A New Dang Post

Following a one-day break for Memorial Day, school life has not slowed down since the kids were released. We have been doing a two-week training for a new language arts curriculum that we have been teaching. Class has met from 8 AM-1 PM every day, and we have had homework to complete in the afternoons. We have also been having endless “debriefing” meetings and doing end-of-year projects like moving classrooms and creating curriculum maps and plans for next year.

I have also been attending my exercise class regularly, and I am very excited to announce that I touched my own toes during our flexibility exercises this week. Hooray!

We took the final exam in our Spalding class today, so that is over, which also means that I no longer have an excuse to be in town every day. Regular blog posting should be resuming in the next couple of days. I hope that you have not all given up on checking in here!

 

Further Adventures in Exercising

My search continues for a form of exercise that is both productive and enjoyable. KarenD and I have faithfully attended Pilates class since January, but we both began to feel the need for something more. We decided to try an aerobics class, which meets at the same facility and which conveniently starts thirty minutes earlier.

I’d been congratulating myself for my new healthy lifestyle of (usually) attending two classes a week. Unfortunately, after a couple of weeks of (usually) regular attendance of aerobics, I am forced to accept the reality that I am still grossly out of shape.

This is a women’s class, but aerobics is like Pilates on a major dose of testosterone. Many of the moves are similar, but intensified in speed and repetition. Class begins when the instructor turns on a CD, and blasts very up-tempo instrumental music that sounds like the audio tracks for Miami Vice. This music sets the pace for the whole class.

Many of the moves are the same as I did in Pilates: bicep curls, crunches, leg lifts. The difference is that we used to do one or two sets of eight or ten. In this class, we do five or six sets of twelve, always to the manic beat of the music. We do some exercises in sets of fifty. Usually after the first twenty-five I feel ready to die.

The thing I do not like about the class is that I am the least in-shape person in the room. This is especially embarrassing because most of the other people in the class are middle-aged ladies with pale, wrinkly skin and tired hair. And yet they keep to the beat with their giant weights, adding extra kicks and hops to our routine to make it more rigorous. I struggle to keep up with my three-pound weights, and occasionally lay flat on my mat, lifting my head and only pretending to do crunches after my abs have given out. It’s very humbling.

Despite this, I love the way this class makes me feel very powerful (when I am able to tune out the ladies around me). We do lots of kicking and punching exercises, which are even more fun than real fighting because there is no pain of impact with air the way there is with a human being or punching bag. Also, the music is quite invigorating, even as my biceps are screaming from curl number eighty-five. Most of all, I like to imagine how fit I must be getting from all this physical rigor.

Occasionally, I get tired of sweating and exerting myself, and think about returning to my formerly stagnant life. When the temptation hits me, I have to think of two things:
1. The dance that is now required to pull on my freshly washed jeans
2. The eyeful I got on the one unfortunate day I did my crunches in gym shorts–developing cellulite and varicose veins on my own youthful thighs.

And I am empowered to crunch on.

 

Flex

When I was able to opt out of high school P.E. by taking a business co-op class, I thought that the awkwardness of forced athleticism was behind me. Unfortunately, I went to A&M and discovered the “core curriculum” which included four hours of P.E. credits. The first class I took was step aerobics , which I really enjoyed by pretending that the aerobics routines were actually synchronized dance steps, and that I was in the background of some cool music video. The part of the class that was not enjoyable was a series of physical fitness tests such as a mile run, sit-ups, push-ups, and flexibility.

Yes, flexibility. We had to sit (with the whole class watching) with our feet flat against the side of a wooden box, and reach down past our toes to a mark three inches past the edge. I still remember my embarassment when my instructor K.B. called out to the class-volunteer secretary that I could not even reach my toes. My memories have all come rushing back as I’ve been attending my new Pilates class, which involves lots of stretching and laying with one leg sticking straight (as if!) into the air.

When I shared my experience with my sister Laurashmaura, she said that she also has inflexible muscles, which means I can build my case for the mother of all excuses: genetics.

But as I’ve been complaining to various people about this, I’ve heard my own voice repeatedly declaring “I’m just not flexible!,” and it’s forced me to confront the fact that this is really true of my life in ways that are deeper than hamstrings.

It’s the time of year on the school calendar when we start to look ahead to next year. I’m getting questions like, “Would you be willing to teach a different grade next year? Move to another classroom? Re-organize your class schedule? Take on some new responsibilities?” Stre-e-e-tch.

Or, even worse, with my husband’s professional life in transition, “Would you be willing to sell your new house? Move to a new church? In a new town? Move so far away from your job that you can’t commute? Start your life over somewhere else?” Stre-e-e-e-e-e-e-tch, and at times, snap! Those are the times that you can feel bad for Stephen.

They say that the way to become more flexible is to just stretch a tiny bit further every day. When it comes to touching my toes, consider it done! I’ll be making beautiful large leg circles by spring break. When it comes to flexing my life…well…I’ll have to let you know how that goes.

 

Lean, Mean Pilates Machine

I have never bought anything off of an infomerical, but the closest that I have come is one time in high school when I watched a pitch for a little exercise machine called the Pilates Performer. After three hours of watching a very trim girl demonstrating how easy it was to exercise on and store underneath a bed, and hearing many testimonials about how frumpy chip-eaters attained ballerina bodies WITHOUT SWEATING, I was ready to shell out the three hundred dollars plus shipping and handling to get myself one. Unfortunately, I was with my mom, and although she was equally impressed, she said that my dad might never forgive us. Maybe if we had showed faithfulness in using the Body by Jake machine that was already in the garage, we would have a better argument. As it was, we had exhibited more of a love for the idea of exercising than for the actual activity itself.

