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.