Characters

You will never ever believe who I ran in to.  There I was, at the PV YMCA, waiting in line to sign in for CPR training with Girls on the Run, when I saw her.  My thought process went like this:

Oh no.  Is that... ??? 

No.  It couldn't be. 

It is!

Wait, is she a part of Girls on the Run? 

If so, maybe I'm in the wrong organization.

What is she doing here??? 

Where is my camera???

I'm so blogging about this.

If you guessed that is was Hookah Girl... you are so right.  Yes, our favorite community college attending, hookah smoking, egg selling, Captain Crunch-eating, knows what guys like - girl had re-entered my life, if only briefly.  Turns out she actually works for the YMCA* and was just there helping set up the video for our training. 

Thank goodness she's not affiliated with GOTR.  I mean, most days I question whether I'm suited to be a weekly influence on these little girls... I might completely lose faith in the organization if I found out that Hookah Girl is involved.  And I might recommend a new question on the coach application.

Do you smoke drugs and make out with girls and talk loudly about these things in public?

Anyways, this experience got me thinking... I haven't talked much about school lately.  There's a reason for this.  Last semester all my classes were online.  You don't really get a good feel for the crazies when you aren't face to face with them on a regular basis.  But this semester I'm actually taking three classes on campus!  Let me tell you a bit about them.

Apparel Construction:  I'm taking this class as part of my FACS certification.  It's a sewing class.  And it is super fun.  And there are some really fun characters in class.  Today I'll just tell you about the people that sit at my table with me.

• Tourettes Gal.  The fun thing about FACS majors is there are a lot of non-traditional students.  Tourettes Gal is in her late 40's and absolutely hates sewing.  She sits there sewing, swearing, and almost every day threatens to walk out and quit this class.  I've never heard someone swear so much... and so loudly. 
• Big Quilter.  This girl is hilarious.  She talks non-stop about how she sews all the time and she's a really great quilter.  You can tell she is trying to get me and Tourettes to oohh and aahhh over her expertise.  But the thing is, she has no idea what she's doing.  She ends up asking for either my help or Tourettes'.  And I'm pretty sure we're the least experienced (and one of us is the grumpiest) in the class.  If she isn't asking us what to do, she'll sit in her seat with her hand raised.  Our teacher is pretty much bombarded with questions and people needing help, so if you need her you have to physically go get her.  Big Quilter will just sit there forever with her hand raised, eyes glazed over.  Sometime I'm going to have to time it.  She is the definition of a helpless hand raiser.
• GBFF.  GBFF is my new BFF.  He's one of two guys in our class.  He is a Freshman fashion major, soft spoken, and has a fabulous cardigan collection.  I love him.  I've always wanted a gay BFF and now I have one!  We share quiet laughs from across the table when Tourettes goes into one of her tirades and knowing glances when Big Quilter starts in on her latest adventure in quilting.  Did I mention I love him?   

Discipline & Motivation:  This is a weekly night class.  That means it is full of current teachers who are getting their Masters.  While grad school isn't full of the hilarity of Community College, it definitely has its own cast of characters.  There are a lot (alot) of older teachers there who are having a really rough time with the whole going back to school thing.  Some examples:

• We had to give a presentation a couple of weeks ago.  The teacher was going over the criteria and mentioned that it should be about 15 slides long.  One guy freaked out, in the middle of class, and said that he would absolutely not, not, use Power Point.  He told our teacher he was going to present with a poster-board instead.  No way.  Yes.  He was serious.  Our teacher talked him into doing his presentation in Word instead.  He basically pulled up an outline on Word and just talked.  I was so disappointed he didn't do a poster-board.  I haven't seen one of those since like seventh grade.
• There is one lady who asked for my phone number the first day of class, you know... just in case she had questions.  I had a bad feeling about it as I was writing down my number.  But I actually really look forward to her calls every weekend.  Whenever I answer she hollers something like, "Oh praise the Lord!  She answered!  She answered!!!"  I spend a lot of time walking her through things like how to look things up on the internet or how to access the school email account she didn't know she had.  It makes me happy to feel helpful.  It also makes me sad for her... because you know you're in a bad place if you're calling me for help.
• Our teacher is awesome... in a different kind of way.  When I told Jim that I was going back to school to be a teacher, he gave me some great advice.  He said to write down everything that my teacher's did that I hated so that I would remember not to do those things as a teacher.  Let's just say that my teacher in this class has given me great material for my list.  I actually keep my list in my binder for Discipline & Motivation class because I'm always anticipating something new to add.

Research Methods:  This class is about as exciting as it sounds.  It is a weekend class that meets about once a month throughout the semester.  The only exciting bit is that there is a woman in my class that I may have encountered in an online class last semester.  Lesson learned:  just because you can't see them doesn't mean you should say everything you want to over the internet because they'll probably show up in your life again.  I don't think she realizes who I am because she is too busy talking about how important and smart she is (things I only say to myself... and you guys) to notice me.  She did realize that we have the same major and she approached me to tell me that she is finishing hers up this semester and knows everything there is to know about it so if I have any questions, she's the one to ask.  Umm... pretty sure I'm done this summer, and I made it through on my own without your expertise.  So maybe you should be asking for my advice. 

Wow.  This lady brings out the worst in me. :)

Anyways, that's about it on the school front.  Can you believe I'll be done with classes this summer and student-teaching next fall?!?  Hard to believe in a few short months I'll be in a classroom. 

*The PV YMCA is less than a half mile away from my house.  I'm seriously considering joining just so I can have more Hookah Girl interactions.  I'm also kind of concerned that she is spending so much time in my neighborhood.