Gym woes

In an effort to save money, I have joined a new gym. The gym I used to belong to was 18 holes shy of a country club. Every piece of cardio equipment had a flat screen television attached to it. There was a free ice maker and water machine on every floor with complimentary cups so you didn't have to bring your own water bottle. The cafe had a salad bar, the best smoothies outside of a jamba juice and fresh-baked rolls. The locker room had granite countertops, some kind of fancy tile work and huge lockers. There was a nice dressing area with complimentary lotion, hairspray, gel, mousse, mouthwash and razors. It was nicer than any bathroom I've ever had in my own home. And I paid a hefty price for all of that-- to the tune of $90 a damn month.

Not so with the new gym. In fact, I paid a hair over $500 for a 15-month membership, which is a considerable savings. There are, like, a thousand locations in the Chicago area alone, so if I find myself in, say, Kanakee, and I have an urge to do some cardio, I'm in luck because there is probably a location there where my membership is accepted. I'd wager the Kankakee location is only slightly more unglamorous than the Lakeview location that I frequent. It's not that it's dirty, or dank or small, but it's just a plain old gym, which is unfortunate since I have to go roughly 4-6 days/week to keep my ass from getting big. And the Lakeview location is one of the nicer ones, or at least that's what "Brent" told me when he was taking my money for the membership. I signed up at the Lakeview location, but I went to the Old Town location one day to see what it was like, since it is slightly more convenient to my home depending on traffic. While that one did feature cardio equipment with televisions attached, I noticed that every single person was watching either MTV, BET or the CW. At my old gym, most people at least had the courtesy to PRETEND to have a brain and watched CNN or the History channel. There was even the occasional blue-blood Fox News viewer working up a sweat to Hannity and Combs. At the Old town location though, people shamelessly watched reality TV, dating programs and checked each other out, all while sculpting their ridiculously toned bodies. I simply cannot workout around people who do not understand the value of pretending to have an interest in something intelligent for a mere 60 minutes to spare oneself from looking stupid in a public place.

There was one girl who seemed less interested in working out than getting nailed in the men's locker room. She was wearing tall retro-inspired knee socks (you know, the ones with the colorful rings around the top that Dr. J might have worn in the 70s) hot pants, a thin sleeveless thing that just barely passed as a shirt, a black push-up bra and fucking PIG TAILS. Pig Tails! She paraded around the gym walking up and down the aisles like it was a catwalk and not once did she put her skinny ass on a piece of cardio equipment, which was a mystery to me because she did have a nice ass, that bitch. I was half expecting her to ask me to direct her to the nearest pole so she could prepare for her act for later that night. Anyway, I had only to go to that location once to know that I was not cut out for that. With my Target bought two-sizes-too-big yoga pants and yellowing Hanes "dago" tee (I can say that because I am a dago), I felt uncomfortable at this place that felt more like a night club than a gym. I admit I even felt a little threatened by all the veiny, muscly men pumping iron, and I feared I might get gang raped by a gaggle of roid-raged former frat boys clinging to their 20s in their tattered baseball caps. That is, after they got done with hot-pants-pig tails girl.

Instead I just go to the Lakeview location, which is about 7 minutes farther than the old, glamorous gym. That one is less intimidating, but there is no shortage of trampy looking girls and muscly dudes. One girl had a Chicago Sport and Social Club jersey on with the number 69 on the back and the words "Balls Deep" scrawled above it. Now that's class.

Can I aksk you a question?

I will preface this with the fact that I am concerned about posting this because I don't want to offend anyone. If you are offended by it, I am sorry. I might come off as a racist, but that's not what I want because I don't think of myself as racist.

I have probably mentioned before that I teach at a high school in a upper middle class community. In Illinois, if you teach in an upper middle class community, you more than likely teach at a school that has either lots of whites and Asians or lots of Jews and Asians. It's just a fact these days that, although that whole Brown v. The Board of Ed thing happened, Illinois schools are still quite segregated. In previous years, one could count on two hands the total number of black or Hispanic students in the entire school of nearly 3,500 kids. This year, however, is different. You can look in the halls and see an actual difference. There are a lot of black and Hispanic students now. They are spread out among the four grade levels, but it is mostly concentrated in the freshmen class for some reason. I have five black kids and one Hispanic kid in one class and two black kids and one Hispanic kid in another. I was even concerned at first that the administration had put all of them into my class to segregate them. But I asked three other teachers in my department and, as it turns out, they have similar numbers in their classroom.

