A little coordination goes a long way

It seems these days that anything requiring coordination is giving me grief.
The first thing is the ‘Indiana Jones’ LEGO X-box game. Robin and I have been playing it together the last few days. I’m not sure if it is a relationship-building exercise or a relationship-destroying one, because it is very frustrating for my talented husband to play with me, as it turns out. He gets to be Indiana Jones and I am one of the other characters from the movie (his sidekick). We run around, blow things up, fight bad guys, build things, solve treasure maps and little puzzles, and jump and swing on rocks and buildings. All this with 4 little buttons and 2 toggle switches that you play with your thumbs.
Compared to this, the heart surgery I helped with last summer was child’s play. Inevitably it comes to a difficult move where my little lego man was to swing from a hanging vine, onto a building and then leap in sequence across obstacles and I end up killing myself repeatedly and killing Indiana Jones, too. I asked Robin last night if he thought I’d improved, and he said it was hard to tell.
The second coordination problem is our truck. Now, I personally don’t believe I have a very significant coordination problem, but since we got our pickup this summer it has been a steep learning curve for me in driving standard. The curve has plateaued recently which means that I’m still driving as badly as I ever did. Depending on your point of view, one could say that our recent truck issues are related to my skill in driving.
Last night I was on my way to work when suddenly the truck made a horrible grating noise and then the stick shift moved all by itself and the truck stalled. I managed to pull off the highway and coast to a stop on a side street. It wouldn’t even turn over. I popped the hood and there was a funny smell and everything looked okay, but I knew that was it. I called my boss on my emergency-only cell phone and since I was so close to work, she sent the secretary to come and pick me up. After work I called my brother Sam and asked him for advice. Get it towed home, he said. I called BCAA (let me advise getting a membership- it is one of the best investments I’ve ever made) and the secretary drove me back to my truck to meet the tow truck.
He hooked it up and on the way back to Kelowna we chatted about alternators and solenoids and the weather and families. When we got home he pulled into the parking lot across from our apartment. I jumped out and looked over at our apartment. I could see Robin sitting at the table, looking out the window at us. It was dark but the tow truck lights were flashing and I stood there as the driver unhooked it, thinking how I was going to explain this one.
When I got in he asked, “Was that our truck that the tow truck brought in?”
To make a long story short the truck is still parked there and hopefully my dear brother will be able to fix it for us.
The third area of coordination that is a nightmare is my aerobics class. Today we jumped around and did a move called the grapevine step. I shouldn’t say ‘we’, actually, because I never got the hang of it. Not only were all the people moving their feet in this complicated step, but they were also doing something with their arms. I struggled to keep up but for the entire class I felt like I was going the opposite way from everyone else, stumbling over my own feet. At one point we were marching across the room while waving weights over our heads in some kind of pattern and I heard the instructor say to the class, “Why don’t you make it worth your while and use heavier weights?”
I realized I was the only one with 3-lb weights; everyone else was carrying 5 or 10 lbs. I gave it my best shot, but by the time I was done I had to limp home.
I don’t know if there are any things you can do to improve your coordination, but I’d like to try. I’ve been reading a book about mathematical puzzles and I am struggling everyday to stretch my mind and figure out how to do them. Most of the time I can barely understand them. (And anyway, why would it be fun to try to solve a math problem that no one has ever figured out before?)
Well, I’m going to keep at it. More LEGO X-box tonight, if Robin can put up with me, and I’m going to keep up with the aerobics.

A new year, a new challenge

Along with my requisite two dozen new year’s resolutions, my resolution to get fit and lose weight involved joining an aerobics class at the local rec center. Over Christmas I ate lots of tasty treats and it was just too darn cold to go running, and well, honestly, I’m a bit bored of running alone and the slightest bit lazy. Robin and I just got cable in our apartment and a world of marvelous sedentary delights were opened up to me. He had to teach me how to use the remote control and navigate through the channels, but now that I’ve got it, it’s tons of fun to watch various shows and movies and news and cartoons. I don’t watch a lot, but I definitely am not utilizing my time as efficiently as I used to.
I remember a time when I wouldn’t watch a movie without knitting or flashcards in my hands. I still can’t handle reading a novel- it has to at least be in a foreign language to stretch my mind.
But all that aside, I had my first class on Monday. I walked over to the rec center and into the big room and there were about 30 ladies and 1 lone man. Most of them looked like retirees- and most of them looked deceptively out of shape. I say deceptively, because by the end of the first 5 minutes I realized I had my work cut out for me to keep up with them.
The instructor had bright red lipstick and she bounced around in tune with the music, yelling out instructions for left, right, two steps this way, two steps that way, etc. etc..
I was concentrating so hard on trying to perform the mirror image of her movements at breakneck speed that I almost crashed into the lady behind me. The deceptive flabbiness of all the older ladies had caught me off guard. They were all wearing lululemon pants and sweat bands and they all had towels they wiped their faces with every now and again.
By 15 minutes I felt like my legs were going to fall off. I looked at the clock and realized that there was still an hour to go. At 30 minutes we were allowed to stop for a brief water break. The older man came over to me and said graciously,
“Don’t worry about keeping up; as long as you keep moving you’ll do fine.”
I wondered if it was obvious that I couldn’t keep right and left straight.
Towards the end of the class we did some stretching and as I bundled up to go, dripping with sweat, I realized I would either die, or get in shape.
Today was my second class and right now I’m sitting with a hot water bottle on my sore legs and trying to relax my shoulders so they don’t ache so much. There were less people in the class, and I was smart enough today to wear my stretchy leggings, so I didn’t stick out so much. The instructor had us run laps across the huge room, waving weights over our heads (at least that’s what I was doing), and at one point I realized I was struggling to keep up with a lady who looked old enough to be my grandmother. The embarrassment was complete.
In front of me was a lady who was about 80 lbs, wearing a teeny tank top and even teenier shorts (if you could call them that). I could see the bones on her back sticking out. As soon as the music started, she was off like a little energizer bunny. She looked like she had springs in all her joints, and during the water break she jogged on the spot. I was dying.
I stumbled home today and did housework and got groceries and went to a staff meeting at work and made a lasagna that turned out runny, and watched a bit of tv with Robin and now I’m contemplating going to bed, even though it’s only 7:30. I’m determined to keep it up with the class, and I’m determined to improve the coordination thing. I’ve heard that most women struggle with right and left more than men (hence the reluctance to drive standard in a lot of women), but no one seemed to be having more trouble than me in today’s class. I believe it can be overcome, though. I’ll keep you posted……

