Thoughts from Wks. 1 & 2 of Semester 8

I don't think I've had actual homework in over a year, and getting used to it again is not coming quickly. Term projects and midterms are the only things thatI've had to worry about for the last three semesters. Daily busy work is just not something I'm remembering with ease.

The Huston Huffman Center (Slash Sarkeys Center now? #namechangeconfusion) is a really strange place. Some days it is swarming with people. People sign up and come to these group fitness classes in hordes and droves. There are more people in my yoga class than in my history class. Some people just run around and around and around and around that running track. People pay to take a "spinning" class, which is really just biking except you don't go anywhere. People choose to run or walk on "treadmills," which is really just running or walking except you don't go anywhere and you get to watch '60 Minutes' at the same time. Basketball teams arise out of nowhere and just play game after game against one another. Don't even get me started on locker rooms - the only place in the entire world where it's "normal" for people to just be naked in front of one another. It is all just very strange.

I think that our standards for snow days are gradually lowering until they will eventually cancel school anytime it is simultaneously raining and cold outside. I'm all for days out of school for no reason, obviously, but it seems like we've got to have standards somewhere, and this doesn't seem the best place to be letting loose entirely. What are we teaching our children?

I went to StarSkate on a Friday night with about 40 of the girls we work with in our after school program. Unbeknownst to me in my college-age bubble, it is a TWEEN HOT SPOT. I've never seen anything like it. Hundreds of pre-pubescent, unchaperoned pre-teens in their own little kingdom - demanding in-line skates rather than roller skates, waiting forty-five minutes in line at the refreshments counter for an icee, unsatisfied that we weren't planning to remain there until the rink's closing moments (midnight, by the way. It was a big deal); flirting, cuddling, pushing, trash-talking, speeding around the rink. You name the destructive behavior - they had it. It was a mad house. I really cannot describe in words what sort of monsters are being created in this petrie dish of uncontrolled hormones and nonexistent parental supervision.