Spring Break Adventure

I must say that I had a rather splediferous time in sunny Cozumel. I sat by the pool, sat by the beach, sat on a boat, sat in restaurants - I did a lot of sitting. I also spent a good amount of time snorkeling. Because of this, I burned my shoulders, but I'll get over it.

Snorkeling was a lot of fun. I went three times in three different places. The first time I went across the street from our hotel with my father and sister. There were many little fish, but the current was pretty strong and kept sucking my little sister out to sea.

The second time I went snorkeling, I went out at Chankanaab park. That time I had my own personal (and kind of cute) guide. This time I saw different reefs and many, many fish. There was a barracuda, and despite the insistence of my guide that they don't bite humans, I've seen their teeth and I wanted to steer clear. We also saw the giant Jesus statue that is under the water. It was cool, but it also creeped me out a little bit to swim over it, since Jesus was looking up with such anguish, reaching his arms for the sky. The guide also did this thing where he clapped his hands under the water and these little fish came and swam all around us. That was cool.

The third time I went snorkeling was off of a boat a little further from land. This time was pretty cool as well since there were many more corals and plants to sea. There were many fish and schools of fish as well.

Besides snorkeling, I also swam with the dolphins out at Chankanaab. It was so ridiculously cool! I thought I would be more nervous, but to be honest, the seagulls scared me more than the dolphins. Naturally I have photos and video footage as proof of my adventure. After swimming with the dophins, I also got to get in the water to feed lettuce to some manatees. That was pretty fun. Again, because I am silly, I was more afraid of putting my hand near the mouths of the manatees thant the mouth of the dolphins. I was just so surprised at the way their mouth opened that the first time I jerked my hand away. It wasn't quite what I was expecting. It was very cool to see their nails on their fins. I learned, also, that they have "fingers" inside of their front fins that help them grasp things. That was cool to watch as well.

Needless to say, the trip was great. Too bad I am back in 50 degree weather and getting ready to go back to work.

Time for more Vitamin D for me!

Man am I exhausted! The change of weather is taking a toll on me, unfortunately. I love coming home from work and sittin gin the sun on the front porch. After about a century of winter, my body is relishing all the vitamin D and natural light. In fact, I am already a little less translucent than I used to be. Unfortunately, this weather change is waking me up at night.

Luckily, I am going to sunny Mexico next week and I'll be soaking up even more sun! YAY! Hopefully I'll be sleeping a lot, too. My 9th and 10th grade gym/health teacher told me you can never "catch up" on sleep, but I think that it is worth it to keep trying.

I'm a Dirty Dancer?

Grad school, living in a winter suburban wonderland, and those strange lung issues I had last summer have left me rather out of shape and breathless. I am on the best and the strongest asthma and allergy meds, and still I am out of breath climbing the 4 flights of stairs at work. The bad news from the doctor was that maybe this new inability to exercise for more than 5 minutes at a time may be a permanent thing. I've decided, however, that enough is enough. I am taking matters into my own hands.

I need to exercise more to build endurance. This decision lead to even more issues, however. Where and how should I exercise? Also, will writing this blog finally teach me to consistently spell the word "exercise" correctly? I cannot go running out on the paths because I would start running, get out of breath, and then I'd be out in public all disgusting-like and gasping for air, unable to crawl back to the shelter and pravacy of my home. I thought that perhaps a yoga class would be the answer, but I grew increasingly more paranoid about that, too. I am by no means a calm person, nor am I physically flexible at all. I could only imagine a scenario where I joined a beginner's yoga class only to find that everyone else was way more advanced, way more flexible, way more chicly dressed in their hip, yoga clothes, and way more zen than I was. This would leave me shabby, embarrassed, and with an ever decreasing sense of self-worth. I decided that a yoga class was not the answer. Plus, I further convinced myself, my schedule does not allow for one more regulated time slot.

In a desperate attempt to exercise and shield myself from utter humiliation, I decided to purchase a yoga tape from Target. For a few weeks I dodged it. I intentionally "forgot" to go down that aisle and peruse the merchandise. Monday, I bit the bullet and started reading the backs of the dvd casses.

