Well that is all I have for you dear page. Five minutes. Thoughts jumble out, words fly out of my ears, my nostrils flare in anticipation, fingers fly on the keyboard (thank god I can keep my eyes on the screen).
What do I tell you in these short, too short, five minutes? Why not this, that today is the last day of the monster's exams. And yes, before you snort and smirk, it is true. Mine child has exams. Around six days of it. And today is the culmination of it all. The acid test so to speak. If the rest were small fry, this is the big kahuna. Hindi! (Watch me exclaim thus next year and say Tamizh!). Little fingers on the 'ksha' move this way and that and forget the route and come back in the wrong direction. The big picture view is hilarious, but the small picture one is occasionally bothersome. I have a big chart, right in the living room, driving my mum crazy, so ugly it is hanging on some electrical box type thing of yore. She might read it in her mind, is my argument. When she takes a break from Calvin & Hobbes you mean, sarcastics (go with it, worse people than I have invented worse words such as irregardless) she, putting away my collection, locking the cup-board, and throwing away the key (there IS someone in my head and its not me). I do accept her argument however but retort nevertheless with some acidity.
Studying for exams was always an 'exciting' option. No one sat with me. No one 'egged me on' back then. Now I wonder why it should not be the same here. I think what is missing is an iota of mental maturity (the vocabulary belies the lack of this maturity, but still, I am the mother, I should know). Not to mention the fact that this generation of children seem to rebel and exhibit angst about ten years earlier than we did (as teenagers, that was what we did for a living is it not?). Still, compared to some other stories mothers at school spin, I think I see a spark in her eyes which I recognise.
My five minutes are up, in fact more has transpired. Time to go. I mention in passing that I think exams are wonderful, though meaningless when it comes to evaluating ones abilities for anything. They give you the chance to show off your knowledge, that is true, they let you identify the lacuna, that is also true, they give you closure, so that is something everyone should like, not just us mad-caps. But yes, marks are meaningless. I admit it. Even as I mark across sheets with thick red lines.
Showing posts with label mum. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mum. Show all posts
Thursday, 19 March 2009
Monday, 23 February 2009
Its all good now
So as I was saying, I had typhoid. It was an interesting experience. I have never been so sick in my life. A friend of mine had just mentioned in December that I looked strong and fit and muscular. Well ah. Its all gone. I look sick. There are no two ways to look at it. Normally, despite my friend thinking thus, my family always think I look a bit 'weak' as they call it. No matter that I can run and run and do a hundred things through the day and physically it is a stretch to call me 'weak' - they think I am. It also has to do with the head-thing. In my head, I mean, in terms of emotions, tears-on-tap, ability to casually let all life's vicissitudes slide across you, I don't too well. I am too emtionally invested in things. I work from the heart. Therefore I am obviously weaker than a person who uses their brain.
Right now at any rate, I am physically still recuperating. Mornings don't feel very good. I struggle to get started with the day. I feel uneasy in the evenings. But I am somewhat ready to start my work day (yes, I have had to be on leave - I feverishly taught two classes ten days ago and am dreading going back and figuring out what it was I said in those). In my absence, has the world shattered? I will know tomorrow. I am determined more than ever to simplify things at work and focus on important matters and finish them. One of my 2009 resolutions in any case.
There is a four day period in the past few weeks of which I have limited memory. I know my face was so uninspiring that my husband could not go to work. I am real glad about that because I never expected it. He barely even manages to stay home when he is sick. He claims I ate nothing those days (which cannot be true). I remember eating though, our usual meal of dhal. The fever refused to come down. The blood report was not yet there so we were hoping it was typhoid and treating it as such but no one knew. I was lying in bed mostly trying to figure out the headache, which was a constant presence.
Now that I have several more moments of lucidity, and only some discomfort, I feel as if I have come out of a tunnel or some sort. And that I am still in the last stretches of that tunnel. Dark, dreary tunnel of pain, mostly the head. I have nearly fainted in the hospital (strange, people still talk to you though you cannot see them, at least you cannot see their outline. Apparently, you cannot tell when another person is going to faint). I was at the reception and I tried to tell that girl. At least I remember it was a girl, before the fainting spell began, she was a girl. After that she was a blue haze. I wanted water. I was surrounded by men with their little children. I was afraid of crushing a child. I made it without incident to a chair and my husband saw me and I was sweating and he got me water. My body has ached like no other time before. Every single bone and pore ached. There was no position I could sleep or sit in that worked. But I did not faint again. The doctor threatened to admit me and I could see my husband was tempted but I got up and walked out saying we will think of that in three days time (hate hospitals).
It is time to forget it and move on. Time to regain my strength, which I have lost in buckets. Time to build my muscles, which have gone away very quickly, damn them. Time to appreciate how even the simplest of foods taste SO MUCH BETTER when mum makes them than the cook. I am a lucky girl. My husband actually, unbelievably, was here when I needed him most (somehow, he always is). The child was broadly co-operative as I was lying there and complaining about real and imagined noises. Mum could come over day before yesterday which is more than anything anyone can ask for. Time to count my lucky stars.
And meanwhile, we have a vegetable patch in our garden. Bhindi, Brinjal, Dhania, Chili, Beans and Tomatoes. Bhindis are the oldest and going well.
Right now at any rate, I am physically still recuperating. Mornings don't feel very good. I struggle to get started with the day. I feel uneasy in the evenings. But I am somewhat ready to start my work day (yes, I have had to be on leave - I feverishly taught two classes ten days ago and am dreading going back and figuring out what it was I said in those). In my absence, has the world shattered? I will know tomorrow. I am determined more than ever to simplify things at work and focus on important matters and finish them. One of my 2009 resolutions in any case.
There is a four day period in the past few weeks of which I have limited memory. I know my face was so uninspiring that my husband could not go to work. I am real glad about that because I never expected it. He barely even manages to stay home when he is sick. He claims I ate nothing those days (which cannot be true). I remember eating though, our usual meal of dhal. The fever refused to come down. The blood report was not yet there so we were hoping it was typhoid and treating it as such but no one knew. I was lying in bed mostly trying to figure out the headache, which was a constant presence.
Now that I have several more moments of lucidity, and only some discomfort, I feel as if I have come out of a tunnel or some sort. And that I am still in the last stretches of that tunnel. Dark, dreary tunnel of pain, mostly the head. I have nearly fainted in the hospital (strange, people still talk to you though you cannot see them, at least you cannot see their outline. Apparently, you cannot tell when another person is going to faint). I was at the reception and I tried to tell that girl. At least I remember it was a girl, before the fainting spell began, she was a girl. After that she was a blue haze. I wanted water. I was surrounded by men with their little children. I was afraid of crushing a child. I made it without incident to a chair and my husband saw me and I was sweating and he got me water. My body has ached like no other time before. Every single bone and pore ached. There was no position I could sleep or sit in that worked. But I did not faint again. The doctor threatened to admit me and I could see my husband was tempted but I got up and walked out saying we will think of that in three days time (hate hospitals).
It is time to forget it and move on. Time to regain my strength, which I have lost in buckets. Time to build my muscles, which have gone away very quickly, damn them. Time to appreciate how even the simplest of foods taste SO MUCH BETTER when mum makes them than the cook. I am a lucky girl. My husband actually, unbelievably, was here when I needed him most (somehow, he always is). The child was broadly co-operative as I was lying there and complaining about real and imagined noises. Mum could come over day before yesterday which is more than anything anyone can ask for. Time to count my lucky stars.
And meanwhile, we have a vegetable patch in our garden. Bhindi, Brinjal, Dhania, Chili, Beans and Tomatoes. Bhindis are the oldest and going well.
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