The People You Meet...

When you start something new, you are bound to meet a few interesting people. Mind you...I said "interesting", not "cool" or "awesome".
I started school last week and I found that there is a special breed of people that you will find in a continuing education class. In the state of North Carolina, a person has to be a certified nursing assistant before they are allowed to go to school for any sort of medical career. Needless to say, within this class you will find a wide range of intellect. Unfortunately for me, I'm taking a day class. Before I signed up, logic should have told me that a day class would be filled with stay at home mothers and people that generally haven't worked and/or used their brains in awhile.
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm thankful for this class. I love feeling like a freakin' genius three days a week. Every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday morning, I get to go to school and feel like I'm being tested against 3rd graders (I was going to say "5th graders", but have you seen that show Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?? Those crazy kids know some stuff!).
The class is four hours long and this is the timeline of a typical day...

0830: Class begins. Someone will be talking over the instructor, but what did I expect?? Common courtesy was taught all the way back in grade school...the same week most of my fellow students got knocked up with their first kid.

0842: The instructor has already taught something important and repeated 5 different times, "REMEMBER THIS. THIS WILL BE ON THE TEST."
At least 3 people will raise their hands, NOT wait to be called on, and will simultaneously burst out, "Wait...what??? What did you say? Can you repeat that??"
Honestly, all I want for just one day is for that sweet instructor of mine to reply, "I'm sorry...I repeated myself 5 times...FIVE TIMES...if you weren't paying attention, that's your problem."

0847: First story of the day. These stories never help with the lesson and aren't even funny. You will get at least 10 stories a day (in no way is this an exaggeration) and they will generally look like this...
Instructor Wendy: It is important to do what your nursing supervisor asks you to do. If she wants you to get ice for a patient's injury, make sure you get that in a timely manner.
Student: OH! One time, my boyfriend asked me to get some ice for his gin and tonic and when I walked over to the fridge, I slipped and fell, but I was okay.
Instructor Wendy: Oh, ummm...okay...so, as I was saying...follow your nursing supervisor's instructions accurately.

0850-0920: There will be a little bit of learning, lots of story telling, and tons of eye-rolling (the eye-rolling is done exclusively by me).

0920: First break. I don't have to pee yet, but I'm wishing I had someone to sarcastically complain to about the idiocy we are experiencing. I may choose to text my friend Emily at this time to tell a particularly funny story from the morning. Although, I do try to refrain from that most days seeing that Emily is usually busy saving the world.

0930: Class resumes. More stories are told. I start daydreaming about going to work later. Ohhhh, yes. I daydream about going to my job.

1040: Second break. I run to the restroom with "bad plumbing". The whole bad plumbing thing is not just my opinion...there are signs everywhere that warn of it. No one ever feels good about going into a stall that has a big sign that says, "Plumbing is very old. Please hold down lever for 45-55 seconds to flush."

1050: Class resumes. More stories. More eye-rolling.

1230: Class gets out. To be honest, I am 3 for 3 on being the first person out of the classroom.


I do have to share a particularly wonderful story and I'm hoping that I don't have a "you had to be there" story on my hands, because this was a gem...
There is a white woman in my class around the age of 50. If there was an award for most annoying student on the planet, she would win hands down; not only is her voice annoying, but she is also the bearer of roughly 63% of all stories told in class.
One day an African-American student was asking a legitimate question of the instructor. The annoying woman interrupted the response from Wendy and said, "You know what she's sayin' sista?? It's totally whack the way everything goes down!!"
In no way has this white woman ever spoken in such a way, but I guess since she was addressing the black girl in class, she decided that it would be the only way the girl would be able to understand her.

Ohhhhhhhhhhh....classic racism. How I've missed you so...

I can't stop listening to this song at the moment...

I wish there was a better video for this song. I've had it on repeat for the last 3 days, fo sho.

I must be missing that gene....

It's hard to go anywhere or watch anything on TV without seeing advertisements for the new Julia Roberts flick, Eat Pray Love. The other day I was watching something and a commercial for the Home Shopping Network came on. It appeared that they were trying to shill the Eat Pray Love experience (which apparently includes ugly handbags and necklaces that can be pretend prayer beads) on a "very special" Saturday showcase.

