Sneaky posting at uni, take one! And fast food.
And probably not the last time I’ll be sneaking onto Wordpress from my uni library; I’m currently on a loaned laptop from the campus library that “facilitates portable learning”. I snickered when the librarian mentioned that on the tour way back in the day. Amidst all this havoc, I’m sneaking onto a mobile version of MSN, feeling rather bored and straying outside of the uni network because Facebook is much better than my “required” readings for Australia and the World.
I have a research thing to do at 15:30. Until 17:00. And I’m still debating about whether or not I should go to dancing tonight, considering I might possibly be too tired, and I’m already conscious about my fucked-up-looking left eyelid (I got attacked by moqsuitoes whilst sleeping over at a friend’s place on Saturday night after her 18th birthday party - I was smashed off my face, of course. One of them got me on the eyelid, and there are five more on the rest of my face…). I laughed derisively at myself this morning because of it, and then went “BAH!”.
So…the past week has been rather hectic.
I had a fairly crap (okay, completely shit) Mother’s Day on Sunday; to sum things up concisely, mothers and children were popping up everywhere and outnumbering the rest of the population, and I wanted to crawl into a hole and die for a while; I missed my mother terribly that day. I shouldn’t've left the house on Sunday. Then, at around 9pm, my father’s sister called in tears to tell him that my grandmother (their mother, with whom I was close - not as close as they were with her, but still, close) had died. On MOTHER’S DAY, of all days. FJKhsfkjshfkfjshfjk. Why hello there, random slim entrance to a cave in the middle of a cliff-face, I think I’ll crawl into you and die for a few days.
I got very little sleep on Sunday night, and forced myself to go to uni on Monday because I needed to pre-occupy myself with something other than sitting in my mother’s old room gazing at her pictures and wondering why the hell this year’s suddenly gone down the bloody hill. I won’t be flying to Vietnam for the funeral and cremationg, nor will my father be doing so; my aunts are going on behalf of all of us. But at the moment, I really wish I was fucking going.
I’ve spent the better part of the last five or six days down at the studio (mostly to cheer myself up and distract myself in the last few days, especially), alternating several times between 1) one hour blocks of shin-aggravating dancing, and 2) teaching little kids how to dance, so that one day they may properly aggravate their shins in the same manner as well. It’s a beautiful, rewarding cycle. I lost count of how many times my classmates let out an “Ouch! My fucking shin/ankle/foot/toe/everything!” after two sets of two hands and a dull throb beginning to creep into my shinbones that was punctuated by bursts of more mild pain.
Now I’m sitting in the library at university with both of my legs propped up on top of a brought-from-home cushion on a chair from the adjacent study room, drugged up on ibuprofen and other anti-inflammatory over-the-counter drugs purchased from the pharmacy down the road and feeling supremely proud of myself. And my friend is cackling at me.
All this talk of athletic prowess and general passion for a sport that is also an art (shall we call it a “spart”? I believe we shall.) can’t be complete without at least a bit of complaint about how unfit I am. Naturally, seeing as I consume a lot of fast food (and by no means whatsoever is that “a lot” meant to be underestimated), my arteries and body are whinging like hell. The subsequent reaction is usually along the lines of “Oh my God, I cannot get through this jig, someone get me an oxygen tank and a reservoir of water”. This is followed by “Xuan, get yourself off fast food. NOW.”, usually coming from my teacher or myself, yet oddly enough, never both.
I spend a considerable amount of time - and thus invest a considerable amount of effort into things - over the next few days watching what I eat. Then the cravings set in. On the right shoulder, there’s Dexter. He says “No, Xuan, DO NOT GIVE IN, DAMNIT!” with such fervour that I want to punch his lights out just so I can concentrate properly on whatever task is at hand (funnily enough, the cravings usually start during my English lecture on Mondays). On the left shoulder, some random named Sinister is hopping around, taunting me with “Doooo ittttt. Eattt itttttt. Chomp on ittttt! Mmmm, FATTY!”.
Neither will shut up. Then I wake up from my dream (oh, did I not mention that I always fall asleep during my English lectures? It’s a delightful experience, really), and the lecture finishes. My jaw is set… I walk out with uni friends, and take the bus home. Must. Not. Give. In. To. Temptation.
About an hour later, I’m sitting in McDonalds with dance friends, eating a double cheeseburger and a large fries piled on with so much salt that I could go into cardiac arrest from just nibbling on the end of one fry (is that even the actual singular form of “fries”? Meh, now it is). You’d think that, hey, after trying to get off junk food as many times as I have, something would’ve at least gone right, right? But no. I have given in, yet again.
You win, Sinister. You win.