Friday rambling

Okay, so I finished my CPR/First Aid class. So I'm now certified in first aid for three years and CPR for one....do you feel safer now? :p

The class was certainly interesting. I've been trying to figure out the reasoning behind the way certain people teach. The first day we had a lady who was a bit hyper and slightly disorganized but thorough, and she was one of those teachers that threatens un-named consequences should the class not pay attention and follow instructions. I've decided that they must do that to insure cooperation, and then when no one gets in trouble and she lets you pass the class just fine, you feel relieved and lucky to have not been one of her troublesome classes! In reality she probably hardly ever has a difficult class. :p So anyway, we had her and a guy who had moved here from Utah and was helping her teach so he could renew his instructor's certification. Then yesterday we had a different lady teaching and she was more calm and serious and just went through everything slowly.

The class was mostly all people who had to take it for work, guys who worked for a construction company, ladies who worked in schools or other various things like that. One lady had to be certified before taking her girl scout troop camping...she was very impatient about how long the class was taking! I don't blame her, but I've figured out that it doesn't help to complain about it in class. :p

I also decided not to say anything yesterday when the teachers were finding a test written in Spanish for one lady, and then frantically trying to find a Spanish answer key to go with it. The test was multiple choice and you filled in one of four circles on your answer sheet. After they finally found the Spanish answer key I heard them saying that oh wait, they could have used the same answer key because it's exactly the same! Well...that's what I'd been thinking through all this, that I doubted the Spanish test was arranged any differently, so all they had to do was match the circles up same as with the other ones...

I'm also assuming that in a real emergency adrenaline would kick in and that it, along with my desire to be able to help somehow, would overcome any queasiness about first aid. I was reading through my book Wednesday night and couldn't stand to look at the pictures in there, and then during the class the lady said we needed to listen to the video but we didn't have to look at it if we couldn't stand it. *shudder* So yeah, I'm certified, but just to be safe, if you're around me don't injure yourself in any way that causes anything from the inside of you (other than blood, I don't mind blood) to be visible! Oh actually, to be completely safe in general, don't hurt yourself at all...but I think you knew that. ;)

Oh yeah, some of the things they talked about and mention in the book about how to recognize an emergency..."screaming, yelling, or calling for help", "breaking glass, crashing metal, or screeching tires"...now seriously! If you couldn't figure out that those things might be an emergency, I think you might need more than a first aid class!

Let's see what else did we do this week? Oh yeah, we had men's meeting here on Wednesday and our cat Gracie found the one guy in the room with asthma and started winding around his neck! And then shrieked when he removed her. Mom and I were back in the bedrooms, and I heard Gracie shriek (she lets you know if she's not happy!) and wondered what had happened...I thought maybe someone stepped on her. That bad cat! She couldn't go sit on any of the cat owners, or even the people who don't like cats but aren't allergic....oh no, she had to pester the person who wanted her around the least.

I'm trying to make a paper mache pear...trying being the operative word there. I've only had time to put one layer of paper on it, so right now it just looks like a paper-covered balloon. Hmm...something's obviously going to have to be done about that. Pears don't look like balloons. I think maybe as an experiment I'll try blowing up another balloon and if I can shape it with tape or something I might start over. If the tape doesn't work I'll stick with what I've got and see what can be done with it.

I saw in the paper yesterday that there's contra dancing in Winston...Cool, I didn't know that! And there's also an English country dance at Bethabara park (and that one's free...always a plus)...I wonder if you have to wear authentic English garb? If you do I think I'd rather pay the seven dollars for the other dance, although an English country dance would be so neat and Jane-Austen-y. So now I just need to convince some of my friends that they want to go dancing...Amanda? You said you'd had a friend who wanted you to try contra dancing...would you like another person bugging you? ;)

Oh, labels; out of all five people who gave their opinion on labels, it's 4 for and 1 against. I think I'll start labeling...so now I have to figure out what to label various posts as! Hmm... :p

I also have a strong suspicion that this post may not make a whole lot of sense. I'm tired today so I kind of rambled. If it makes sense to you, great! If it doesn't...I'm sorry. :( I got to bed late last night and got up early too many days this week... *yawn*