Celebrating T Day

What's this? Christmas music already playing on the radio? I'm never quite ready . . .

I hope you all had a nice Turkey Day! I did. I ate. I slept. I ate some more. I slept some more. Goes without saying that this week I'll be eating nothing but fruits and veggies and working out daily! I refuse to be one of those stats that says the average American gains 5-7 pounds over the holidays. Yikes!

After having four wonderful days off, it kinda sucks to have to come back to work . . .

I Would Have at Least Shaved my Armpits

I had my usual Masters Swim training yesterday morning. As usual, I went to my designated slow lane, anticipating seeing some of the other women who usually swim with me. However, none of them showed up, meaning the other lanes were over crowded. The coach decided to have some fun with me, so moved three of the HOTTEST men over into my lane. So three HOT boys . . . and me, in my swimsuit with an ugly swim cap on. In other words, I was NOT HOT. :) Even with all my charms, there was no way it was going to overpower the swim cap / swimsuit combo! :)

You can bet they were nice to watch swim! I warned them that I was slow, but they were cool. In general, they lapped me left and right and then left again. However, there was one point where we were using the kickboards. The guys were kicking like crazy and it was like I was in a jacuzzi with all the bubbles and waves they were creating! But here's the kicker (excuse the play on words!) -- I had to kick at half my normal speed as to not run into them! I'd never seen people try to hard to move forward, yet despite all the activity, move so slowly. I secretly smiled!

The Opera

Is it wrong that I just had to look up how to spell "opera"? I kept spelling "Oprah". Anyway . . .

I went to my first opera last night -- Cinderella! It was sung in Italian, but thankfully they had subtitles for me to follow. It was wonderful, and I truly enjoyed it, yet found it humorous as well.

They would flash one phrase up on the screen in English, while the actors would sing about that phrase forever and a day. Let me give you an example, translated for your reading pleasure. Picture the English phrase "She had a pretty face" . . . here's how they expressed it:

Ah, what a pretty face!
What a pretty face!
What a pretty face!
Pretty, pretty, pretty face!
Ah, what a pretty face!
Face, pretty, face, pretty, face, pretty, face!
Ah, what a pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty face!
Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, face, face, face, face!
Ah, what a pretty face!

Then the chorus would chime in and everyone would sing about the pretty face.
Face!
Pretty!
Face!
Pretty!
Pretty face, pretty face, pretty face, ahhhhhhh, pretty face!

You get the idea . . .

Teacher for a Day

I contacted Oregon Mentors a few months ago and expressed an interest in helping lead a resume writing / interviewing workshop. They connected me with Madison High School. I went there yesterday afternoon to teach my first class!

I was a little worried about being back in high school again. What would I wear? Would the kids make fun of me? Would I be "cool" enough? All those worries and insecurities that I used to have back when I was their age. I'm happy to say that I was proud and confident and other than some silly boys making cat calls to me as I was leaving, felt pretty good about the day.

Just in case the kids got out of control, I practiced my snap-point. This is something a teacher friend of mine uses to get her students' attention. Let me tell you, she used it on me once and had my attention right away! Thankfully I didn't have to use it on any of the kids, but sure wanted to use it on some of the teachers I met that day. They were highly disorganized and just plain rude. Despite that, I found what I already knew to be true -- I really enjoy leading classes and discussions.

I am passionate about helping our younger generations get started in their career search and believe strongly that there is a huge need for it.