My teaching hobby

When I used to live with my dear friend Miriam, we were both studying at TWU: I was studying chemistry, and she was studying to be an elementary teacher. We had frequent arguments on the same thing: I was convinced that chemistry was the pinnacle of knowledge and actually made the world turn around. She didn't think so. One day, she spoke the final word that ended all our arguing. Heather, she said, everybody needs teachers. Even chemists are taught by teachers.
Even though I am working part time tutoring right now, I don't consider myself a teacher. Teaching is a hobby for me.
This week the word hobby gained a new definition for me. One of my students has been doing better in his studies, so his mom, not wanting to waste the money she paid for the term of tutoring, decided to send his teenage sister in his place. I'll call her Michelle in the interests of confidentiality. Michelle was not happy to be forced to come to the school.
She came in and I greeted her in French and she responded with rolling her eyes. I made the first mistake of the day by saying to her, "Hey, you look a lot like your mom!"
She glared at me.
"Your mom's very pretty." I said hastily.
She plopped down on the chair.
"Okay, let's see what you have for homework?"I asked (in French).
She pulled out her binder and shuffled her papers a bit.
"I want to play a game." She said in English.
I usually spend the last ten minutes of the lesson playing cards with my students, since they're often exhausted at the end of a long day. Sometimes we play bingo, or crib, and recently one of the younger boys has taught me how to play 'operation'. (scared the pants off me the first time I got buzzed!)
"Well, let's do some homework first." I said.
"I just have an English project." She said, pulling it out.
We were supposed to be speaking in French but everything I said, she answered in English. I decided not to push it, but keep answering in French.
"I need my textbook though." She said. "I don't have it here."
I saw on her sheet that she had to look up the definitions of some words.
"Why don't we use a dictionary for that?" I asked. "We can work on it together."
I got a dictionary and we looked up a few words. A couple of minutes later she slammed the book closed.
"I don't want to do this anymore. I want to play a game."
I smiled nicely.
"Well, there's not a lot of point coming here if we don't do SOME work. I tell you what, I'll give you three choices. We can either work more on your English project, or we can do some math"-
"I don't have any math" She interrupted
"Or we can practice some essay writing and translation." I finished.
She glared at me for a moment and then said, "Ok, writing."
I pulled out a story book and explained how we'd work on translating a short story together. We were three minutes into it when she suddenly threw down her pencil.
"I changed my mind. I'll do the math."
I tried to smile. I remembered Robin giving me some advice for difficult students: If they know you're FOR them, or there to help them, then they'll make an effort. I opened the math textbook. I knew she was working on fractions and algebra, so I turned to the chapter.
"I don't know how to do those." She said blankly, gesturing towards a simple 1/2 + 3/4.
"All right then, we'll work through them together."
I wrote out the question for her. Robin had made a really cool chart on fractions that I'd brought to work with me and I held it up.
"Okay, when you're adding fractions, the first thing is to look and see if the denominator is the same. Now, what number does 2 and 4 both go into? What multiple do they have in common?"
We worked through it.
The next question she wrote out wrong and I pointed it out and she said, "Who cares?"
She said she didn't know how to multiply fractions and when I showed her how to do it from Robin's chart, she wrote the problem out extremely slowly and then looked up at me.
"I'm going to do this one as slowly as possible." She said, "So it takes up our entire time."
I wanted to wring her neck.
We played cards at the end, and I asked her what her plans were for the weekend and she said she had a ringette camp and I said, that'll be fun! And she said, "No, it'll suck."
When she left I felt deflated. The school has a gentle black lab that they keep around to help the kids with anxiety issues, as they generally like to play with him, and his kennel is right beside my desk. I have 16 flea bites all down my right side from him and another 6 on my legs. He came up and tried to kiss me and I pushed him away.
I can't say that I totally agree with Miriam that teaching is the highest calling, although I better not say too much now that I'm married to an almost-math-teacher, (who does believe that chemistry is lower on the intellectual chain than physics and math), but I have to say that it is not really a hobby per se and it is one of the hardest callings. A good teacher deserves their pay, every cent of it. My kudos to all the teachers out there, to Robin, to Miriam, and especially to my mother who put up with me when I was exactly like Michelle.

