"Body Age"

So, today was rough. My class was AWFUL today. Completely, totally AWFUL. I am so frustrated with this class and this school in general, but today they were especially bad. It seems that no one has ever taught this children basic manners! They constantly talk while I'm talking, and choose to do their own thing instead of listening to me. It's sooooooooo frustrating. So today, after a fairly long whole-class time out they all silently cleaned out their chair pockets and then I had them write in their journals two things that they were going to do tomorrow to make it a better day. One child wrote "I don't like transformers".

So then we had to electronic report card training - yes, this is the middle of the year and they are springing this on us. Yes, we have to back and enter the last TWO nine weeks worth of grades and comments just to "catch up" before we enter this nine weeks grades. No, that's not fair or fun but that's just the way it is. So I scooted out of there pretty fast b/c I had to get to the Center of Integrative Medicine for my Body Age Analysis - the first step in this pre-op nutrition and exercise program. I got lost. Twice. I was ten minutes late.

So, here I am - ready to assess my health and fitness which, let's be honest, has no chance of being anything remotely good. And since it's not something that I especially like to discuss, I'm game to do this but I'm not really excited about it. Plus, after my awful experience with the psychologist I'm worried that he is going to be just as disapproving and critical. Add that to my day and me being late and I'm a mess. Completely stressed and ready to burst into tears at the least provocation. So what's the first thing they do? Take my blood pressure. I have NEVER had high blood pressure at all and today it was 141/104. I freaked. Brian (the guy doing the assessment) said it was probably because I was so upset and stressed and they would do it again the next time I was there. There was also a cardiac portion where they measured your resting heart rate and they couldn't get mine to go below 100. I tried so hard to relax - he would leave the room so I could calm down and I just started crying. Luckily, he pretended not to notice :)

So Brian was nothing like the psychologist - he was very positive and encouraging, despite the fact that my results were (predictably) not so good. He didn't try and sugar coat it, but he did recognize that I knew they weren't good and that's why I was doing all of this to improve on it. In addition to the blood pressure and the heart rate, I had to answer a lot of questions on the computer, stand on a body mass scale, do a bicep curl to measure strength, a flexibility test, push-ups and sit ups. Actually on the strength and push ups I scored in the average range for my age. Brian said that if they do my blood pressure again and it's back to normal that will take my body age down significantly, but as it was it came out that my body was like a 56 year old!!!! Woah. That's freaky old. I go back tomorrow for a regular doctor's appointment, then next week I start with the nutrition an exercise program.

I was so tired I almost fell asleep driving home. Needless to say, I crashed and took a nap when I got home. I didn't get a nap yesterday (crazy busy day) and with that, all the stress and daylight savings time, I was zonked. Unfortunately, I had a ton of work to do to get ready for my subs on Thursday and Friday (I'm going the Virginia State Reading Association conference here in Richmond) and I had Game Club. So I got up, did a little bit of work, and went off to Game Club. We played old-school Trivial Pursuit and had a good time, as usual.

After GC, everyone had left except my four Richmond friends, and no one was tired (and Katie was drinking) so I went home, got my school work, and took it back over to the Palmers. They helped color the leprechauns on our St. Patrick's Day poems while I got the rest of my work done. It was fun AND my work got done a lot sooner than it would have otherwise.

That being said, it's 11:45 and here I am typing on my blog instead of going to bed. Tomorrow's another busy day - I have to leave school immediately for my dr. appt. and then tomorrow night I'm baby-sitting for Katie and Jon's 10-month old (who is SO super cute). But then I have off Thursday and Friday for the conference so I'm totally stoked about that! (That's right. I said totally stocked. It's a wicked awesome thing to say)

Ok, long post. Going to bed. Be cute and have a good night anyone reading this!