At first I was discouraged. All the women on the front of these cases were slim, muscular, blond, and wearing (in my opinion) not enough clothes. I want to exercise in raggedy old clothes that I wouldn't mind getting sweat stained. Also, no one wants to see me in a sports bra and tight pants clumsily attempting to contort into various relaxing yoga positions. The dismay began to set in again.

Just as I was about to call it quits, however, someone, perhaps St. Patrick since it is so close to his special day, or, dare I say it, God himself, shined a shiny light onto a dvd tucked away at the bottom. This particular dvd was also on sale. As a last resort, I bent over to see what it was. WHA-AT? The official Dirty Dancing workout video complete with real dance steps Patrick Swayze did and music from the original motion pictures? Even if I were not trying to get in shape in the privacy of my own bedroom, how could I NOT purchase this?

I bought it.

I have practiced with one and a half of the routines on this tape. It is taught half by this rather flamboyant man named Johnny and some overly-energetic, non-natural blond lady with a weird accent. I didn't catch her name, but in the opening credits, she carries in a watermelon and says something to the effect of, "No! I'm not baby!" Needless to say, I was hooked from the start.

My friend Johnny taught the coreography for the first routine to "Love Man". Johnny seems to have pretty low expectations for me. His steps are easy, repetitive, and we basically repeat the same sequence for the entire song. Johnny and I are getting along just fine.

Once I felt pretty confident with "Love Man", I thought I would move on to the routine for "Yes". This choreography is taught by the-woman-who-is-not-Baby. She seems to have much higher expectations for me. She doesn't repeat the steps enough, and I can't keep up! Also, she's got me running and moving around "to get that heart rate up", and she has clearly forgotten that I am doing this in the minimal space between my dresser and my bed. Also, she keeps giving me license to "make the moves sexy". Obviously she has never met me. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror trying to follow her direction, and it was pretty darn funny.

I think we're going to keep working together for a while longer until we can get kind of on the same page. I have little faith that I will ever be able to dance this workout routine the way she wants. I feel like I am almost a disgrace to actual steps from Dirty Dancing set to music from the original motion picture.

Maybe I should just stick with Johnny, the guy that just doesn't think I'm capable of any sort of coordination/physical activity/being sexy. He apparantly has met me before.

Marvelous Madison

Let it be known that I have now finished two whole semesters of my graduate degree! Yay! And as far as I know, I am doing A-OK. Of course, my testing and evaluation of ELLs course is somewhat up in the air. The course was online, and since I received no feedback from my prof, I had no idea of how I was doing. Then it was time for the final project, which I was grossly underprepared for. I just don't think I got enough from the prof, the readings, and the online "class".

The assignment was to create an entire testing program for English Language Learners in a school. Some people had it easy because it they were already in a school working, they were allowed to write about the system that they work with. Those of use not currently teaching ESL in a school (which, if I were, why would I be taking this class???), had to make up a school, make up a student population, and create an entire program from scratch. It is a good thing that my school and students are fake, because I don't want to screw anyone real up too badly. Anyway, even though that class has been over for a month, I have heard nothing from the prof, nor have I received any grades back. At all. None. Not even from the little reflection I wrote the very first week of class back in June. Anyway, I'm a little freaked out.

So now I am just doing stuff around the house for my family until my next semester starts up again in a few weeks and work starts again at about the same time. I should be beyond busy in just a few weeks. Yay!

I went to visit my boyfriend in Madison this past weekend to see his new place. He moved into a house with two brothers and lucky for me I like them. The house is rather spacious, although they need to give it a good scrub down because it is pretty dirty. Joe and I went to the zoo, which was pretty awesome, especially for a free zoo. They had rhinos, giraffes, seals, tigers, orangutans, penguins, etc. We also went out to the Sundance movie theatre opened by Robert Redford, and that place was neat!

We say "Paper Heart" and it was cute. My favorite was the interviews with the people, and I got a kick out of the puppets. The theatre has assigned seats, which is weird, but kind of nice. Also, it has a rooftop bistro and you can get bottles of wine, cheese plates, spaghetti and meatballs, hummus, fish and chips, etc. to eat on the roof or take into the movie theatre with you. We had popcorn and I had a root beer and Joe had a Spotted Cow, but I am pretty sure next time we are going to go crazy and get a meal or some appetizer that would be ridiculous to eat at a movie.

