Ponderings and Musings

So today’s topic in Health Class was sexuality. Any word that contains “sex” somewhere in it always piques my interest, so I was curious to see how the class would progress today. Would the professor treat it like my high school health teachers did so many years ago – by running a well worn 16mm film on the Singer film projector, out of focus, so we couldn’t see the important parts?

I’m glad to say that he did not. Instead, he invited a speaker from the local Planned Parenthood to address the class.

The speaker blew me away with his frankness, personality and confidence he displayed while discussing a potentially taboo subject. If I’m to be honest, there are few subjects, when it comes to sex, that will make me blush and it was refreshing to hear a speaker address the class in much the same manner.

During the presentation he threw out several statistics that I found startling:

1. HIV infections are back on the rise.
2. 20,000,000 Americans per year are infected with a sexually transmitted infection and this does NOT include HIV infection.
3. Of those 20+ million, a good share of them are young adults aged 16-24.

Cluephone ringing for our conservative folks, the whole “let’s ignore it/abstinence” approach isn’t working.

Don’t be surprised if I hand you a condom sometime.

I’m wondering if I’m expecting too much from this college experience. Today I had one class, Surveying I. I don’t plan on becoming a surveyor, however it’s a required course for all of us that wish to work in the civil engineering field. I might have to survey someday, and though we are being trained on equipment that became obsolete during Donna Summer’s “Last Dance”, by god we must take this course.

My Surveying class is compromised of 29 men and one woman. I’ve bonded with Jennifer to an extent, she’s very attractive, a little rough and what you might expect of a female civil engineer, not that I like stereotyping people, but she fits the image. Of my classmates, I’d say that I’m tied with another guy for being the oldest and many are in their mid or late 20s. There are a couple of freshmen as well. Some are stoned.

Today the professor handed out a 35 page packet on Trigonometry with the following instructions: read it, do the problems and turn in the homework next week. Now, I don’t expect him to teach us the fundamentals of trigonometry in 50 minutes, but for many of us in the class we haven’t had trig since high school. Heck, I was in the first round of students when New York State changed the traditional “Trigonometry” class to “Course III”, which was an advanced, unique blend of algebra, geometry, calculus and trigonometry that focused on the latter. I don’t know why the class of 1986 was selected to be the guinea pigs for the “mix it all together” approach but I think it kind of puts me at a disadvantage. I’m already suffering from the elementary school math experiment with the class of 1986: “let’s teach them only metric!” That went over so well when the U.S. converted to the metric system and all.

But I digress.

Now, I know that for every hour of class I should spend two hours studying and I try to adhere to that guideline to the best of my ability. But I think perhaps we should have spent some time in class talking about the contents of the packet. Instead he popped a quiz and told us we could leave when we finished that. I’m not a fan of the disinterest.

Boo.

Maybe I’m expecting too much. Perhaps I was spoiled when Miss Chontosh (high school math teacher) took time to walk us through problems and had after school tutoring sessions to coach us on the regents exams. It could be that I’m just putting too much pressure on myself and setting my personal expectations too high.

Sometimes I wonder if I should just bag it all and get a job that pays the bills and spend my free time in community theatre or something.

Imagine my surprise when Time Warner sent a full cable crew, complete with bucket truck and hard hats, to our home only 45 minutes after the cross-eyed, twangy sounding tech and the four kids in the back of his truck left the premises.

Wow! Color me impressed.

The cable crew replaced everything aside from the cable that runs under the driveway (which is completely intact and passes all tests with flying colors), ripped out the booster that the tech installed three weeks ago, explained everything they did and gave me an internet experience that’s faster than passing gas after Burger King.

I am once again a happy geek and surfing at high speed, baby.

Bring on the porn news and family friendly entertainment.

Earl has been out of town for the past two nights. He was expected home this evening, but during last night’s call he let me know that he’ll have to spend tonight out of town as well.

This kind of has me bummed. It also has me thinking.

Since he’s out of town tonight and tomorrow night he has a sleep study for his sleep apnea and then on Thursday he’s out of town again, I’m rethinking out overnight plans we have for this coming weekend. We were going to go to Buffalo for the last half of a bear run but now I’m thinking that might be a bit much, especially for him.

Maybe I’m getting old.

I guess we’ll have to discuss it tonight.

