Monday, July 26, 2010
Blisters
I have so many blisters on my hands. 24, to be exact. That's why I love rollerskiing without gloves.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Why Are There Children at the Gym?/High School English
First off, I do not like going to the gym. Weight rooms, at least all the ones I've been in, tend to be populated with guys who spend more time checking out their muscles in the mirror and listening to David Guetta on 200 dollar headphones, and when they actually get around to doing something, put so much weight on the bar that the spotter is working as hard as the person actually doing the exercise. In my experience, these people tend to be football or hockey players, overly fond of leaving weights on the equipment, tacking up a lot of space, and, on occasion, offering advice that is not only unhelpful, but in some cases dangerous. Despite this, they are not the most annoying people to frequent gyms. That title belongs to the children.
My gym has a lot of personal trainers, and although they all do the normal personal trainer stuff, they also seem to function as baby sitters. For parents have become incredibly fond of dropping off a nine year old kid to spend an hour with a personal trainer once or twice a week. And the kids do the exact same stuff everyone else does. I've seen kids on the cross trainers, far too short to reach the proper hand grips, kids doing a chin assist, holding on to the frame of the machine because their arms can't reach the bars. And beside them, there is a personal trainer, with a clipboard, encouraging them, then bringing them over to the next exercise. This is all done while ignoring the sign saying something to the effect of "no one under 15 in the weight room or fitness centre (children 13-15 may use the facility if they have passed the "teen training" course), and its just surreal.
Kids don't need personal trainers, kids don't need gym memberships, kids don't need treadmills. Kids need to run around outside, to play, to make friendships, to, slowly, get older. Although I admire the parents attempts to get their kids to do physical activity, signing them up for personal trainers is not the answer. Want your kid to get an hour of physical activity without having to worry about them? The same gym offers tennis and squash lessons for kids, in a group, as opposed to alone, so they can make friends AND strike a blow against childhood obesity. Sign them up for soccer lessons. Go out for a bike ride with them. Take them skiing in the winter. Don't sign them up for a personal trainer. None of the kids ever appear happy when in the gym. All this is doing is instilling a hatred of the gym in them. There is definitely a time when it is worthwhile going to the gym, but wait until you've grown up a bit, and can use the machines without the risk of stunting your growth. If you haven't hit puberty yet, there is absolutely no reason why you should be there.
In our bid to make our kids smarter, fitter, happier, more productive, (anyone get the Radiohead reference? Didn't think so) we've made them fat, lazy and stupid. Alright, that may be a bit extreme, but when we coddle and control, kids learn fuck all. Not only that, when we force activities they already do on them, they stop liking them. I was a voracious reader when I was in elementary school. I read hours every day. I read everything I could get my hands on. By the time I'd finished grade three, I'd finished The Lord of the Rings. I didn't understand anything in it in the slightest. I read A Clockwork Orange in grade six, and talked in Nadsat for several months. I pretended to be Martin the Warrior. I wanted an electronic thumb. Erik was way more badass in the serial novel then in any ALW musical. Zamyatin could eat Orwell for breakfast. All the librarians knew my name. And then I hit high school. I still read, reading was an escape from the land of social outcast where I most of my elementary school life and the first half of my high school career. Reading understood me when I was feeling lost, comforted me when I was sad. I wrote what I called "Black Comedies" when I felt angry, channeling the hate and violence I felt into bizarre short stories. The English language was there for me, even when I felt nothing else was. And then I encountered high school English.
First day of grade nine, first day of high school, French homeroom, science, lunch, English, music. I had a book in my bag, as per usual, and was reading it whenever I got a chance. Book was called Skybreaker, by Kenneth Oppel. I was a little old for it, or so my thirteen year old self thought, but it was the sequel to a book i really loved, so I borrowed it from my sister, and brought it to school. I put it on my lap in English class, and began to read. I'd learned very quickly that after you've got the seating arrangement figured out and confirmed that yes, you are supposed to be here, the rest of the first day of class is pretty much a write off in high school, especially in grade nine. So I kept half an ear on the teacher droning away at the front of the class, and dove into the world of giant airships and adventure. I read onwards, cheering for the narrator, trying to figure out what was going to happen, trying to outsmart the author. In front of the blackboard, the teacher had really gotten going about the importance that reading played in a modern society, that, unless a society read frequently and stayed literate, it was doomed. Then she looked at me, stopped, looked down at her seating plan, and said, loudly and forcefully "Evan! Stop Reading!" Luckily, the combination of being a scared little grade nine and the fact that I'd never gotten in this much trouble for reading before led me to confused to come up with a smart ass come back, which would have set my life on a totally different trajectory, so I sheepishly put the book back in my bag, and sat their, developing an instant dislike for this anti-reading English teacher.
I don't read as much now as I did when I was younger. There are a few reasons for this. I have something of a social life now, so that takes up time, and I'm a university student, and train and race lots for skiing. The Laurentian University Library only seems to have about 5 fiction books worth reading, and I've read them all. And I often find I'm too tired to read anything complex, and I can't stand most simple books, so I often end up reading the same books over and over again. And I spend way more time on my computer, mainly searching the internet, and I read a lot online, but far too few novels, far too few works of popular history, far too few books on some fascinating event no one seems to know about. Its depressing. And I place the blame on high school English. It takes an activity that most children do, given the opportunity and a book they like, and takes the fun out of it. It heaps piles upon piles of bullshit all over the written word, it makes it so unfun. It sucks. You want your children to be literate? If they already read, don't suppress that with English classes. Encourage it. And fight back against the idiots at the front of the class who insist on taking all the fun out of reading. Shoot back.