Evaluating the program

Well, as some of you may have guessed, my comprehensive plan has been slightly modified by the vagaries of life. Being sick with the swine flu changed things; so did going down to Vancouver for the weekend and just plain old busyness.
The good news is that I have been doing better in some categories. For example, while not exactly meeting any of my goals, I have improved upon some of them. I am praying more. I can now do 3 chinups in a row. My French has improved.
I suppose that too is debatable, though. I had a new French student last week, and I was going over some spelling words for him. I pronounced the word 'parenthèse' and he turned and looked at me with a puzzled look.
"What do you mean?"
I tried valiantly to pronounce it again. His quizzical look vanished and he said, "Oh, you mean parenthèse!"
Yes, of course that's what I meant; that's what I said. But I think the difference was in my emphasis of syllables. Yvette corrected me on it the other day. One of the down sides of learning a language by yourself is not being able to predict the irregularities to rules. Take emphasis, for example. In English, different words have the stress in different places. 'wonderful', for example, has the stress on the first syllable. To say it 'wonDERful' would sound funny. 'Hallelujah' is pronounced 'HalleLUJah. 'Produce' can be pronounced two different ways- and the emphasis completely changes the meaning of the word.
So it is in French, I have learned. Unlike Italian, which has a predictable rule that (usually) the second-to-last syllable is stressed (think spaGHEtti), English and French change at will.
Sometimes I've had to choke back laughter listening to my ESL friends read out loud, now I have become one of them.
Years ago I read an inspirational quote: "Reach for the moon: even if you miss, you'll land among the stars".
I thought about it for awhile and then decided it was a pretty stupid quote. Anybody who had been through grade 2 knows that the stars are farther from earth than the moon. If you reach for the moon and fall short, there's no way you'll even be close to the stars. Not only that, but the chances of actually hitting another intrastellar body while aiming for something else that is lightyears away is pretty darn slim. I modified the quote to make more sense:
"Reach for the stars: even if you miss you might be the same distance from the earth that the moon is."
I suppose I've reached for the stars with my comprehensive plan. You may think I'm hanging around the moon's orbit. Actually, as we all know, there are near stars and far stars. I aimed for some pretty far stars, so hanging around Alpha Centauri suits me just fine.
Excuse me, I've got some chinups to do.

It's an idea.

Well, I'm still sick, but this time it is sort of self-induced: I got the H1N1 vaccine. The good news is that Robin is still quite sympathetic (as long as he judges that my symptoms are not just made up). I admit, I can be a bit of a hypochondriac. But this time, it really is bad.
Last week I didn't work all week and this week I worked two afternoons, so I've had lots of free time and it's been exceedingly frustrating.
I've always been a highly motivated and busy person so to be sitting around, feeling crummy, not having much work, is really wearying me. On monday I was talking with our friend Marlene and she commented on the necessity to enjoy the slow times because before you know it, you are overloaded with work.
I thought about that for the rest of the day and the next morning my thoughts had consolidated themselves into the perfect solution.
I began Heather's Comprehensive Improved Program for Total Betterment. It took me half the day to write up all the flowcharts and lists but I got it done. Lasting for 12 weeks, this program has several goals in different areas and delineates the individual steps needed to get there. For example, in the 'discipline my body' category, in 12 weeks I will have worked up to doing 12 consecutive chin-ups. Each week I add one on (this week I'm supposed to do 1 a day). In the 'challenge my mind' category, I have to listen to 20 minutes of French a day, write one French essay a week, learn 2 new Latin words a day, study one drug class, etc.
In the 'build my spirit' category I have various bible memory goals. In the 'channel my emotions' category I have to paint/draw one picture a week. It all started out fine. Because the first day was a half day, I cut myself some slack. I did the chin-up, listened to some French, worked on a memory verse.
The second day I was a bit busy with various things and only got 3 different things out of 20 done. I decided my goals needed to be attenuated a bit. The third day I drove to summerland and listened to 80 minutes of French but did nothing else but the chin-up. Today I'm feeling sick and my arm is burning from the vaccination so I doubt I'll even manage the chin-up. I decided that I don't like painting and the running is a bad idea when I'm sick and I don't feel like reading my old physics textbook.
When I first devised my plan I told Robin about it and begged him to tell me it was a good idea. He paused for a moment and then said 'It's an idea'.
I think I often shoot too high. It's better, I believe, than not trying at all, but sometimes I don't have a very realistic view of myself and my capabilities. If only I could take all my good ideas and actually make them happen....
At any rate since I'm sick at home today with not much to do I can do some of the more laid-back things. Perhaps I'll be feeling better tomorrow and I can catch up on the running and chin-ups. I'll keep you posted.