I think I’m starting to kick into hibernation/homebody gear in tandem with the color change on the trees and the cooler temperatures. For the past 24 hours or so I’ve been really in the mood to bake a pie. I’m in the mood for stew. I want to eat some squash.

Interesting that my thoughts of autumn gravitate to food.

I’m noticing an increasing trend in this area. While making an occasional fast food stop, whether it’s at Subway, Quizno’s or one of the burger places, I’m noticing more and more people aren’t picking up their garbage and putting it in the trash bin when they’re finished.

What’s up with that?

Are people becoming so arrogant that they think they can just leave their trash lying about? Have the fast food chains instituted some table-side service that I didn’t know existed?

The next time I see an ignoramus just leave their trash lying on the table in the middle of McBomb or whatever, I might be tempted to stand up and say “Hey! You forgot your trash!” I’ll leave the “asshole” off the end of the sentence so I can give an air of being polite.

I don’t know why I think I must be the manners police in these situations but this new trend is driving me crazy.

I’ve mentioned before that I am currently enrolled in a health class to get my required physical education credit. Many see this course as the lazy way of meeting the requirement but I am surprisingly getting a lot out of the course. I don’t know if it’s guilt or what but I’ve stepped up workout routine considerably since enrolling and I’m feeling better for it. In fact, I’m in jeans that I couldn’t fit into in August. This makes me happy.

On Thursday we had an exam covering everything we’ve discussed thus far. As I mentioned before, the class is seemingly populated with slackers and before returning our exams to us, the professor mentioned that these were the poorest results he’s ever encountered in teaching this class for the past 30 years. Coming out of the class on Thursday, I wasn’t confident of my performance on this exam. So when the professor wrote the grades up on the board “80+, 3”, “70-80, 6”, “60-70, 10”, etc., I ballparked myself as one of the six and maybe one of the ten. Surprisingly it turns out that I was one of the “three”. Not my most stellar exam grade but I’m pleased.

It’s amazing the amount of practical information that is being taught in this course. Smoking leads to lung cancer. McFood is bad for you. Exercise helps you maintain a healthier body. While I’m starting to cheer on the younger generation a little bit, because I’m finding that many professors really don’t give a crap about the students they are teaching, I can not for the life of me figure out why teenagers are picking up smoking. With all the undeniable evidence out in the wild, there is absolutely no reason that any person with any sort of common sense would start smoking in this day and age. I just don’t get it.

Anyways, one of the topics that came up in the discussion today sort of surprised me. Many of the younger students believe that there are cures (or we are really close to a cure) for many of the incurable diseases: diabetes, cancer, AIDS, etc., and the U.S. government is surpressing these cures (or really close attempts) in order to keep the pharmacutical companies alive. They reason that it’s all about big business these days and why should we come up with a cure that would knock out all this big money? Now, I’ll admit that I proudly wear my tin-foil hat, especially with Bush Lite and his cast of idiots populating Washington, but that’s one point of view that I’ve never considered. I think this discussion is indicative of a lot of things. First of all, with this up and coming generation I see big changes on the horizon. It might take two or three decades, but I feel like there’s some sort of light at the tunnel when it comes to this mess our country is in. Secondly, I found myself agreeing with my classmates. I’ve never been one for taking medication. Hell, I don’t go to the doctor unless something impedes my appearance (being vain and all) or messes with my sexuality (being a man and all). I don’t know if their theory goes to the extent in which they proposed by why would big business want to cure a disease when they can make a ton of money just treating it? But you know what, this group of slackers brought up an interesting point that made me think, and add another bit of Reynolds Wrap to my hat.

Sometimes I sit and wonder what the world is going to be like in 30 years. I don’t know why I get all pensive about this sort of thing and I don’t know why I try to look 30 years into the future, but there are times when Professor Frightful is talking to his chalk and my mind starts to wander in math class. And these are the things I ponder.

For one thing, in 30 years I’ll be approaching 70 years old. I have no doubt in my mind that my folks will still be alive, they’re both wired that way. I wonder if the flying cars that we were suppose to have by the year 2000 will be here in the year 2037. Will I still be using my PowerBook?

Earl and I will be celebrating 41 years in 2037. If the history of my family is any indication and I follow their lead, we’ll still be traveling and exploring. What does one buy for their lover on their 41st anniversary?

Whatever the future holds, it sure looks bright to me.