(no subject)

[tylik]

During classical chinese on friday I had one of those timeless university moments. The class is held in one of the buildings on the quad, high ceilings and big windows and vaguely old and drowsy. The days was clear and bright, and while outside was a slap of cold in the face, indoors was warm and gave the impression of the kind of spring day that tempted you to gaze out the window and let the lecture fade into a soothing backdrop. There's a kind of eager restlessness that goes along with realizing that it's a three day weekend ahead and I'll actually have something in my life other than homework, the lab and martial arts -- however briefly.

Have I mentioned that all the guys dropped out of classical? Even the PhD candidates, which surprised me. (Only the first quarter is required for Chinese majors, so I knew we'd lose most of the undergrads.) And Boltz was only teaching the first few classes, so it was the lot of us, which is to say those students who actually spoke up a fair bit last quarter (though we lost a couple) and Miss Park. (We are all Miss this or that, as Boltz has a preference for formality. Though we've been exchanging first names on the sly.) And I wasn't actually drowsing -- the nine of us were engaged in a debate over two grammatically different (though fairly close in meaning) ways of translating 非非者行是. Very much the ivory tower take on academia, but with a wonderful purity to it, reading political commentary and philosophy from 2500 years ago in a dead language, in a scruffy but beautiful building on a clear winter day.



Today was a lovely day with the sword class.

First day back in wushu after a bit. Lots of fun, but my back is sore now. I'm hoping stretching and soaking will take care of that. (And I didn't jump, and didn't do sweeps, so I don't feel like I even earned it.) OTOH... it felt really good to be back, too.

And then Craig and I stopped by the Bon. Now, I have to say that I rarely go into department stores. But we needed a mattress pad, and it turned out they were on sale... And looking at some of the china was kind of amusing. (We could buy an entire set of lion and cheetah salad plates. Heh.)

Bras were also on sale, so I decided that it might be worth having one bra that isn't a sports bra, and so I tried on one that I used to favor before I discovered the lunaire sports bras, but in my new size. Or so I thought. When I last wore this style of bra, I was a few band sizes larger, and a D. Now the DDD is laughably inadequate. The band size was fine, too, which kind of added insult to injury. I mean, spilling out the top. Of a DDD. Wah. So I've gone down three pants sizes, and up three cup sizes, if basing this on the same style of bra. I've actually been on reasonable terms with my breasts recently, but it's kind of depressing. Hello! Not nursing! Quite active! Go the fuck away!

Meanwhile, Craig started looking at pants and silk shirts. After a while, I got bored and headed down to look at women's clothing.

Ack. Argh. Bleh. It was weirdly like shopping in a thrift store, except everything cost a lot more money. Now, look -- I'm not altogether against some of the interesting drapey styles. They flatter me, if I can find ones that fit. (And of course my self imposed restriction that I will only buy clothing that will accomodate wushu moves makes shopping almost bearable.) The profusion of rhinestones, and beadwork and embroidered flowers is intimidating en masse, but I can even see that in some cases it works. Not, for the most part, anywhere near me.

But overall, it was all just so terribly femme, with unnecessary use of synthetics, way too narrow a color palette, and retro mostly in an unfortunate way. Some of the outfits I could even appreciate in an abstract sense, but... bleh. I actually found the junior's section more bearable (well, except for the music videos, that frankly left me feeling a little sheltered) -- at least the clothing there was playful and somewhat outrageous, as opposed to dated, unflattering and dowdy and still way too femme. Of course, the only thing I saw that would have looked decent on me were these little brocadey camisole tops... and only then if they were retrofitted with some amazingly supportive undergarments. (Perhaps an antigrav lift?) And a couple of formal dresses, that were available only in sixes and eights. Oh, there were some decent tank tops and yoga pants, but then I really don't need more of either.

Yargh.

It wasn't like I was there to buy anything, but it was just all so very surreal. Apparently I've found a good niche for myself, shopping mostly at Costco (I used to feel a little guilty about this, but hey, they have excellent labour policies, and are staunch supporters of the democratic party) REI, and the local surplus store. With certain sportswear items from Lucy or Title 9, and the rare thing from a craft fair.