Shout Outs

Shout Outs are something that I grew up with and thought were really cool.  You know, radio personalities, friends on the playground, whatever, it was cool to get a shout out...not always an explicit one but something that acknowledged a shared moment or something.  I was enjoying some early 90's pop/hip-hop this weekend and was noting how many times these groups give themselves shout outs in the middle of a song.  It was cool back then!

Well, shout outs are back in my life, whether I like it or not.  They first re-emerged on Friday during a step aerobics class at the gym.  I decided to start trying out the morning class at the gym because by evening, I've often lost motivation. So, I went into this step class, and when the instructor asked my name, I didn't think anything about sharing it with her.  Well, about one minute later, I heard the instructor--above the loud pulsing pop music--scream my name through her headset.  "Sarah, you got it!  Everyone, look at Sarah, this is her first class, can you believe it?"  WHAT?!  I mean, I didn't know what to do except to keep doing basic right.

That was only the beginning.  The steps got harder, and I couldn't keep up.  But I got some encouragement on the mic: "Sarah, don't worry, hun, you'll get it".  OH GOD, PLEASE MAKE IT STOP is all I could keep thinking!  It was so mortifying.  Why wasn't she rallying any of the regulars?!  This went on until the end, when she actually made people give me a round of applause for making it through the class.

Now, you can imagine, any workout class that happens at 8:30 in the morning is going to be mostly filled with a certain...shall we way "more mature" group of folks.  But the thing is, the morning class is really good because it's hard enough and early enough that I enjoy it and don't have time to think about skipping out on it.  And it's about 50/50 older folks and folks my age.  So, I showed up again today.  This time I only got about 5 shout outs, which was a BIG improvement over Friday.  I'm hopeful that I can start flying under the radar by the end of the week.

I should have known that the shout outs were infecting me, but I didn't realize it until today when I blurted out in my teaching section "let's give some shout outs to the parts of this text that were real stumpers".....  I mean, The Grandissimes is a tough text to read, even for senior Literature majors.  It seemed like a good idea.

Yeah, "sun of my life" immediately informed me that shout outs are very "high school" and basically a terrible idea in a senior-level discussion section.  But, seriously, it finally got the students talking about a very difficult text to talk about!  The Grandissimes is in patois, refers to parts of history that these students are really unfamiliar with, AND it is not a linear narrative, nor does it have a singular narrative.  So...I had to get them talking somehow.  I got about half of the class engaged in discussion on the first day, so even though I'm feeling kind of lame right now, I'm thinking that perhaps I can count this as a success.

Here's Snoop Dogg giving shout outs to British Royalty...and he is still way cooler than me: