me pause for a few minutes to think about. And what happens when wishes collide? Say, for example, I wished that I could make beautiful chain maille jewelry with gold and silver but someone else wished to have all the gold and silver in the world in their house? Would the force that grants the wishes, grant both? And what would happen if it did or didn't? Then it occurred to me that people being people, there would be wishes of death, or hurt, or other terrible things to one another. So, I guess it is a good thing that our every wish doesn't come true. That launched me into a train of thought of why we are so evil to one another but I came up with no answers to that.
It is spring break this week, and it's nice to be off of school for a little bit. I love my English Lit class, but I'm not so thrilled with my grant writing class. I'm not sure if it is the teacher or the material, but I'm finding it difficult to embrace the class. We had to find a service learning site (I chose Lakeview Community Library) and work up a full proposal for them. The teacher of the class is ok, but seems a little smug in her knowledge and standing. I have no doubt she is very knowledgeable about her chosen field and has supported herself for the past 15 years doing grant writing. But, she is the type of person who has too many irons in the fire and doesn't do any of them particularly well. For instance, even though we are half way through the semester and have handed in several assignments, we have only gotten ONE grade back. One. She keeps moving deadlines and due dates because she can't get her critique copy back to her students in time for them to revise and hand in. This is after she has lectured us numerous times about getting OUR work in on time because in grant writing, there is no late work. On my organizational profile, she highlighted the word combination "there is" and in the comments told me to "get my thesaurus out". That I was not creative in my wording. Later, in the SAME document, highlighted a paragraph and told me, again in the comments, that my language was "too formal, stuffy, intellectual, and awkward" and that I should "use plain, every day language". WTH? Both of these comments in the same document. Her major complaint was the word "facilitates". As in the following sentence: "Lakeview Community Library facilitates the use of teen volunteers for the summer reading program". So, now I'm so paranoid about my writing that I'm having a terrible time coming up with the writing for my assignments.
The other thing that is a bit irritating is that she has a very smug and condescending demeanor towards her students. I can live with that as long as she follows her own advice, but she doesn't. After giving us a lecture for 15 mins about late work, moves a deadline to her convenience because she has four proposals she needs to write for her clients this week. Let's see, I'm paying exactly $1,254.00 bucks in tuition and another $100 in books to take this class, which, ironically makes her MY employee, and we are put on a back burner with no real guidance or presentation of information regarding how to do our homework. Which then comes back with conflicting comments about using to plain of language or to intellectual language. If I had wanted to waste that much money on a crappy class where I'm going to get insulted and conflicting messages, I would have taken one that wouldn't really have any bearing on my major.
One the other side is my Eng Lit class. When I declared my major, the Associate Chair said to me, "you have to take an old, dead guy class". I laughed at the description, but he was right. I had been dreading this class because I'm not entirely confident about my level of Shakespeare "love". So, I took a survey class that has a potpourri of writers. At the beginning of the semester, the teacher asked the class why we were in this particular class. I said that I was a bit intimidated by a whole semester of Shakespeare and that this class would be better for me. He looked at me and said the Shakespeare class was easier. He also teaches the Shakespeare class, so he would know. But, I stuck with it and we are now reading Shakey over the spring break. Midsummer Nightmare on Elm Street or something like that. Seriously, I can never remember the title of that play. I need to get crackin' on finishing it too. But, I think I'm doing well, and contrary to my grant writing class, the Eng Lit prof gets our graded stuff back to us the very next class. It's nice to know where you stand in the semester versus the wait to the end of the semester and hope the teacher has taken her meds and grades like she is supposed to and not like a bipolar maniac tired of grading papers.
I have finally fully recovered. I realized the other day that I have so much more energy now and can do normal things without being sick. I stopped coughing around mid-February, and the sinus infection has finally abated too. Two months of sick and wasted time. I still can't believe it took two courses of antibiotics and prednisone to get things under control. But, I am so much better and thankful for it.
