A busy busy week

STEP INSTRUCTOR TRAINING

So last weekend I attended two days of step instructor training. The national program director teaches the classes at my gym so she signed me up as her guest, which was really nice of her. So it was two full days, Saturday and Sunday, from 7:30am - 5 pm. There were about 15 people there (mostly stay at home moms.) I'm not really sure I knew what I was getting into signing up. It turned out to be a pretty strenuous workout. I had to change clothes at least 3 times each day from being so sweaty. I think I literally lost 4lbs in just those days from working out (of course it has already come back, but that's not the point!)

So after day 1 we were each assigned a track to learn for "homework" that we had to teach on the stage with the microphone the next morning. I was able to easily memorize my routine but it was quite nerve-wracking to perform it on the stage. I did pretty well but it was clear that my coaching needs a lot of work. They were teasing me a little bit about how I wasn't very intimidating. Imagine a squeaky mousy screaming "do it harder!"...so I need to work on that.

Overall, it was a lot of fun and I'm really excited about trying to teach. I've already learned 5 out of the 10 songs that make up a class and I'm planning on practicing with a friend this weekend. We'll see how it goes. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to feasibly learn new routines every few months in addition to teaching classes and my real job, but I'm going to try at first. Here is a little video clip from the routine that I am currently learning with the trainers that taught me, to give you an idea of what it is like. The redhead with the Australian accent is the one that got me in the class...

GT FOOTBALL

While I was working my butt off in Step training, Joey was enjoying the Georgia Tech football game with his friends Pradeep and Sarah. We played Wake Forest and won in overtime with a gutsy play by the coach. So we are one step closer to the ACC championship. That's the best description I can give since I didn't go myself and I don't really know so much about football. But Joey won't post on here so that's going to have to do. I told him to take some pictures for the blog and here is what he took. Don't ask me why he didn't take any with himself in it...

TROPICAL STORM IDA

This week while I was in Macon for work, tropical storm Ida hit Atlanta. My car fought her with all its might, but lost. Here is some pictures of the damage and one of the culprit. Maybe I deserve it for not buying GM... :)

JOEY'S BONUS

Joey was randomly approached early this week by his boss and was told that "he really needed to talk to him." Joey was a little nervous at first because he has been feeling like work has been slow and he wasn't sure that the work he had been doing was providing that much value. Not to mention his company is known for firing people without notice. The project manager Joey has been working with since June was just let go last week. So anyways, it turned out that his boss just wanted to let him know how great of a job he was doing and that his future was bright at Cadillac Jack. So they gave him a random bonus and a pat on the back. Way to go Joey!

(Sorry I don't have a picture to go with this. Imagine a very smiley Joey!)

MY FIRST SPEAKING INVITATION

Lastly, I gave my first guest speaker presentation this Thursday. I was asked to speak at a Georgia Tech Research Methods class about why I like being a Design Researcher. I tried to do a fun presentation where I showed the students the personal side of the career. I showed them a lot of pictures of me traveling and eating weird food and meeting interesting people. I think they were pretty interested. I mean, only like 3 people were sleeping and one group of students were huddled around a computer working on something that I'm sure was due the next class, but other than that it was good. Hopefully I'll have other opportunities in the future to share my knowledge!

UPCOMING WEEK

This week Joey will be traveling to Las Vegas for a conference for work. I'm going to ask him to take some fun pictures to share (with him in them!) and I'll try to get him to blog about it.

I hope everyone has a good week!