Let me be clear; these are not kids that were born and raised in the community where I teach. All of them just moved to the suburbs from Chicago, and they do not live in the old stately homes of the community; they live in apartments next to the school. Nearly all of them are considerably "lower" academically than my kids that have been in the district since 1st grade. They come from the wretched Chicago Public School system, and now they are overwhelmed in our high achieving district. By the way, these are not assumptions. I know all of this to be fact because of a teacher letter assignment where they have to tell me a little about their past and how the year is going so far.

It's really nice to have a little diversity for once, and I am happy about it. But it hasn't come without complication. Just like the white and Asian kids always have, the black and Hispanic kids are segregating themselves into their groups. The lunchroom looks like a holding area for auditions for the new season of Survivor. You see "the black tables," "the Hispanic tables," "the white tables," and "the Asian tables." It's ridiculous. My editors always want to write about it in the school paper. However, once they start writing, they realize they have nothing new to contribute, no idea that doesn't sound like a weak attempt at solving the world's problems with an editorial. My biggest issue isn't with this self-segregation, which is human nature I suppose. I do have an issue with the way my black and Hispanic students seem to want their rich, spoiled classmates to see them as "ghetto", a word that is being tossed around far too often in our school these days. The new students seem to be doing everything they can to fulfill every negative stereotype these native suburbanites have about them. I see the Hispanic and black students in the hall doing every stereotypically black or Hispanic thing you can think of- from sucking on a pacifier to yelling obnoxiously across the halls to get their friend's attention. And I don't even know if that bothers me that much that they fulfill negative stereotypes in the halls because many teenagers want to fulfill a stereotype; they just want to fit in, and what better way to fit in than act like everyone you hang out with. And I know every teenager uses slang; but it bothers me when this behavior comes into my English classroom. Is it unfair to expect my black and Hispanic students to speak standard English during a speech? Or when they ask me a question, shouldn't I insist that they "What is this?" rather than "What this is?" Or that they say "ask" and not "aksk"? One kid, during his introduction speech, kept insisting that he was "ghetto."

I'm picturing their moms and dads working their tails off to pay rent in that community to give them an opportunity to go to a great school. Wouldn't they want their kids to take advantage of that opportunity? Is it racist for me even to say that? Isn't there a time and a place for everything- even the language you use? The worst part is that there have been more fights than ever already this year. And it is fights between the Hispanic students and the black students. Is that why their parents uprooted their life in Chicago, where their families probably lived for generations? So that their kids could move out to the suburbs and start a race war?

Reality sets in

I'm supposed to be grading right now. My bag is on my floor next to me; 50+ freshmen collage/paragraph assignments are calling my name. My junior AP essays will haunt my sleep tonight if I don't start grading them soon. Instead, I am sitting on my couch with the ol' iBook for a little blog session, which is long overdue.

So much has been going on with these first few weeks of school; I feel like I have too many unrelated thoughts swirling through my mind even to figure out what topic I should attempt. I'll start with a boot update: I visited the boots at Nordstrom the other day. It was painful. I think I have accepted that I cannot have the boots. Gone are my hopes of owning them in 6-8 weeks. I came to this conclusion when reality set on Tuesday night as I reviewed my financial situation. Basically, if I don't spend one single penny on anything but food, shelter and transportation for the next 6 months, I will have completely paid off my credit card. After that, I have another six months of more of the same while I try to pay off my car. Yes, that's right, no clothes, shoes, going out, drinking, dining out or gifts for one full year.

Realistically, I don't think I can do it; frankly, I don't know who could. No gifts is the one that hits me hardest. With my mom's, dad's, roommate's and best friend's birthdays all around the corner, I don't think I'm going to get away with no gifts. Then comes Christmas, which will be miserable if I cannot buy gifts for anyone, particularly my boyfriend and my nieces and nephew. Not being able to go out is also a considerable problem for obvious reasons. Although, with winter around the corner, that becomes significantly easier to pull off the colder it gets. Unless, however, someone plants a rapid-growth money tree on my balcony, I am facing a depressing, uneventful and challenging 12 months.

I'll conclude with a story that actually makes me feel good instead of totally miserable, and that is the story about Open House, which was last night. Some teachers plan extensively for this. They might make copies of some sort of document or plan out what they are going to say. I, however, have never been one for planning the open house speech. As it turns out, I don't need to plan stuff like this because I am the queen of 'winging it', as they say. In fact, I would even venture to say that I could probably 'wing' the State of the Union Address if I had to. By the end of open house, I am convinced that just about every parent loved me. Still, by the end of the night, although my ego had been adequately massaged by what I envisioned were my adoring fans, I was completely exhausted.

I'm pretty confident that public speaking is what I do best. Are you good at it? Or are you one of those people that would rather be in the coffin than eulogize the dead?