Boys and Mirrors

Have I spoke on this topic previously? Perhaps, but I would like to express just how ridiculous it is to see guys at the gym checking themselves out. It happens quite frequently and I laugh out loud when I catch them doing it. I work out at the Clemson University gym which is a great gym, I will have to say. But there's something different about the men here...they remind me of most of the boys I went to high school with--they all look the same. Preppy white dudes who wear khaki pants and hiking boots; only now they have a new addition: the popped collar. Needless to say, it's a favorite past time to find imperfections in men who think they have none. As I was working out a couple months ago in the free-weight area, a guy walked past and flexed his arm muscle in the mirror. Another day a guy turned his bottom toward the mirror, lifted up his shirt, and flexed his butt muscles. Most of the time they are checking themselves out and it really is a treasure to know that men are also struggling with body image. Perhaps I should not be so joyous to know this is true, but I feel as if women are now not alone in their quest for bodily perfection. Ahh, but this is all leading into another interesting observation about gender roles/clothes/styles and the guy I saw at the gym wearing a headband. I stopped and stared.

Grammar: The Agony of my Life

I hate grammar. I failed my grammar test in 8th grade English. And did I tell you that I'm getting a Master's to teach English to Middle School/High School students? I'm taking a test this coming Saturday to be certified to teach English. And here I am, stuck in a rut again with grammar. I would like to share with you my favorite grammar lesson yet from The Basic Cozy Grammar Course, which I found on a google search.

"Marie is out by the wood pile chopping and splitting wood with an axe. "Just as this piece of firewood was divided into two parts, so a sentence is divided into two parts - the subject and the predicate." The subject tells what the sentence is about and the predicate tells something about the subject. As she gathers up an armful of kindling she defines what constitutes a subject and a predicate, then makes her way from the woodpile into the house where she slips off her shoes and slides into her slippers, stocks up the wood bin on the hearth, feeds the hungry fire and settles into her rocking chair, all the while providing us with examples of subjects and predicates culled from sample sentences."