'Take your shirt off'

I don't know if there's a list somewhere, that compiles all the phrases facial-beauticians are not supposed to say to their customers, but 'go ahead and take your shirt off' is probably up there. So I was there in a lovely dimly-litted backroom of Aveda (the salon place in my building where they have hairdressers, manicurists, facials, etc), staring at her and wondering if I signed up for the wrong type of service. She was a lovely lady, in a Nigella Lawson type of way, albeit a little on the heavy side, so there I was, wondering why a lady this comely is doing working such a back-alley business. I was just about to ask her if it was her traumatic childhood that turned her towards this line of work, when she explained that there was an arm and shoulder massage, as well as a feet massage, so I could go ahead and take off my shoes and socks as well and get under the covers.

It was unlike any facial I had ever gone to. For starters, it was ridiculously useless as a pimple clearing/cleansing procedure. The thing I remembered her doing most was lather delicious smelling salts and stuff on my face, then putting a wonderfully warm towel on my face, massage it, then remove it along with the 'stuff'. A supremely relaxing and invigorating process, but I had been hoping for more cleansing than relaxing. I'd grown accustomed to facing a needle and hundreds of pricks on my face every Tuesday for 8 months with Annie, so all this pampering just seems wrong. The soothing ambience was rubbing me up the wrong way too. (Although Isabella's arm massage was definitely rubbing me the right way.) Annie used to chat with me about Mariah, Whitney, Celine, Barbra, her children, her life in Taiwan, the time she got accused of sleeping with her boss by the boss' schizopheric wife... There was zero communication at Aveca, and customers are forced to listen to ambiance music and actually 'relax'. (Picture me saying that with a disgusted face, like every time I say 'Miley' or 'Gaga'.) 

Needless to say, I loved every minute of it. I didn't know it before I stepped into Aveca, but a Botanical Elemental Facial was just what I needed after travelling for 10000 miles (I've taken to saying miles instead of kilometers now, to further trick everyone here into thinking I know what I'm talking about) over to Madison. My arms (like all our other various other body parts) never knew what they were missing until someone starts rubbing it. This is another chance for me to be relaxing, but there was always this little nagging voice in the back of my mind going 'I hope she's not secretly laughing about how skinny my arms are'.

I step out of Aveca rejuvenated, reborn, and $25 poorer. I felt ready to take on any challenges the world presented to me. (As long as it was gift wrapped with the original tag and receipt still attached, cause you know how sometimes someone gets you something, and it's not in the right color, or right department, or in one case right gender, and you still have to smile and pretend you like it, but when they're not looking, you quickly race to the store to get it exchanged within 30 days?) Right, moving on. I was feeling rejuvenated. And might as well, because on Friday, I was on to my fourth test already, and my classes haven't even started yet. Apparently I scored well enough on my ESFLAT (English as a Second Freaking Language Test) to get a place in the highest placed class, but not well enough to get completely exempted from it. The prof told me on Thursday, when I was collecting my results, that she was deliberating whether to just straightaway exempt me, or to keep me around a while longer to see if I reallyyyyy reallyyyyy knew how to write. I think she just wanted to see if what I produced was a one-in-a-million lucky shot. She offered me another chance to sit for yet another diagnostic test, and if I manage to convince her this time round I could be exempted from the compulsory English course that everyone was expected to go for.

And so I sat for it. I don't know if I managed to produce something as presentable as what I used to do back in GP (and I'm just being a slight show-off here), in the days where I was bound to score the highest in any GP essay, and half the time I didn't know what I was going on about. The passage was about technology, and the author was arguing that it does not in fact make us stupid, or attention-span-retards, as the critics say it will, but would actually make us more knowledgeable due to the easy access we have to information. I was supposed to write a summary of the entire passage, and an opinion of it (which I'm tackling like an AQ question) within 50 minutes. I was so rushed at the end, which is a first for me, seeing how I always finish ages before the time is up, doesn't matter if I end up get 20% or 100% for the paper - I just do it quickly. I didn't even know what I was talking about anymore, just throwing random nonsense out, like how when everyone's so buried in their BlackBerries, it's an issue of their own innate personalities of 'not being able to let go' surfacing, and is not caused by technology, just brought to light by it. Dear lord - it sounds even more ridiculous the second time I write it.

It would be so embarrassing to fail to make it out of that class, even after three tries. Most just take one test, accept their fates, and move on. But nooo, I had to go for it again and again, to break out of the terribleness of doing a whole semester of English. It is true that it's not the worst fate in the world - there are others who got posted to do two or more semesters of it, but I promised myself that the English placement test was the last English test I'll ever take, and I intend to keep that promise. (The following two tests don't count. Stop being anal about it, if I say it doesn't, it doesn't.) And don't give me that 'at least you tried' bullshit. If you try once and again and don't make it, you're not determined or courageous - you just suck. (I would make a great guidance counselor. Or a gynecologist.)

Therefore (the original point I was making was that if I don't test out, it would be embarrassing), I don't intend to tell others that I didn't make it out, in the likely event that I don't. I'll just say the prof finds me such a delight to teach, so she decided to keep me around for as long as possible. Being the delight to teach that I am, I just had to let go of my personal selfish attitude and take one for the prof. That's the story and I'm sticking to it!

Oh gosh please let me be exempted from it.