I’ve stayed interested in the idea of Pilates ever since then, particularly because it is an exercise program that does not involve sweating, which is one of the huge deterrents that keeps me from more traditional forms of activity. I also like the fact that almost all of the exercising is done while laying down on a cushioned mat, which evokes happy memories of nap time at Mother’s Day Out. The non-prone exercises are done on a bouncy ball, which is also fun. I could have taken Pilates classes at the Aggie Rec, to which I paid exorbitant fees each semester, but I didn’t, and I have regretted it ever since.

So I was pretty excited when my friend KarenD proposed the idea of taking a Pilates class together at one of the billion workout facilities in town. I have been looking for some way to trim up a little bit, as you know if you read this blog regularly. So far I have really enjoyed taking a trip to Academy to buy some cute and comfortable workout pants, and the class itself has turned out to be pretty nice. I have gone two times.

The class has been surprisingly difficult, even though it is true about the laying down and sitting on a bouncy ball. This class has forced me to confront (and display for others) my embarassing inflexiblity and also my frequent confusion with “right” and “left.” I have also awakened many muscles that have long lay dormant, and they have angrily protested over the last week. But burning pains must mean that the exercise is working, and I am sure that I can tell a difference already. So the next time you see my husband, don’t worry, he’s not sneaking around town with a tall and willowy ballerina. It’s just me.

 

It’s My Body and I’ll Cry if I Want To

I took my gift cash shopping on the day after Christmas, and in about the third dressing room, I came to a sobering conclusion: I do not have the body I had when I was twenty-one. I have a picture on my bulletin board of my sister and I on our boat one summer. I look very firm and trim in my swimsuit top and shorts, and it reminds me of what I used to be. As I studied myself between outfits in the poor light of the Aeropostale clothes closets, I conclude that firm and trim are no longer the first adjectives that come to mind. I’m a little squishier around the middle, definitely less defined in the upper arms, and I am pretty sure I have cellulite on my thighs. To be young again!

I anticipate two responses to my lament:
1. “You are still not a large size, so quit complaining.”
2. “Twenty-one was not so far away! Wait until you are 40 and then you’ll know what it means to pine after the body of your youth.”

To both of these, I say, “I KNOW!” The changes I have noticed so far have not been dramatic, but they have been steady. Innocent bystanders wouldn’t notice, probably, because my frame hasn’t actually changed shape (yet). It’s just a little thicker and squishier all around. Now this is a bad thing precisely because twenty-one was only three short years ago. In three years, I have kept the same habits, have had a clean bill of health, taken the same sorts of medications, and I have not been pregnant. In other words, there is no good reason for an increase in weight and squishiness.

I attended a sprawling university where walking was a necessity of life. Although I had very irresponsible workout habits in college, I burned a lot of calories just walking from one class/Coke machine to another. I had been warned that graduating to a sedentary desk job would be bad for the waistline. This would have been true for me, except that my first job after graduation was a stressful, exhausting horror that sapped me of all appetite. However, after that year was over, I quit that job, got married, and found a job that was fun and satisfying. Good-bye stress, hello pudge. It is my theory that I am just now experiencing the “New Employee 15″ at the exact time that my body is hitting its mid-twenties metabolic slump.

Now, in the timeless words of Mr. Bennet, two unhappy alternatives are before me: I can either resign myself to unrelenting physical expansion, which will only accelerate as I enter into my baby-bearing phase, or I can start changing my habits, which means less ice cream and more aerobic activity.

I’ll tell you what doesn’t work, and that is the South Beach Diet. Other than that, I’m open to ideas of how to avoid either of my “unhappy alternatives.” Healthy food that tastes delicious…Exercise options that don’t involve sweating or exposure to the elements…Magical pills that develop muscle definition as I sit at the computer…I’m open to suggestions.

 

Further Adventures of an Internet Nomad

This may end up getting cut off quickly, because I’m staying “overtime” in my classroom lab at Baylor to avoid having to go the non-air-contitioned lab at my own school. These are the joys of not having internet access at home, and it not being my turn with the laptop. I wander from wireless spot to wireless spot, trying to find places where I won’t get charged.

Since reading Karen’s post from yesterday, I’ve had exercise on the brain. Don’t worry, I’m not contemplating any major lifestyle changes of my own, but I’ve been more aware of those around me who happen to enjoy that sort of activity. This caused me to clue into something freakish that has occured on the Baylor campus every day this week. My class starts at 1:00, so I am usually driving through campus at around 12:30. Every day, I have seen at least three people JOGGING down the sidewalk. The fact that people enjoy jogging, period, does not really compute in my brain. But jogging at noon, outside, in the summertime really seems like poor judgement. I don’t care what sort of tunes you might have on your iPod, there is no way you can be distracted from how swelteringly hot and humid it feels outside! Exercise fanatics, maybe you can offer an explanation.

Speaking of my class, here’s some hope for the future of America (for those of you who cannot “hear” emotion in typed words, that’s sarcasm). This class is made up of 10 supposedly “gifted and talented” 4th-5th graders from the greater Central Texas area. So far, these students have been confused by words like “currency,” “ethnic,” “Portugal,” “Andes,” “economy,” and “industry,” I’m talking, can’t use context clues to come up with any idea of what they might mean. They also have been stumped by the following questions:

“In what province would you find the city of Montreal?” (the first sentence on the website they’ve been directed to says, “The city of Montreal is located in the country of Canada, in the province of Quebec.”)

“What city is the scuba diving capital of Rio de Janeiro?” (a list on their website contains the following information: “Arrial do Cabo: this beauiful city is known as the scuba diving capital of Rio de Janeiro.”

All this to say, I LOVE my “real” job and appreciate my “real” students. My own kids will absolutely be educated in private school.