Why do I tire of counting sheep, when I'm far too tired to fall asleep?

With a blue background in my mind, precisely the same color as my flannel sheep-covered sheets, I conjur up a length of fence. It is a white fence, several planks in length, and rather short. Can't go too much longer or the sheep wouldn't be able to make it over. There might be some grass, there might be just the fence hanging in the blue; I never really bother to look at the spot where the ground would be. It's really only the sheep that matter, right? One by one, the sheep fade in at their last running step, then float in a gentle arc over the white fence, then fade away during their first running step at precisely the same instant the next one fades in. I don't watch the fading too closely; there is always one fading in and one fading out, but I focus on the jumping motion, I count that part. After a while I tire of counting these sheep. The new batch of sheep don't jump or move by themselves at all, they are not alive like the others. These ones are attached to one of those hanging, toy things that sit above babies' cribs. They move in a perfect circle around the fence, but I only see them once the reach the ground-level and while the soar over the fence. Then they go under ground again while the next sheep gets rotated in. After another three hundred of these, I tire again. The new sheep are more acrobatic than the last; dropped in from the side of my mental screen, they bounce off the carefully positioned trampoline over the fence, hit the trampoline waiting for them on the other side, and bounce out of the screen again as the next one comes in, like a sheep-counting screen saver. Why hasn't anyone made one of those?
My sheep, all varieties, always travel from right to left over the fence, quite the opposite of reading. Anybody else?

The Step After Scuba

I like taking classes. All sorts of classes. My favorite are humanities classes at present; they used to be math classes. But regardless of what overall topic is my favorite, I have found a common theme running throughout my educational preferences. I like having variety in the classes I am taking. I cannot take all math classes, no matter how much I enjoy math, or all humanities classes. It is just too much of one way of thinking. I like to make sure the core classes I am taking each semester include various ways of exercising my brain. I've gotten more and more creative in my methods, fortunately, and I now try to take some unusual skill-based class as often as possible. So far I have taken three dance classes - two focusing on typical dances like chacha, waltz, and swing, and one focusing on folk dances from around the world - a carving class, a bike maintenance class, an organ (like, the instrument) class, and beginning and intermediate scuba-diving classes.
Today I attended a knife skills class. Now, I would love to report that the curriculum involved throwing knives and that I am now an armed expert, but alas, it is not to be. It was a cooking class! We learned what all the different parts of a knife are called, and how to make specific different cuts. We practiced on squash, carrots, celery, potatoes, basil, parsley, tomatoes, garlic, mushrooms, bell peppers, onions, and oranges. We practiced our rocking motion, our push cuts, we julienned, we diced, we sliced, we chopped, we shaved and supremed. I have a large bag of chopped-up vegetables to show for it. I will never cut bell peppers and onions the same again. Cutting those onions was one of the coolest things I've ever done - no joke - and I felt like Julia Child, except I wasn't chopping a live lobster in half, and I wasn't on national television. I'm going to buy onions next week, and bell peppers. I am going to practice. I am not sure just how much my mom will enjoy all the chopped onions and all the resulting tears, but I am sure just how much I am going to enjoy it!

In way of other news, I watched I am Legend for the second time this week. I saw it in theaters, and it gave me nightmares for months. One of the most memorable was the one where I actually was Will Smith, and for some reason I think I was flying up into a tree to get a back down, and I was getting very nervous because I couldn't seem to get that bag off the tree and the sun was setting... I have long held hopes that a second watching in daylight would eradicate these nightmares. Once the movie began, however, I was fearful of the opposite results, and so I actually made us stop the movie so that the mood could die down, and watch the second half in a different session. It worked. No more nightmares. I think it odd that the movie gave me nightmares in the first place; that doesn't normally happen to me. The only previous movies to have such an effect on me were The Birds (ironic, since I really like birds), and The Fly (which was the scariest movie EVER to my nine-year-old self).
That's enough babbling for now, I'd imagine. Don't watch any of those movies. And if you want, I'll show you how to cut an onion sometime.