My Love Cup Flow-eth Over...

Holy technology. I want a land line and a pencil and paper. I'm about to throw my phone and my computer over my balcony. Good thing I'm a rational, reasonable person (insert maniacal laughter here). Seriously, I made a phone call this evening and now I cannot get incoming calls nor make outgoing calls. I have researched Sprint's website and found the most unhelpful postings I have ever seen. For example, I thought I was onto something when I found this post regarding a similar issue, "I cannot receive incoming calls. The people on the other end can hear me but I cannot hear them. I can only DIAL out." Response: "Take your phone and throw it against the wall and then purchase a better one. Samsung = garbage." Seriously? This is what you have to offer me? Great. So, then, I thought I should check my email one more time and probably my facebook too. I was toying with the idea of making a post about my bum phone but then...wait for it...but then...my computer refused to load my facebook profile and home page. I was also denied access to check my email. This really could not get any better with technology tonight. What next? My microwave is going to blow out so I can't even eat! Just kidding. Don't be alarmed, I actually already ate. You know, it just makes me think, has technology really improved our lives? Has it? The whole premise of facebook is actually disturbing. Who needs to know where there "friends" are at every minute of the day? Do I really even care about the plethora of status messages I read everyday? I'm pretty sure I don't even know half of the people on my newsfeed. It's a sad state of affairs, people. I'm calling for a technology revolution. Let's scrap it all and go back to land lines and using a computer for word processing only! But, then again, I wouldn't have this here blog now would I?

Has anyone seen those Florida orange juice commercials? They are hysterical. Basically, it's a typical 'everyday' person sitting down to the breakfast table with his juice while being confronted by all of the terrible things that are bound to happen throughout the day. Mr. Everyday is not bothered by all of these obstacles but answers each situation with a sarcastic remark. That's how I've been feeling lately! Just imagine, I sit down with my Florida o.j. (even though I almost exclusively only drink Simply Orange - No pulp) and I'm confronted with one of my coworkers, a representative from Sprint and my trainer. This is how the conversation would go...
Coworker: Good morning! Today you're going to arrive at school, to a surly student who will correct every mistake you make, and disrupt the majority of your lessons with an argument clarifying how right he is and just how wrong you are.
Me: Wonderful. Can't wait!
Sprint Rep: Then, you're going to get off work and want to call your mom, but uh-oh, sorry, your phone's not working. She'll be able to hear you but you won't be able to hear her. Your phone will be out of service the rest of the night...possibly indefinitely.
Me: That sounds great! Super!
Trainer: After that, you'll meet me at the gym, whereupon I will yell at you and push you to work harder than you are ready to work. You will feel demoralized and like the past week's workouts were for nothing.
Me: Excellent...let's do this! Good thing I had my orange juice this morning...would anyone notice if I added a splash of vodka? No? Okay good. Even better!

My newest student is quite the little pill. I'm coming to the realization that he wasn't pushed too hard at his last placement, and my demands are getting a bit more than he is ready to handle. It all came to a head a couple weeks ago when he and I had a royally epic battle over vocabulary words. I had assigned him to look up each vocabulary word and write the first definition. Out of the six vocab. words he turned in, about half had the correct definition. The next day, I gave it back to him with the expectation that the incorrect definitions needed to be fixed. I watched him go over and pick up the dictionary and begin looking up each word. Great, I am feeling good about how well he just accepted feedback. This feel-good feeling lasted right up until I collected his assignment from my basket and noticed that instead of replacing the incorrect definitions he had, instead, taken the time to write down the page number of each definition, i.e. "Check page 574." Well, that really got the old blood boiling. The next three days resulted in many back and forths about how I had looked up the definitions, that is how I actually knew they were incorrect. Finally, by Friday he was able to turn in a very messy looking page with mostly correct definitions. This is just one of the highlights from my interactions with this little cherub. He loves the line, "But, I didn't hear you!" This has caught on like rapid fire in my class. Now, I have five kids, not one, claiming they did not hear the direction, as an excuse to not have to follow the direction. Two steps forward and five steps back I tell ya. Today, in fact, I attempted teaching him the difference between a centimeter, decimeter, and millimeter. I decided to start with the smallest measurement (that's a millimeter, people) and work my way up to the biggest measurement (decimeter). While I'm trying to talk, he continues to talk over me, "But, what is a decimeter? I just want to know what a decimeter is. I don't know what a decimeter is." Finally, I say, "Just listen. We are getting there, but you have to know this other information first." To which, he rolled his eyes. Awesome. So, I give him a reminder that that is disrespectful and he looks at me, and says, "What?" in a surly tone. Again, I repeat, "That is a reminder. It. is. disrespectful. to. roll. your. eyes. at. a. teacher." "Oh," he says. Thankfully, it didn't go much farther than that today. Tomorrow will be more of a challenge, we'll see how it goes. The rest of the kids are cute and continue to try making progress in their treatment.

Last week, my friend, Chrissy, and I decided to hire a personal trainer. This has proved interesting at best. Our trainer, whom we shall call, Devil Incarnate, is about 22 years old and fiesty. I have always found I packed a substantial amount of sass but this gal is on a whole other level. Yeah, I get it, it's her job to kick my booty, but it is not her job to think she is Jillian Michaels and that we're on the Biggest Loser. We're not. During our first session we had to perform a 'fit test' for her to sort of set some baseline data. Okay, I can understand this. She sets me up on the chest press and cranks the weights right up to 80 lbs. I flat out just started laughing. Seriously, D.I.? I look at her as if to say, you're joking right? And, in all seriousness, she looks back and yells, "Push it!" Okay, she means business. So, I said, well I'll give it the ol' college try...not even a hint of a smile, she was that un-amused. Yikes. I push as hard as I can and literally cannot even get the press to move. Next thing I know, she is yelling, "Well you have to try!" Oh! Oh, you want me to try? Good idea. Let's do this again. One more time, I push and I push and nothing. With a heavy sigh, and begrudging attitude, she reluctantly lessens the weight. I'm thinking, sorry, I'm not ripped, that's why I hired you, girl! Sheesh. The stuff she set us up with last week actually is pretty fun to do, so it's been easy to stick with.

For one of our requirements, Chrissy and I were ordered to take a group aerobics class together. Completely pleased with ourselves we gloated, "We already do. We go to water aerobics." Of course, Devil Incarnate could not be happy with that. She just looked at us blankly and said, "Okaaaaayyyyyy (implying this is not an actual workout) but I mean I want you to take one on the hardwood, in the cardio room." I volunteered right away to take Zumba because Lord knows, I don't want her putting me into any of that "cardio pump" or whatever those classes are. I don't even know what they mean. Needless to say, Chrissy and I didn't make it to Zumba this week. But, we did make it to water aerobics!

How about we are 25 years younger than the youngest person in our water aerobics class? I love it. Those ladies crack me up and regardless of what D.I. thinks the under-water weight portion of that class is tough! I love me some water aerobics!

Today's List: Events to look forward to in the next 5 days...
1. Session 2 with Devil Incarnate
2. Dinner with Sarah
3. Wicked!
4. Massage
5. Spring football game
6. Sun? Please?

Love,
Me