7.09.2005

What is it with classes that have "management" in the title?

You may remember that I took what I thought was the world's stupidest class last quarter. Well, I have to take two classes this summer to finish up and I found a class that is even worse: Stress Management for Healthy Living. There's this chump and she's teaching me how to remain calm. Our first assignment was to tell her how we typically manage stress. "Ya know? I chew staples and jump out of trees." What kind of question is that? I pack all the stress into a little black ball and shove it in my gut like every other red-blooded American.
But she has different ideas. The next assignment was to practice some "relaxation techniques". First I was to sit in a chair and, get this, breathe. Chump has a flippin' PhD and that's what she gives me. I bet people come into her private practice all the time, "Doctor! Doctor! My face is blue and it's getting harder and harder to talk!" To which she insightfully strokes her chin and queries, "Have you tried ---- breathing?" The patient goes, "GASP! AAAHHHHH! GASP! AAAAAHHHH! Oh yeah Doc. You sure know your stuff!"
Actually I am misrepresenting the technique. When you inhale, you are supposed to say out loud, "I feel heavy." When you exhale you say, "I feel warm." Yeah, I'm gonna work that into my daily routine. Diane will yell to me from the across the house, "Jason! Can you please help me get these kids under control so I can give them a bath?" I'll yell back from the other room, "I feel heavy! I feel warm!" I'm sure that will really help take the tension down a notch in the house.
But, I'm a wacko about grades. It really doesn't matter what I get in this class as long as I pass but I still get all obsessive about the grade. That's why I sat there listening to her recording, breathing, saying to myself (and feeling like an idiot) "I feel heavy. I feel warm." And then she lost me with the next thing. I couldn't put up with it anymore when she said that I was to (I am sooo not kidding) shoot a beam of negative energy out the top of my head through a hole that, to my best reckoning, does not exist. At that point I had an epiphany. She gets paid the big dollars to make stuff up. She can say literally anything and people well buy it. If it sounds stupid enough, she wouldn't dare say it if it didn't work, right?
Patient: Doc, I just lost my job, and my wife left me, and my neighbor bit me, and my corneas fell out, and I've just been indicted in a pyramid scheme, and my shoes are too tight.
The Good Doctor: (Again, thoughtfully stroking her chin) Have you dipped your elbows in blueberry marmalade?
Patient: To be honest I hadn't thought of...
The Good Doctor: Well? do that!
Patient: Thanks Doc! Here's my checkbook! They're all pre-signed!
Seriously, this class is the most pointless thing I've ever been subjected to and I've watched Sheriff Lobo. This class is gonna make me gag. Then you'll see a beam of negative energy shoot out of a hole in my head.

8 Comments:

At 7/10/2005 11:19 AM, Blogger Ms. etc said...

I need a "stress management" lesson.

 
At 7/11/2005 10:28 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Was there nothing else for you to take? Sounds like somebody making life harder than it really is (her, I mean--not you).

 
At 7/11/2005 11:32 AM, Blogger Robyn said...

In with good - out with the bad!!

 
At 7/11/2005 12:16 PM, Blogger Jason said...

Well Olt, I tell ya. It was the only on-line course that would fit into my little green "Here's what you gotta do to get the hell outta here" sheet. That, the fact that it's 10 weeks packed into 5, and combined with a recommendation from a friend who thought it was an interesting class hooked me. Ya makes yer choices, ya takes yer lumps.

And hey, r. Looks like you've had your own brush with the psychobabble crowd as well. It's encouraging to see that one can survive such an experience.

 
At 7/11/2005 2:41 PM, Blogger KOM said...

Serenity now!

 
At 7/11/2005 2:51 PM, Blogger Jason said...

Dude, KOM. Thanks for pulling that one up outta the old memory banks for a re-visit. I tell ya. If there has ever in the history of sit-coms been a more perfectly delivered line I have not heard it. Oh man, I'm laughing right now just thinking about it. God bless you, Mr. Stiller.

 
At 7/11/2005 5:42 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I took a stress management class at CSUF the semester before we got married. I remember thinking it was a good idea to learn ways to deal with the undoubted stress I'd be under while planning the wedding and going to school full time.

We learned to breathe as well...except my teacher wasn't as "new-agey" as yours is. She recommended "belly breathing" to help lower your heart rate. I guess that most people (especially women, who are always sucking in their bellies in order to appear more attractive) engage in shallow breathing. I did notice that I don't care to have my belly rise and fall as I breathe...I'm vain, what can I say?

 
At 7/12/2005 8:41 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm just sitting here breathing... watching my belly rise and fall. Kinda fun. I'm feeling a bit relaxed. And I didn't have to pay any tuition!

 

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