Me, interrupted

You've been sitting nervously on the floor for two hours, your backside's growing numb and your lumbar spine is beginning to ache. Then your name is called. You step up. You – and the three others who have been called up at the same time – do the first part of the kung fu exam – a random combination of hand moves, turns and kicks. Tricky. Trickier yet due to the nervousness spilling from every pore.

But you try to focus. Focus. Focus. Your eyes are fixed ahead, your mind is clear, dangerously so. Your legs wobble ever so slightly. It's scary. Imagine around 70 people watching you during an exam. There were 60 sitting on the floor behind plus, say, 15 of the elite in front, arranged according to hierarchy [think Last Supper]...

Then – then! – just before the second (and main) part of the exam, I was called over by the guru (to carry on the Last Supper metaphor, we are talking about the most Holy one here)... I was so nervous I must have looked like a rabbit caught in headlights.

I thought he was going to tell me to leave for being or doing something appalling but instead he whispered in my ear and told me not to worry. I'm sure it was for about five minutes. Five minutes while 75 pairs of ears strained to hear what I was being talked to about. To put this into context, no one else had such a summoning. Just me.

Maybe they all thought he was imparting some secret technique, some previously-hidden method of something or the other. Instead, he gently asked about, and advised me on, my eating. He asked whether I was sleeping well [he surely must be psychic] and generally seemed to pick up on the fact that I have been extremely stressed and needed a bit of a pep talk with regards to looking after myself well. Even though he has met me only twice, he'd noticed I'd lost weight and was concerned. I was touched, even though the context of the chat was quite surreal.

The chief is a (very tough) man who eats meat – and plenty of it – and you really do need to eat well to have the strength to train properly. I'm not a veggie but I don't eat enough protein and haven't stepped up my food intake to compensate for the thousands of extra calories I burn off at kung fu. So, he had a point. But to be interrupted in the middle of my grading was novel, surreal and made everyone else stare at me for a while. Suffice to say, I have bought a batch of meat and fish so that I can get into my size eight jeans without needing a belt to keep them up. I seriously do not want to lose any more weight. I wish I could eat chocolate but I'm still banned from it due to the caffeine yadda yadda.

Watched Girl, Interrupted last night on the box. Hmm. It was painful viewing in places. There was Winona, all angsty, but quite normal really. And there was Angelina Jolie, being very nuts. What was scary and sad is that this story was based on a woman's experience. Thank goodness the world knows more about mental illness these days.

Bits of the film reminded me of a wonderful, wonderful book I read earlier this year: The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O'Farrell. A moving and deeply disturbing read, and one of my favourite books.
----------------
Listening to: Kosheen - Empty Skies