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Month: Mar 2016
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Changing Seasons 3/12
In response to Cardinal Guzman’s Changing Seasons challenge.
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What I Hated the Least Today 86/365: Time
I spent the night marking English tests. There was about a hundred left to go when I started, and I finished by six in the morning. It wasn’t due to my high working morale or my love for my work (both of which are nonexistent), but due to me being stubborn. I decided I would get rid of the filth before I go to sleep (so that I could spend the next day and night working on something cleaner).
When I say filth, I mean filth in all senses of the word. The materials inherited from the teacher I’m substituting are not only useless owing to their being thickly covered in illegible scribbling but are also disgustingly dirty. It’s a shame that the lady teacher hasn’t heard of foil wrapping yet. Where the hell was she during her first grade when foil wrapping of everything used in class was obligatory?
On the upside, the cat enjoys chewing the dog ears of the books and the heavily cracked CD case. I just hope she won’t get some English inflection (the cat, not the teacher).
As I was halfway through the night and the marking, I noticed with pleasure how much time had lapsed without me checking compulsively the clock in order to evaluate to what extent I’ve been hard-working so far. My pleasure was short-lived when I realised it was the night of the big time shift (not to be confused with tense shift). Actually, I must have been working like whole ten minutes when my computer stealthily changed the time and lo, suddenly it was seventy minutes later.
I distrust time. How can I trust something that is so easily manipulated? It’s not only the constant time shifts, twice a year, like it made a difference. It’s also, for example, that your age changes every year. How do you remember your current age when it’s such a subject to change? I’m seriously asking. Because I don’t remember it and no matter how hard I claim to be subverting the concept of time, it makes me look like an idiot. Every single time.
What I Hated the Least Today 85/365: Tea
In the light of my continuing if receding flu, I’ve embarked on tea treatment. Let it be stated for the record that I hate tea and never drink it, unless I’m convinced that tea is the last thing that stands between me and death. This time I choose life and drink tea. At least I originally thought so.
I took utmost care to select in the grocery shop what I believed was the least disgusting kind of tea. Alarmingly, I didn’t bother to read the text on the tea box until I came home. I did notice in the shop that the tea I picked didn’t contain caffeine, which I thought odd, but not inevitably evil. After all, I have coffee.
When I cooked my first batch (yes, tea is cooked, like medical drugs), I idly glanced at the box to see what I’m poisoning myself with. I saw an inexplicably cheerful note on the box saying, Did you know? Our tea doesn’t contain tea. WTF? I could tolerate caffeineless tea, but tealess tea? WTF again.
Apparently, teafree tea is all the new rage. Like pumpkin latte in autumn (which I’ve never had but assume to be sickening). So that the customer wouldn’t complain, the tealess tea is properly called Fruit Fusion. The name is a good start, but the customer could still be misled into believing that fruit fusion contains fruit.
Of course it doesn’t. Unless lemon and orange peels are considered fruit. That’s what the fruit fusion consists of, admits the label on the box. Oh, and also elderflowers. I vaguely remember elderflower sirup from my childhood. It tasted appalling, from which I deduce that it must be terribly healthy.
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What I Hated the Least Today 84/365: Tough
I like to think that I’m fiercely independent. That, of course, requires a degree of toughness. It’s all fun and games and cats to live alone, except everything else. Since this is a what-I-hated-the-least kind of post, I hate it the least to report that I’m managing surprisingly well. I’m surprising myself even, though I’m impossible to be surprised by myself—because logic.
I take an unhealthy pride in my newly developed skill of carrying my groceries. That is, carrying a bulky bag of unexpectedly heavy items for longer stretches than one could wish for. I’m wondering when I will develop the monkey-arm syndrome, which occurs in women who carry heavy shopping bags for so long that their arms get morbidly prolonged, like those of monkeys.
I’ve been down with the flu the third day now, except I’ve been up because I’m tough. Either I actually am that or I’m successfully faking it, deceiving even myself. I’ve run out of tissues and other flu necessities, so I naturally went shopping the first thing in the morning. I felt mildly shaky for sure, but my temperature was only 37°C (98.6 F), so I totally got it.
The trip went smoothly, though I was slightly dizzy and suspected I was seeing things that weren’t really there. Like cities on people’s legs. Manifesting a cool-headed presence of mind, I took a snap of my hallucination, so you can see for yourself—check out the header image of this post. My temperature jumped to 37.5°C (99.5 F) when I returned, but I was loving it.
I’m normally cold in all seasons and all weathers, but with a bit of temperature, I was feeling awesomely warm. I turned the heating off, threw the window wide open and semi-stripped (in all decency, of course). You might wish to point out that isn’t exactly the classic conservative treatment recommended for the flu. But I don’t care for classic, I’m tough, okay? Also, I’m now back to 37°C (98.6 F), and I think I’ll soon declare myself healthy.
iPhriday: Bus Commute
In response to Gray Days and Coffee challenge.
The classic Titanic palm plant
I think the bus is speeding
Buckle in
Bus mate
A bunch of headphones
Uh, rear mirror, anyone?
A bus through a bus
Barren fields
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Mara Eastern 