I will enjoy the rest of spring break even though the wind chill was below 0 at points today, and hwy 57 southbound was snow covered and slippery with the snow we got yesterday blowing around. There was even a car in the ditch. That is very un-spring like behavior if you ask me. I have several feet of snow in my yard yet, so hopefully I won't have to cut the grass for many, many weeks yet. I wish that it would stay neat and manicured all summer long. That would be an ok wish, right?
It is spring break this week, and it's nice to be off of school for a little bit. I love my English Lit class, but I'm not so thrilled with my grant writing class. I'm not sure if it is the teacher or the material, but I'm finding it difficult to embrace the class. We had to find a service learning site (I chose Lakeview Community Library) and work up a full proposal for them. The teacher of the class is ok, but seems a little smug in her knowledge and standing. I have no doubt she is very knowledgeable about her chosen field and has supported herself for the past 15 years doing grant writing. But, she is the type of person who has too many irons in the fire and doesn't do any of them particularly well. For instance, even though we are half way through the semester and have handed in several assignments, we have only gotten ONE grade back. One. She keeps moving deadlines and due dates because she can't get her critique copy back to her students in time for them to revise and hand in. This is after she has lectured us numerous times about getting OUR work in on time because in grant writing, there is no late work. On my organizational profile, she highlighted the word combination "there is" and in the comments told me to "get my thesaurus out". That I was not creative in my wording. Later, in the SAME document, highlighted a paragraph and told me, again in the comments, that my language was "too formal, stuffy, intellectual, and awkward" and that I should "use plain, every day language". WTH? Both of these comments in the same document. Her major complaint was the word "facilitates". As in the following sentence: "Lakeview Community Library facilitates the use of teen volunteers for the summer reading program". So, now I'm so paranoid about my writing that I'm having a terrible time coming up with the writing for my assignments.
The other thing that is a bit irritating is that she has a very smug and condescending demeanor towards her students. I can live with that as long as she follows her own advice, but she doesn't. After giving us a lecture for 15 mins about late work, moves a deadline to her convenience because she has four proposals she needs to write for her clients this week. Let's see, I'm paying exactly $1,254.00 bucks in tuition and another $100 in books to take this class, which, ironically makes her MY employee, and we are put on a back burner with no real guidance or presentation of information regarding how to do our homework. Which then comes back with conflicting comments about using to plain of language or to intellectual language. If I had wanted to waste that much money on a crappy class where I'm going to get insulted and conflicting messages, I would have taken one that wouldn't really have any bearing on my major.
One the other side is my Eng Lit class. When I declared my major, the Associate Chair said to me, "you have to take an old, dead guy class". I laughed at the description, but he was right. I had been dreading this class because I'm not entirely confident about my level of Shakespeare "love". So, I took a survey class that has a potpourri of writers. At the beginning of the semester, the teacher asked the class why we were in this particular class. I said that I was a bit intimidated by a whole semester of Shakespeare and that this class would be better for me. He looked at me and said the Shakespeare class was easier. He also teaches the Shakespeare class, so he would know. But, I stuck with it and we are now reading Shakey over the spring break. Midsummer Nightmare on Elm Street or something like that. Seriously, I can never remember the title of that play. I need to get crackin' on finishing it too. But, I think I'm doing well, and contrary to my grant writing class, the Eng Lit prof gets our graded stuff back to us the very next class. It's nice to know where you stand in the semester versus the wait to the end of the semester and hope the teacher has taken her meds and grades like she is supposed to and not like a bipolar maniac tired of grading papers.
I have finally fully recovered. I realized the other day that I have so much more energy now and can do normal things without being sick. I stopped coughing around mid-February, and the sinus infection has finally abated too. Two months of sick and wasted time. I still can't believe it took two courses of antibiotics and prednisone to get things under control. But, I am so much better and thankful for it.
I will enjoy the rest of spring break even though the wind chill was below 0 at points today, and hwy 57 southbound was snow covered and slippery with the snow we got yesterday blowing around. There was even a car in the ditch. That is very un-spring like behavior if you ask me. I have several feet of snow in my yard yet, so hopefully I won't have to cut the grass for many, many weeks yet. I wish that it would stay neat and manicured all summer long. That would be an ok wish, right?
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