Class Mates:
Back to School Romance for Grown-ups
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Running with the Wolves

As the evening hours grow dimmer and jogging alone at night becomes less safe, it's a great time for the runners among you to consider joining the New York Road Runners Club, that venerable institution that conquers the New York City Marathon each year, along with a bevy of other races all around the five boroughs.

In this city of compulsives, joggers may even outnumber rats and, similarly, they like to travel in packs. As a NYRRC member, you're eligible to join in the organized group runs that make entering the park at night a lot less threatening. Moreover, a long run can be a great way to spend time getting to know people.

You can also sign up for all kinds of classes and clinics geared towards optimum running: speed classes, power yoga, and expert stretching, just to name a few. Even beyond the safety and health considerations, it's an easy and low-pressure way to find fellow fitness fanatics with whom to make running -- and perhaps other -- dates.

The Art of Getting (Others) Plastered

Wine-tasting classes abound in this city, and of course we're known for our excellent wine cellars in restaurants and private collections. But that's not what makes New York unique. It's unique because of a man named Dale DeGroff, the widely acknowledged "da Vinci of Drink," who has, as head bartender, presided over such venerable establishments as the Rainbow Room. He now teaches classes in "Home Mixology," "Cocktail Safaris," and "Professional Mixology" (for those interested in becoming bartenders in "classy joints") at the aforementioned Peter Kump's School (find it under the link to "Wine Cellar").

If wine is your thing, by all means check out the multitude of excellent classes at Kump's in that fine art. But a better use of time and money might just be learning how to mix drinks at your next party from the king of cocktails. It's sure to attract a slightly less pretentious, and more party-hearty, crowd. (Just remember, like BG, to use your powers only for good.)

Find Your Inner Bard

Any number of writing classes are available at, among other schools devoted to the power of the pen, Gotham Writers Workshop. However, if you want to learn to write for the stage, you can do so at a school connected to one of the theatres best known for nurturing new American playwrights (Wendy Wasserstein of "Heidi Chronicles" fame, for one; Alfred Uhry of "Driving Miss Daisy" for another). Yea verily, you can't do better than signing up for an intensive 8-week course in play writing at Playwrights Horizons Theater School.

Several different classes are taught at Playwrights Horizons by internationally produced playwrights. Who knows? Maybe you'll produce something worthy of submission to the Playwrights Horizons Theater itself, which has an open submissions policy for new plays! Either that, or perhaps you'll meet some other aspiring Shakespeare with whom to commiserate on the elusiveness of your muse.

Don't Be Late for School

This tantalizing array of strategies for acquiring "culcha," should help you further enrich your already fascinating self. And whether you're from here or not, you'll enjoy mixing and mingling with like-minded citizens of Gotham. We hope it has inspired and motivated you to get out there and enroll in something/anything!

You may be busy with work and other activities, but you've probably got some extra home-alone-on-the-couch time you could use to make room for some fabulous class at which you're bound to meet people as scintillating as yourself.

And now, without the actual homework deadlines, you can book those late-night study sessions and just let them run wild.

Jillian Perlberger is addicted to continuing education classes and is hoping that through them she'll discover what she wants to be when she grows up. Last time out, she was your guide to adventure touring.

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