My gym has a lot of personal trainers, and although they all do the normal personal trainer stuff, they also seem to function as baby sitters. For parents have become incredibly fond of dropping off a nine year old kid to spend an hour with a personal trainer once or twice a week. And the kids do the exact same stuff everyone else does. I've seen kids on the cross trainers, far too short to reach the proper hand grips, kids doing a chin assist, holding on to the frame of the machine because their arms can't reach the bars. And beside them, there is a personal trainer, with a clipboard, encouraging them, then bringing them over to the next exercise. This is all done while ignoring the sign saying something to the effect of "no one under 15 in the weight room or fitness centre (children 13-15 may use the facility if they have passed the "teen training" course), and its just surreal.
Kids don't need personal trainers, kids don't need gym memberships, kids don't need treadmills. Kids need to run around outside, to play, to make friendships, to, slowly, get older. Although I admire the parents attempts to get their kids to do physical activity, signing them up for personal trainers is not the answer. Want your kid to get an hour of physical activity without having to worry about them? The same gym offers tennis and squash lessons for kids, in a group, as opposed to alone, so they can make friends AND strike a blow against childhood obesity. Sign them up for soccer lessons. Go out for a bike ride with them. Take them skiing in the winter. Don't sign them up for a personal trainer. None of the kids ever appear happy when in the gym. All this is doing is instilling a hatred of the gym in them. There is definitely a time when it is worthwhile going to the gym, but wait until you've grown up a bit, and can use the machines without the risk of stunting your growth. If you haven't hit puberty yet, there is absolutely no reason why you should be there.
In our bid to make our kids smarter, fitter, happier, more productive, (anyone get the Radiohead reference? Didn't think so) we've made them fat, lazy and stupid. Alright, that may be a bit extreme, but when we coddle and control, kids learn fuck all. Not only that, when we force activities they already do on them, they stop liking them. I was a voracious reader when I was in elementary school. I read hours every day. I read everything I could get my hands on. By the time I'd finished grade three, I'd finished The Lord of the Rings. I didn't understand anything in it in the slightest. I read A Clockwork Orange in grade six, and talked in Nadsat for several months. I pretended to be Martin the Warrior. I wanted an electronic thumb. Erik was way more badass in the serial novel then in any ALW musical. Zamyatin could eat Orwell for breakfast. All the librarians knew my name. And then I hit high school. I still read, reading was an escape from the land of social outcast where I most of my elementary school life and the first half of my high school career. Reading understood me when I was feeling lost, comforted me when I was sad. I wrote what I called "Black Comedies" when I felt angry, channeling the hate and violence I felt into bizarre short stories. The English language was there for me, even when I felt nothing else was. And then I encountered high school English.
First day of grade nine, first day of high school, French homeroom, science, lunch, English, music. I had a book in my bag, as per usual, and was reading it whenever I got a chance. Book was called Skybreaker, by Kenneth Oppel. I was a little old for it, or so my thirteen year old self thought, but it was the sequel to a book i really loved, so I borrowed it from my sister, and brought it to school. I put it on my lap in English class, and began to read. I'd learned very quickly that after you've got the seating arrangement figured out and confirmed that yes, you are supposed to be here, the rest of the first day of class is pretty much a write off in high school, especially in grade nine. So I kept half an ear on the teacher droning away at the front of the class, and dove into the world of giant airships and adventure. I read onwards, cheering for the narrator, trying to figure out what was going to happen, trying to outsmart the author. In front of the blackboard, the teacher had really gotten going about the importance that reading played in a modern society, that, unless a society read frequently and stayed literate, it was doomed. Then she looked at me, stopped, looked down at her seating plan, and said, loudly and forcefully "Evan! Stop Reading!" Luckily, the combination of being a scared little grade nine and the fact that I'd never gotten in this much trouble for reading before led me to confused to come up with a smart ass come back, which would have set my life on a totally different trajectory, so I sheepishly put the book back in my bag, and sat their, developing an instant dislike for this anti-reading English teacher.
I don't read as much now as I did when I was younger. There are a few reasons for this. I have something of a social life now, so that takes up time, and I'm a university student, and train and race lots for skiing. The Laurentian University Library only seems to have about 5 fiction books worth reading, and I've read them all. And I often find I'm too tired to read anything complex, and I can't stand most simple books, so I often end up reading the same books over and over again. And I spend way more time on my computer, mainly searching the internet, and I read a lot online, but far too few novels, far too few works of popular history, far too few books on some fascinating event no one seems to know about. Its depressing. And I place the blame on high school English. It takes an activity that most children do, given the opportunity and a book they like, and takes the fun out of it. It heaps piles upon piles of bullshit all over the written word, it makes it so unfun. It sucks. You want your children to be literate? If they already read, don't suppress that with English classes. Encourage it. And fight back against the idiots at the front of the class who insist on taking all the fun out of reading. Shoot back.
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