I left home at about 9:30. According to Courtney her flight was arriving at 9:30; according to the Internet, it was arriving at 9:45. I had my textbook with me in case I had to wait; I could start on those 10 pages I had yet to read. As I was approaching the airport exit, she called and said she was in.
I wish I had thought if it earlier, as I could have gotten up earlier, and bee-bopped over to the bookstore at State to buy my books for my Thursday class.
I had another full day at work, with the weekly TIGR meetings starting back up for 2004, and lunch with the book club. Janet brought, Life of Pi, which we are going to read next. She also gave me my birthday present, which was a “little book” (literally, like 3 inches by 3 inches) on travel etiquette. Suzanne had a big announcement: she installed a wireless network at home. Sharon told us about making one of her employees cry while giving him his appraisal. We synced our calendars up for Drag Bingo on March 26th, and Sharon’s annual March Madness party on March 27th.
We left work at about 5:30, and on the way home, Courtney’s cell phone rang. Bad news. It was her dad calling her to tell her that her brother and his wife had lost their baby. It was their first. She was in her eighth month. The baby’s dead. Still inside her. It raised so many questions: How will they get it out? Do you look at it? Do you get a coffin for it? How can you go through another pregnancy knowing that might happen as late as that again? Do you use the name you were going to use for that baby for the next one?
Awful. It’s just awful. She had felt the baby kick in the morning. She went to the hospital in the afternoon for a routine test. “We don’t hear a heartbeat at all. There’s no fluid around the baby.” Awful.
We ran by the NC State bookstore, and I ran into get my books for Thursday’s class, while Courtney made some family calls. We stopped at Quizno’s on the way home, and used another $4.00 of two sandwiches.
I dropped Courtney off at the house, and I ran back down to NC State to check out the library and Carmichael Gymnasium. I needed to register to netLibrary, which you have to do from a computer that physically resides in the campus library. This will allow me to read an “e-book,” which is a third text for my Thursday class. I could buy it, but it’s free to read as an e-book, and $40 to purchase.
I left there, parked at the deck on Jeeter St., and walked to what I thought was Carmichael Gym. Once inside, however, I saw a wrestling match going on, and realized that it was actually Reynolds Coliseum, and not Carmichael Gymnasium. I sat and watched the (very muscular) wrestlers for a while. Men!
I found Carmichael, and asked the attendant at the door about group exercises. She gave me a little folded card with this semester’s schedule on it. I walked through the gym, which is quite impressive – a couple of free weight rooms, two group exercise rooms, a “golf room,” and the pools, one for swimming, and one for diving. I had no idea that building was so huge, and that there were so many different areas in it. I didn’t see a circuit weight room, or one with treadmills, bicycles, and stair steppers in it, though.
I’m going to have to come up with some sort of exercise schedule, and get started soon. Once again, I’m tired of being fat.
Back home, I finished my 10 pages of reading, and did my written exercise about the craft vs. romantic vs. rhetorical traditions of writing education.