Anyone ever taken first aid training? I took it back in high school for my babysitter's training at the local hospital, but apparently they've changed a bunch of stuff since then because today I had to go through it again. Remember the whole 5-compressions, 2-breaths thing? That's gone. It's now 30 compressions, 2 breaths. And you don't check for a pulse anymore. Apparently if they're not breathing, that equals "dead."

As these things go, it wasn't too bad. The woman who taught our course was very good. Funny, straightforward, with lots of hints and explanations. I got to know one of the other new teachers who took the class with me too, although tapping someone's breastbone and yelling, "Hello? Are you Ok? Do you need assistance?" isn't exactly the best mixer, if you ask me.

My favorite part, though, is the dramatizations on the training video.
"I've cut myself on this box knife," says a bored man wearing a salmon-colored sweater and an afro. "I'm bleeding profusely."

His co-worker looks over, mildly interested. "Stay calm. I'll find some soft, absorbent material to stop the bleeding with." He saunters over to the secretary. "Susan, John appears to have injured himself in the copy room while opening a new box of toner. Will you please call EMS immediately? Tell them that we are going to apply pressure to the bleeding."

"Of course, Daniel. I'll do that right away," says the secretary with the same tone she might use to tell a customer, "I'll have your new toaster in the mail this Friday." She tosses her tragically-bleached hair and says into the phone, "One of our employees has badly cut his leg. Please come immediately!"--even though an observant viewer will remember that Daniel never told her where or how John had injured himself.

Meanwhile, Daniel holds a handful of cloth napkins in his gloved hands and places it on John's leg, which is spurting fake blood. Placing his other hand on John's shoulder, he says reassuringly, "You're going to be OK. An ambulance is on its way." John, on the other hand, is trying out his repertoire of painful grimaces, each of which is more amusing than the last.

Anyway, the rest of my day was spent preparing for my classes, and then in the evening, I got to finally move into my new house. *Collective cheer* "Move into" being a loose term, of course. I'm not actually sleeping there tonight. Basically we just had time to haul in all the boxes and furniture and push them into general position. Still, it's a start.

The new place, by the way, is a lovely, lovely, new little manufactured house that an acquaintance of my parents' is putting on her property. It's best feature is by far the kitchen--big, big windows, tons of cupboards, an island counter top, and of course a dishwasher. I love it.

When we finished unloading everything, I decided to bring a couple of extra bookshelves and my extra table over to my classroom, where I can put them to use. As my brother and I were carrying the first bookshelf down to my building, we came across three old folks from the Baptist church, who were there walking around the school praying. We said 'hi' and they asked if they could help with anything. "Sure," I said. "There are a couple of chairs up there in the truck that you could bring down."

Of course, the moment I said it, I regretted it. Probably they were just asking out of courtesy, and even if they weren't, they were slightly frail-looking--like the sort you'd hold doors open for and give up seats on the bus for. But, too late--I'd already spoken. So I tried at least to direct them to bring only the chairs, which were the lightest of the items in the back of the truck.

But by the time I returned from dropping off my bookshelf, the two men had already started bringing down my second bookshelf, which--I'll admit--is rather heavy, being made by Walmart and composed of particleboard. The woman, bless her heart, was carrying down both the chairs by herself. I grabbed one from her and sent Logan up for the table, feeling worse by the second. I'm a horrible person for making grandparents carry my furniture up and down hills.

Thank goodness none of them pulled anything or strained anything or had heart attacks. Then again, if they had, at least I knew CPR!

Labels: moving, teaching

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Tuesday, August 29, 2006

A New Era