AQUA KITTYI've been talking about getting back in shape and doing exercise, but the only muscles moved were the ones in my articulatory organs. Then I remembered that employees at the
Language Training & Testing Center get a discount at the
NTU Sports Center, so I went to check it out. It's ridiculously expensive for the public (CDN$600 for a year only to use the pool. You have to pay another CDN $125 to use the weight room), but we get a 60% discount.
So I bought two swimsuits and jumped in the pool.
The earliest pictures of me in a pool were taken when I was 5 or 6 years old. I remember aunt Wen teaching me and her daughter Carol how to swim, and we went swimming almost every weekend in the summer. Aunt Wen and my mom were best friends. They both ended their unfortunate marriages and were raising their daughters on their own. Growing up as an only child, I enjoyed hanging out with Carol on weekends and idolized single women like my mother for their strength and elegance. I can't recall a moment when my mom, or aunt Wen, lost their cool even though they had to juggle working full-time, doing chores, and being a mom AND a dad. With mothers like this, Carol and I were taught to be strong and independent from an early age.
We grew up to be strong and independent women.
Around the same time when I went to Vancouver, Carol went to Paris by herself, learned French, and studied hotel management. She fell in love and married into a wealthy French family. He told her that he didn't want to have children and his family didn’t want her to work. Despite what she really wanted, Carol quit her job and they never had children. She became increasingly unhappy and started putting on weight. He became progressively more irritable and started calling her names. Though she tried to hold their marriage together, she left him the first (and the last) time he laid hands on her.
Not long after she moved out of the family, he remarried and had a baby. Carol fell into depression and developed severe anorexia.
December 2004, I went to Paris to visit Carol. She lived in a one-bedroom apartment just outside of Paris with her then-boyfriend Oliver. She was still a bit too thin for her body type, but she looked healthy and happy. Oliver is almost painfully shy, but he's got a kind and gentle soul. They work in the same hotel. He is a chef and she is the manager of the front desk. They had a daughter last year and they moved to a bigger apartment in Paris.
I wonder if they're going to have a wedding.
I really should go visit them before I leave Asia.
You don't shave before suiting up?? Must cost you some speed in the water.
ReplyDeleteCome on, come on. I'm all caught up on past posts. I'm waiting for the next story (ies).
Ooops! I was hoping no one would notice.
ReplyDelete