Sunday, August 29, 2010
Friday, August 27, 2010
Sleep
Wednesday evening I went to yoga class and took off a very important necklace in order to preform downward dog without chipping a tooth. After class I absentmindedly left it on the floor next to where my mat was, and an hour later at dinner I realized as I went to touch said necklace which I imagined hanging around my neck, the oversight. I saw the yoga teacher pack up and leave the building so I knew I wouldn't be able to retrieve it and anxiously tried to push it out of my head as I was engaged in an evening of comedy at the Skyline Comedy Club in Appleton where my cousin removed once, possibly twice was preforming. Here I discovered laughter is the best medicine to keep anxiety as well as perhaps sadness and other ailments away. Unfortunately by the time I got home, my anxiety had settled in for the night and prepared to keep me awake until morning when I could call and email and and call again to see if anyone had discovered my necklace and whether I would be able to retrieve it before noon when I left for Paris.
Keeping me awake was the thought that perhaps someone in class had found and desired my necklace and thus decided to keep it, since this was a yoga class I was attending, where everyone seemed to be regulars and also yoga teachers themselves, I considered this an unlikely scenario, but I left it play out in my thoughts a handful of times.
I also considered the possibility that a cleaning crew came in at night to sweep, discovered it and decided to take it to beef up what is surely a meager wage for cleaning a rather desolate downtown building. This also seemed fairly unlikely but had more potential than the first scenario.
Finally I considered that maybe someone had found the necklace, but that no yoga classes were scheduled and that I would not be able to reclaim the necklace before my flight. This scenario was especially scary because this is a necklace I wear on loan from my mother, admitting to her this oversight would result in a grave amount of guilt and punishment. I know my mother isn't particularly fond of the necklace or it wouldn't have been in my possession for the last 5 years, but it is quite valuable and there would inevitably be a fallout. I'm sure it's insured, but I could already feel the disappointment I would bear; my own as much as hers,
Mostly I just lay awake anxious for 8am to roll around so I could wake up and find a phone number or email to call to inquire.
Turns out they found my necklace, and I could pick it up before my flight, and alls well that ends well.
Unfortunately, I barely got any sleep, and I would have a long day of flying with a four hour layover in Chicago. Like a very tired or crazy person I found an empty corner lay down on the floor and tried to get some rest, unfortunately the flight leaving before mine at the gate was canceled and due to regular gargling updates but agents at the desk I kept worrying that it was actually my flight being canceled and then my gate changed and there was no longer any space to be a resting person anyway. Once on board I watched a movie ate my dinner and prepared to sleep, but I found sleep evasive so I resorted to taking a tylenol PM.
Once I arrived at customs they tried to keep me out of the country because my passport has been laundered and looks like it, I only have one page left free for stamps and the cover is starting to fall off. I said I promised to get a new one as soon as they let me in their fine country, and they gave me the look that said, ok but only because you're not a terrorist and obviously need to learn the lesson that passports are sacred and ought to be stored in safe places that dont end up in the spin cycle.
The problem though with taking tylenol PM is that even if you bite it in half and take a small dose, like I did , if you dont get a restful 8-10 hours of sleep you end up with a tylenol PM hangover similar to a regular hangover but without the vomiting and headache. It's like a fuzz that settles into your brain, an inability for synapse firing, the total shut down of brain function. Math would be difficult, and French or probably any other language, nearly impossible.
So when I went to take my Alliance Francaise placement test, it was disappointing but hardly surprising that even after 8 months of living in France, I did not graduate out of level B1. I tried not to make excuses for my lack of success, it wasn't and isn't because I am not able to speak or understand French, it's mostly because I fait beaucoup de fautes. I make a lot of mistakes, anyone can understand me, I just use all the wrong genders, and have been too lazy to learn to speak in complex ways using anything other than the past, present and future.
But I'm okay with not being a pro, after all I'm here to learn and everyone has to start somewhere. I've learned a lot in the last 8 months, I just didn't learn how to put it to use correctly, and so as the fuzz brain hangover fades away let the complex sentence structures seep in.
Keeping me awake was the thought that perhaps someone in class had found and desired my necklace and thus decided to keep it, since this was a yoga class I was attending, where everyone seemed to be regulars and also yoga teachers themselves, I considered this an unlikely scenario, but I left it play out in my thoughts a handful of times.
I also considered the possibility that a cleaning crew came in at night to sweep, discovered it and decided to take it to beef up what is surely a meager wage for cleaning a rather desolate downtown building. This also seemed fairly unlikely but had more potential than the first scenario.
Finally I considered that maybe someone had found the necklace, but that no yoga classes were scheduled and that I would not be able to reclaim the necklace before my flight. This scenario was especially scary because this is a necklace I wear on loan from my mother, admitting to her this oversight would result in a grave amount of guilt and punishment. I know my mother isn't particularly fond of the necklace or it wouldn't have been in my possession for the last 5 years, but it is quite valuable and there would inevitably be a fallout. I'm sure it's insured, but I could already feel the disappointment I would bear; my own as much as hers,
Mostly I just lay awake anxious for 8am to roll around so I could wake up and find a phone number or email to call to inquire.
Turns out they found my necklace, and I could pick it up before my flight, and alls well that ends well.
Unfortunately, I barely got any sleep, and I would have a long day of flying with a four hour layover in Chicago. Like a very tired or crazy person I found an empty corner lay down on the floor and tried to get some rest, unfortunately the flight leaving before mine at the gate was canceled and due to regular gargling updates but agents at the desk I kept worrying that it was actually my flight being canceled and then my gate changed and there was no longer any space to be a resting person anyway. Once on board I watched a movie ate my dinner and prepared to sleep, but I found sleep evasive so I resorted to taking a tylenol PM.
Once I arrived at customs they tried to keep me out of the country because my passport has been laundered and looks like it, I only have one page left free for stamps and the cover is starting to fall off. I said I promised to get a new one as soon as they let me in their fine country, and they gave me the look that said, ok but only because you're not a terrorist and obviously need to learn the lesson that passports are sacred and ought to be stored in safe places that dont end up in the spin cycle.
The problem though with taking tylenol PM is that even if you bite it in half and take a small dose, like I did , if you dont get a restful 8-10 hours of sleep you end up with a tylenol PM hangover similar to a regular hangover but without the vomiting and headache. It's like a fuzz that settles into your brain, an inability for synapse firing, the total shut down of brain function. Math would be difficult, and French or probably any other language, nearly impossible.
So when I went to take my Alliance Francaise placement test, it was disappointing but hardly surprising that even after 8 months of living in France, I did not graduate out of level B1. I tried not to make excuses for my lack of success, it wasn't and isn't because I am not able to speak or understand French, it's mostly because I fait beaucoup de fautes. I make a lot of mistakes, anyone can understand me, I just use all the wrong genders, and have been too lazy to learn to speak in complex ways using anything other than the past, present and future.
But I'm okay with not being a pro, after all I'm here to learn and everyone has to start somewhere. I've learned a lot in the last 8 months, I just didn't learn how to put it to use correctly, and so as the fuzz brain hangover fades away let the complex sentence structures seep in.
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