Next weekend I'll be going out to the cabin with Joe, Dani, Linnea, Kyle, and Andrew. Unfortunately, Derek is unable to make it. It should be a good time with the canoe, crokinole, mad libs, and movies.

I'm Alive!

Although I am too lazy and tired to write what I really want to write, I thought I'd post something anyway. So instead of hearing about my fabulous classes, the soccer tournament I reffed, the soccer game I just came from where the parents scared the beejeezus out of me, or my 4th of July trip out East, you just get a few sentences to know I'm alive.

Really, the fact that I am still functioning on some level surprises me. These breathing issues are really taking a toll on me, and I keep getting tired. Also, the stupid meds make me feel all hopped up and shaky. I know that I should just be happy that I can breathe without gasping, but I'd like to be able to do that and not shake and sleep and not feel all foggy. I guess you take what you can get, though.

In other news, I have mailed my friends' engagement party invites. The date for the party is now set in stone! Yay! Now I just have to get the rest of it together! I know I'm bringing the main dish, Joe is bringing the drinks, and Linnea is bringing dessert. Andrew, bless his heart, can't make it to the party because he has rehearsal for a play (up in Alexandria) but is coming to help me clean up afterwards.

Crokinole World Championship! And GHOSTS!

So (quite) a few weeks ago my brother, my boyfriend, and a co-worker of my boyfriend packed up the car and drove from the lovely Midwest to exciting Tavistock, Ontario. "Why?" you might be asking. "Where's Tavistock?" is another good question. I'm going to pretend I didn't hear the person that just said, "Who cares?"

We travelled the many, many hours to Tavistock for the Crokinole World Championship. And it was an adventure!

First of all, crossing the border at Sarnia was interesting. As we crossed the border, the Canadian folk ask what us American folk were planning on doing in their fair country. We told them we were visiting friends (true). They wanted to know where, how we met these friends, where we would be sleeping with these friends, and did we really go to McGill? I don't think the woman cared for us much.

Naturally staying with my college roommate's family was delightful, as usual. They stuffed us full of amazing food and told many fascinating stories. They are such nice, generous people. I'm surprised they keep putting up with us!

The Crokinole tournament in Tavistock was an all day thing. It was like a celebrity where's Waldo though, and we all got really excited every time we saw somebody from the Crokinole documentary. Oh look! There's Willard who makes the crokinole boards! There's the guy that lets the guy from the village come out to his house to catch snakes! There's the people that play with cues! It was pretty funny to talk to people, and since the name tags say where you're from (apparently I'm from Madison, WI and Max is from Rosemount, Michigan), lots of people approached us. There was a couple from Ireland, a guy from Italy, and another guy from England. The guy from Ireland was really intense and kept calling over the referees, which was kind of funny. And I actually got to see Brian Cook play and see other people play with cues. Joe, Max, and Jake all played in the recreational division and came out right about in the middle.

Also in Tavistock that day were the garage sales. Some of these garage sales were downright hilarious with nothing but Babysitter's Club books and Married with Children DVDS, or tires, a broken leaf blower, and a woman watching it all from her rocker. Some of the garage sales were pretty good though, especially the one in the United Church parking lot. I got a really pretty embroidered hand towel for my mother, and Max got a set of dishes for 5$. The thing about the dishes is, we bought them in Canada, brought them back to the states, and in August we'll bring them back to Canada so he can have them in his apartment. It's not the best thought out plan, but whatever. We also got a free crokinole board at the church garage sale. It's in pretty bad shape, but we think we can fix it up and take it to the cabin for some outdoor crokinole fun.

In typical Lucky Max fashion, he spent 5$ on raffle tickets at the tournament and won a brand new 225$ crokinole board. He's pretty excited, and we played on it the other day. We're spreading the word of crokinole to college age kids in MN, and Max will be taking his board back to Kingston in August. We also bought an "experienced" board for our father, which he seems to like.

If the adventure up to Ontario was uneventful, the trip back was quite the opposite. We planned on heading back an afternoon earlier than originally planned and camping out somewhere along the way. It was rainy though, and my cough was acting up, so we stopped in Sarnia to look for a cheap hotel instead. We ended up staying in the best Motel 8 ever. The guy in the lobby was awesome and there was a vhs in the room and they had videos at the front desk. It was just crazy and funny at the same time.