I was talking to my friend Emily this morning about how I just don't understand the obsession with this book. A few years ago, Adam handed it to me to read and it was the most painful two-thirds of a book that I've ever gotten through. It's not very hard to figure out that this book is a three-parter. I managed to get through the "eating" and the "praying", but screw the "loving". I put it down and never picked it back up. When I heard that it was going to be a movie, I thought it would be one of those straight-to-DVD situations. Apparently not. Apparently it's going to be the biggest movie of the summer. Dang.

I was happy to hear that Em didn't understand the greatness that is Eat Pray Love, either. She pointed out that it pretty much boiled down to a woman who was whining about her life and wanted to make everything about her. In the spirit of full disclosure, neither of us could finish the book...so our judgements really lie in the first two-thirds of the book.

I get the fact that people want to take a year off and "marvel at something" (I feel like I'm going to puke every time I hear Julia...errr..."Elizabeth" say that in the previews). I also get the fact that some people have enough funds to be able to take a year off of work and go discover themselves. What I don't get is that someone would think that the rest of the world cares about their journey to self-discovery. Do your friends care? Sure...they know you. Does your family care? I certainly hope so. Do complete strangers want to spend $14.99 on a paperback book and read it in their bathtubs? Well, apparently Emily and I are the only people on the planet that are saying "heck no!" to that offer.

What about you? Do you have any desire to see Julia Roberts discover her inner self??
I promise, this is a safe space. I won't lay down any hammers of judgement on you if this movie is the best thing in your book since the fine people at Nabisco decided to offer peanut butter filled Oreos. I really want to know what you think...

My guess is that this has never happened to you...

(Yes, mom. I will embarrass you.)

So I talked to my mom tonight and she informed me that one of her favorite bands (House of Heroes) Tweeted (or Twittered??) that they bought a new van for touring. Random fact, right? The reason that she shared this bit of information is because the band named the van after her. I'm going to venture to say that this only happens once in a person's life.

Sooo...props to momzy for being so cool that a band of 20-somethings named a vehicle after you. I'm going to believe that they named it after you because you're awesome and not because you're very, very white.

I realize this is a bit weak...

I know it's a little like blog-cheating to do this, but today I'm going to give you a link to a blog that I enjoy on occasion. Bryan Allain pretty much hits every point I would have made (although, he does it more eloquently) if I happened upon this CNN article about infidelity.

http://bryanallain.com/archives/2010/08/04/negotiated-infidelity-is-a-crock/

How is it possible that there are people in this world that actually believe that "letting" a man cheat is good for a marriage?!?

If what they say is true...God hates me by now.

One of my favorite things (and by "favorite", I mean "it irritates me to no end") in the world is when I get an email forward about how Susie got an email and didn't forward it, so she died in a horrible car accident. By the way...who is checking Susie's email after she died to see if she forwarded a stupid email about rainbows and butterflies??? I can see it now...

Police officer leaning over the computer screen at poor, dead Susie's home: Well, this explains it. It was purely bad luck that Susie died while driving drunk. She didn't forward this charming email with the glittery butterfly. It's a shame, too....she was about to meet the man of her dreams within 21 hours...(fists pounding the sky) IF ONLY SHE HAD FORWARDED THIS EMAIL....

One of the few things that is dumber than those emails are the people who send them on a regular basis.

I firmly believe that the only email that is more wonderfully ridiculous than believing that bad luck will follow you if you don't forward an email to 7 friends in 7 minutes is believing that God will spite you if you don't lay down the hammer of God's love (in email form, of course) to 7 friends in 7 minutes. Nowhere in the Bible does it state that you will live in eternal damnation if you do not forward an email. The funny thing is, when I get emails that state such a thing, I always find it necessary to snarkily reply to the sender, "I'm not forwarding this, but it's not because I don't love Jesus...it's because the email is stupid and I don't send stupid emails. Please don't threaten me ever again by saying that God will stop loving me if I don't forward an email in a timely manner."

So take this as a warning. If you send me an email that includes a threat, you will be added to my list of ridiculous people who send ridiculous emails...and those people are on a list very closely related to a list of people that send me Farmville requests on Facebook. For the record...you Farmville people are not liked by anyone who is not also spending massive amounts of time feeding fake animals.

While we're at it...

PLEASE DO NOT FORWARD AN EMAIL WITH INSANELY HUGE FONT THAT CAN BE READ FROM OUTERSPACE (OR BY SOMEONE WHO IS READING OVER MY SHOULDER FROM ACROSS THE ROOM)!!

I should not have to scroll down multiple times to read one sentence. I am not blind. Thank you.