1st Day

Well,

Since I can’t connect to the web here in the library for some reason, I’m using MS Word on the laptop to type up a blog entry.

The first class, Psychology, was not too difficult. I only held the students for about a half-hour since it was just the introduction. Most of the students were quiet and disconnected, having no real interest to speak about anything. It’s ok, I’ll get them talking eventually. I could pick up on a bunch of their personalities without much effort but one guy in particular jumped out as someone to watch.

Military people are usually easy for me to spot; especially those in the Army. The guy looked the type, in shape with a short-cropped haircut and he betrayed his training by answering, “roger” to a question I asked. As soon as he did, I asked him what branch and he confirmed my suspicions; he’s a reservist.

The rest of the class were still recouperating from their Christmas break and weren’t exactly on the ball. That was ok, I was so eager that I wanted to get them talking and discussing in-depth topics before I had the attendance counted.

After class, I went back to my car and grabbed my work-out back and headed to the gym. For some reason there were a bunch of senior citizens at the gym and rambling around the equipment as though they were being introduced to the facility at an open house. There weren’t that many students there but enough that it wasn’t as empty as it has been. Today I got on the ‘Mill and started to run. I am not used to running so it was a combination of running and fast-walking for the 15 minutes that ticked down on the machine. By the end of the routine, I was a drip of sweat and breathing dryly. I then stumbled over to do some crunches but my shins were in pain again – like someone was stabbing needles under the bone. The crunch-bench, where you hooked your feet under padded arms, did not help. I hoped that I could stretch out my shins a little but as soon as I sat back to do the first set, the pain shot up my legs and I ripped my feet out from under the guards as quickly as possible. That didn’t work.

So then I got on the padded mat next to some 20 year-old girl who was doing some kind of leg-lifts on her side and started doing crunches without anything holding my shins. They’re not easy but for some reason I don’t need anyone to hold my feet. I stick my legs out and hold the heels off the ground a little, like a leg-lift, and pull my shoulders off the ground in a flexed, half-crunch. We used do them in Karate and Kung-Fu with such frequency that I figured that they were great for something – other than making your ass burn.

Afterwards I went down stairs to the free-weights and worked on my arms. Ugh. I’m really going to have to work on them this quarter. If I do my legs 3x a week and my arms for the other two, and then switch them every other week it should be enough to make a dent in the man-boobs. They’re not as bad as some of the other faculty who I saw working out but they’re not where I want them to be; gone.

The sauna was awesome. Hot and dry. I would prefer a steam sauna, I think, but I got to relax inside and just listen to my IPOD; Angels and Demons. After about ten minutes, I jumped out and grabbed a shower to shock myself back to a normal temperature. The workers who sit at the main desk in the gym seem to be getting used to me being there. One of them, guy I usually see when I go in, asked if I was getting a jump-start on a New Year’s resolution. I smiled and told him that this is still from last year’s resolution and that this year was simply more of the same.

On the way back to my car to switch out bags again, I got call from Chris. His new laptop is still screwing up and he’s sending it back to them for a full refund. He’s not buying any HP tech anymore and asked me not to either. I’ve never had any HP tech other than printers. All that I’ve heard about HP, other than their printers, is that they’re always being sent back for something to be fixed so I can’t really blame him for getting fed up with them. He’s going to look at Dell to see if they can get him a laptop that will work. For now he still has his other lap – the big HP, but he’ll need something for classes in a few weeks. I can sympathize with him for not wanting to haul such a heavy and large hunk of tech around with him. If I’m not able to get this laptop to connect to their wireless network, I may hand it back to mom and grab the small NEC from Ember since it’s a lot smaller and it’s only there for entering text like I’m doing now.

12:41 p. More than an hour before my next class. I’m not sure if I want to try and grab something else to drink or just hang out here for a while longer. I’ll probably just hold the second class until round 2:30 also since it’s just an introduction. I can run home to grab something to eat on the way; probably some rice.

My legs still hurt a little and my arms are starting to loose their soreness. I think I’ll run over to UIS and find out if they have any answers as to why I can’t get my laptop to connect.