on friday night for some reason i found myself in a cab going round the safti compound, and i now truly understand why the course can reduce big strong boys into depressive whimpering souls. the place is like huge and stony and cold; like all the sparseness and vacantness of RJ times one million. and at night it's so creepy it's like the perfect setting for suicide attempts. it's like all your worst nightmares of mental asylums and prisons and concentration camps combined into one. now i know why the army spends so much money on psychometric tests and all that; if i was in there i would be dead in a day. which is why i really thank god that aud came along, because i think i would have otherwise lost my nerve and demanded to be driven back out immediately. 'twas quite an adventure, it was, and certainly an invaluable lesson in what friends are for ;)

anyway, after that suitably depressing episode, the rest of saturday passed in a bit of a blur. i woke up for breakfast, took my morning nap, woke up for lunch, and then napped till mid-afternoon. at which point i had developed a severe headache- IT'S TRUE: TOO MUCH SLEEP IS BAD FOR YOU. that's when i decided it's time to Get My Act Together, and so i crawled out of bed and switched off the aircon. then i got through an hour or so of yoga, which made me feel sufficiently healthy and brimming with life again. it's amazing what balancing on your shoulders can do for you!

this afternoon i treated my girls to ice cream at swensons, and being around them i again i felt this weird sense of age and maturity. i guess i've always been one of the spoiled, lazy, irresponsible people who just slide along selfishly, so coaching these kids has really been an eye-opener. it's like suddenly i have to make all these decisions for them and look out for them and mediate for them and i have to be all rational and adultish about it. i am beginning to doubt if my superkid genuis/all-star athlete parenting plan will hold up in the long run after all. i am just too weak. i will definitely need to hire one of those nannies from hell if i'm going to raise an einstein anytime in this life.

as for the rushdie book, it has proven to be quite an inconvenience as it's just too bloody big to fit into any of my bags. which means i can't read on the go and we all know i'm not going to sit down for three hours and read a boring book. so now i'm onto the great gatsby which is rapidly turning into one of my favourite old-fashioned love stories, and reminding me, in fact, of margaret atwood's the blind assasin. barring another ADHD episode like this one, i think gatsby should be conquered in just a few minutes. oh, and i know this sounds dumb, but all my life i thought gatsby was a place. turns out, he's a man!

it's rather late now but i'm on a vigil so that when i do get to sleep, it'll be uninterrupted and i'll wake up just in time to get ready for driving lessons. my instructor has instructed me to go home and "think about why [i'm] so blur at traffic lights". i presume this is because i keep turning into the wrong lanes after U-turns, but she should know this is because she keeps nagging at me to "look far ahead" and everytime she says this i get panicky and step on the accelerator before i have time to swing the wheel back. and then when this happens she goes "immediate failure!" and laughs in a very cackly witch-like tone which is not in the least bit comforting. anyhow, with a bit more sleep and caffeine in the system tomorrow, hopefully i won't stall the engine and nearly kill any pedestrians!