The next day we completed the drive back. We saw some signs for the Busy Bee Flea Mall, and we tried to find it, but we were terribly unsuccessful. We ended up in Lawton, MI where we saw a really cool old building with a sign saying it was an art gallery and gift shop. I thought, "Cool! Local artists and original art!"

We pulled over, but a lot of the parking was for Marines only, soldiers only, etc. Jake thought it was a joke, but Joe and I convinced him that it was very serious and we better find a place to park without some of these signs. So we did. Then we went to the "art gallery". It was clear it was under construction, so we tried to walk right by and circle back to the car. No luck, though. One of the guys working with a saw inside saw us and called us in. He wanted to give us a tour of the historic building. Turns out it used to be the city hall and court house back in the 1800's. There was a secret room, they told us about the documents they found, and told us a little bit about past use. Then he took us up to the gallery so we could look down, and that was pretty awesome. But this is where the ghost stories started. It was interesting, don't get me wrong, but I was wondering how long it was going to take to tell all these stories. Then he started talking about how he had the ghost experts from Kalamazoo in and how they confirmed the place was haunted and he had pictures. Then he asked if we wanted to see the pictures.

So what were we going to say? No, sir with a saw, we don't want to see your stupid ghost pictures? So we said of course!, let's see the pictures of the ghosts. Here's where he told us that we had to look at the pictures on his phone in the light first and then go into the "dark room" to see the ghosts actually in the pictures. Here I started panicking a little bit, thinking no way am I going to die in the "dark room" of the old city hall of middle of nowhere Michigan. But it turned out the "dark room" was the bathroom that didn't even have a doorknob and had a hole in the door that let in some light. That made me feel a little better, but then he told everyone he was taking us to see the ghost pictures, and I though for sure these other men were going to jump out and scare the crap out of us. That didn't happen either, though, and it turns out the guy was very sincere. Anyway, totally interesting, really weird, and a little crazy. While we never made it to the Busy Bee Flea Mall, it was totally worth the stop, and the people of Lawton, MI were very nice.

One down, many thousands of dollars left to go

Hooray! Yay! Wahoo! Woohoo! Yippee! Yeehaw! Bada-bing, bada-boom! And all the other sounds of excited celebration!

I have completed my very first semester of my graduate career! I am now 10 credits closer to being a MN licensed teacher and a person with an MA. As if that isn't exciting enough, I am also done with GED 7875: Schools and Society!

On the last night of this hellish class, we had a potluck. While most people brought either desserts or veggie trays, there were some substantial parts of a meal, and there was a few hot dishes. (Clarification: I do not mean "hot dishes" as in casseroles. I mean "hot dishes" as in food items that are meant to be served above room temperature.) All of the food was placed on the table in the front of the room. Then, we were told to sit at our tables, and the prof began to speak really slowly and boringly about things we already covered. Also, he really wasn't giving any information, more just reading questions we had written and then saying "yes", "no", or, my favorite, "it depends". This is really not helpful at all. Worst of all, he was standing right in front of all the food.

For an hour we listened to this man talk uninformatively to himself as we watched our food get cold. During this hour of torture, this man had the nerve to comment on our attentiveness. He mocked our blank stares, ignored our glares, and seemed unable to interpret our absent clicking of pens, eye-rolling, and audible groans.

We did eventually get to eat, but by then the food that was supposed to be hot was cold and the food that was supposed to be cold was room temperature. I love samosas, but they are really not meant to be served cold. In fact, they are rather nasty cold. I tried to eat one anyway, because the poor man that brought them was so excited to share with us, and he had gone through a lot of trouble to bring them to us hot.

I guess it was a good thing no one brought ice cream.

Fortunately, it is over. And don't even get me started on the lecture my Exceptionality prof gave me on my "feelings". Apparently I am not allowed to feel that my peers are disrespectful. Even when they are. Apparently, it is not appropriate to judge people by their behavior. Well GEEZ! Ok. I'm done.

Now, happily, I have 2 1/2 weeks before my second semester starts up. And I'm sure that will be delightful.