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I'm exhausted. And I'm now counting the number of classes before this semester is over, kinda like how when I was a kid I would count how many days until my favorite day of the year, my birthday. Or maybe more appropriately how I'd count how many days I had to go until it was time to see the dentist again, since having those fluoride treatment trays, to me, was the equivalent of having to climb the rope in gym class - both made me want to throw up.

So, I have 5 more Mondays and 5 more Wednesdays, then I have about 5 weeks off before next semester begins. Not that I am still hating school, actually the opposite, I quite like it now. But, as with everything I do, I am always in a hurry to get to a finish line, or the end, or whatever that goal is so I can think of another one and then get to the end of it. I want to see where it all leads me.

I have figured out a way to cope with my Monday Hospitality class and it is working out pretty well. I don't do my required reading prior to a lecture in class. Instead, I read only the two chapters we will be tested on in the current week, and I do this on Sunday, the day before the test. I don't go over my notes from my lecture which may sound like an odd strategy but it works for me. I've found that although I do take really thorough notes, the lectures do not accurately cover or convey what is in the textbook. Plus, we are always behind a few chapters in testing as compared to the lecture and notes for the week, thus, when I do read the book, I can recall and reinforce some of what the lecture and my notes covered and they make more sense this way.

I do have a new found respect for my instructor. I can tell she really cares about teaching, and, I have actually become interested in what we are learning in class. I may not agree with her teaching methods, but hey, figuring out a way to cope and finishing the class is a learning experience in itself. I had lunch with my sister and a friend the other day and I noticed I was able to pepper the conversation with many things I had learned in this class, I've never been a conversation pepper-er before. I like it!

As for my classmates, Chatty Cathy is as talkative as ever, and others in the class are now resorting to eye-rolling and snickering every time her hand shoots up in the air which, most classes, is enough times to give her an entire weeks worth of aerobic activity. Plumber Crack sits in front of me now, and even though she is an attractive young woman I have now learned that this look does not work on anyone, even if you are Heidi Klum. I know what you're thinking, but it isn't a cute Victoria's Secret thong peeking out from too low jeans, it is full on unattractive crack, and it is just as unpleasant being faced with it from her as it is when you are faced with it from a greasy rumpled dirty guy with cigarette stains on his fingertips and coffee stains on his teeth wearing an "I Heart Roadkill" T-shirt.

My Sanitation class is over and I got an A MINUS! I'm trying to figure out where that minus came from. I think I should have gotten an A...

So two Wednesdays ago I began my next 8 week class in place of Sanitation, Food Service Nutrition. It is taught by a Registered Dietitian with major ADD. She obviously knows her stuff, she occasionally spits out a statistic only an RD would know, but seeing her teach a class is like watching Pig Pen give the State of the Union Address. She is not only huffing and puffing as she speaks, she is speaking at breakneck speed, not finishing her sentences, supplies falling off the desk or podium, and I swear this is true there is a big dirty cloud billowing in her wake. Plus, she cracks herself up often, so all this is punctuated by a deep huh ha ha ha reminiscent of that children's TV show host that got caught in the back of a seedy theater doing something he should have thought twice about doing in public seeing as he was a children's TV show host. Any day now she'll jump up on the desk in white platforms, fists pumping forward and aft as Tequila plays in the background. And while she may be entertaining, unfortunately, she doesn't teach us anything. She zips through slides repeating "that's in the book" so often I suspect that she may be on auto-pilot and the presentation is actually on lip-sync and she's just learned to move her lips to it. Apparently, one class last semester told her all the info on her slides WAS IN THE BOOK! Did she teach her classes before that fateful day when her not so motivated students decided to weigh in on her slide show? Oh well, now we have the misfortune of not being taught what is actually quite an interesting subject.

Out of the three instructors I've had thus far, I have not exactly taken a shine to the methods of two of them. I don't ever remember feeling this way about any instructors I had in my younger school days. Now I know better!