Home again, home again, jiggety jig

My website's been down, due to a GoDaddy glitch, but I didn't really have the time to blog these last few days, anyway. In between doing work, I've been fretting about the fact that I seem to have forgotten how to teach. I keep saying the wrong thing, asking questions that don't lead anywhere, allowing myself to snap at students. I flip through resource files listlessly, wondering why lesson ideas came so easily to me three year ago, while now I struggle to come up with something, anything that will pass the time for thirty-five minutes. I relish every moment of being in school --- except the five minutes before I have to go to class, and even then I tend to dawdle (check email just one more time, return a missed phone call, take a quick potty break) so that I wind up being at least five minutes late for every class.

I'm doomed.

Perhaps it's just as well I've taken up hatha yoga. A friend freaked me out the day before the first class by saying something about how it's always aunties who take these classes and then they fart a lot after class, what with all the yoga relaxation techniques. Fortunately, my class was neither auntie- nor fart-clogged. In fact, the instructor's son had come along to assist and my, he was a nice-looking young man.

This week, I have been called a "physical junkie" (thanks, James), "fitness freak" (thanks, Mel) and "fanatic, like a born-again Christian" (thanks, Kay) about exercise. Just because I take some classes and run every few evenings. Admittedly, this is a far cry from when I decided I should start running and got excited over buying running shoes. That was after not having exercised one jot since I left junior college (the equivalent of high school). But once you factor in the fact that my so-called evenings runs can always be superseded by social plans or, these days, by an unexpected gift of a downpour from the lingering monsoon, you'll realise I'm hardly a freak about it at all.

However, I did wake up this morning pondering if I had time for a run before making a pre-arranged long-distance call to KK. When a glance out the window confirmed that it was too hot in the day already, I mentally postponed the run to tomorrow. When plans for tomorrow got confirmed, reducing the likelihood of a run to well nigh zero, I mentally postponed the run to Sunday but was unsettled at so many days elapsing since my last good run on Wednesday. So maybe I am a little fanatical about this.

What I admit to currently being fanatical about is Toast. There was a highly successful tea with the mother and aunts a couple of months ago, and it later provided the perfect moment of respite from last-minute Xmas Eve shopping with Casey. Last week I discovered the Raffles Place outlet, which was quiet enough mid-afternoon that I could rapidly grade a few essay outlines while Terz got his shots. If all goes as planned tomorrow, I'll be Toast-bound again, because I've been putting off that Nutella muffin for too damn long. It shall be mine.

I had tea with the mater and the aunts again this week, but this time it was hosted at home by Fifth Aunt, who made walnut-carrot-pineapple muffins and banana cake with walnuts and raisins. You know it's going to be a stirring afternoon when First Aunt holds out her cup to be refilled, saying, "I need more coffee. I need to be alert when I'm talking with my sisters." In the middle of Third Aunt telling a story, my mother, who's heard the story before, decides that's the best time to move around the table, profferring lou por bang (which translates as wife biscuit, but beware: the linked page plays music) and clothes which one aunt can't wear anymore that another aunt (or I) might want. I went home with a purple top; my mom got the rest since she's the smallest of the sisters. Despite all the racket, my grandfather managed to snatch a snooze on the couch.

So the funny thing about being a girl is that when people start asking if you've lost weight, you start wondering if there's any truth in it. Then you ask a friend who hasn't seen you for a while and of course the answer you get instead is: "Nope, you've put on a bit of weight though." Then you kick yourself for asking the question in the first place, since all your clothes still fit, and the running feels good, and the desserts (like the lovely single portion of Jivara I had tonight, not to mention yesterday's waffles and apple pie and ice cream, and Fifth Aunt's baking) all taste really good.

God, I missed blogging.