Sick? Knitting Part Deux.

I have been expecting some gastrointestinal illness to hit me while here, so every odd gurgle of my stomach gives me pause, but so far my stomach has been cast iron even in the face of a lot of novel foods and the addition of tons of chili and some MSG in my diet. However, last night I went to sleep with bit of a headache, and now I'm waking up with a scratchy, irritated and thick throat and the headache hasn't left me. I hope I'm not coming down with something - this feels like it might be the common cold. Perhaps the lack of sleep and the baseline stress of travel is finally getting to me. It's 6:30 am. It's raining and the sound is soothing. I tell Ramsey about my plight and he says "Don't go all H1N1 on me now." I was really tired and slept like a stone for seven hours last night, but maybe I should go back to sleep and get more rest. Yes.

I'm wrapped up in two blankets and a sweater. I feel cold, but it's been raining and overcast the whole night and day, and I think the temperature has dropped. I have a splitting headache. During my sleep I hear Ramsey and So go in and out as well as Gong and some students looking at books in the library as well as talking with So. I'm too tired and my head hurts too much to feel self-conscious that I am lying on my mattress in the middle of the unusally trafficked library. Ramsey comes in after teaching morning classes and seems more concerned than he was this morning when he finds me still sleeping and bundled up. He asks all the questions - fever? stomach hurt? headache? throat? etc. I tell him not to worry, and he responds with, "but this is how malaria always begins." In the background I hear Gong say "ice-cream". WHAT? I sit up in my bed for that. Turns out ice-cream is a corn and sugar slurry frozen in a bag - still yummy stuff though - and the kicker is that they all tell me I'm not supposed to eat cold things while I'm "sick". I counter with the argument that eating something that will make me happy will be more conducive to my healing than avoiding eating something just cause it's cold. I'm hungry anyway since I've missed breakfast and it's now 12:30pm. This convinces Ramsey to give me the treat, and I hear him have to justify his decision to So. It is yummy - it makes me get up and start my day. I was right, an infusion of Vitamin Happy K.

With their newly made needles, I teach the students how to knit this afternoon. Some pick up on the knit stitch faster than others. I give them time to master it. Fullmoon, Sai, Wen, and Apple have separated from the pack so I teach them how to purl. Then I teach them how to do four by four rib. At this rate, we will have to buy much more yarn. They seem engrossed for three hours. Even Ramsey comes to learn after a while...I think he felt left out. And I tell him to get one of the students to teach him. Ramsey has more difficulty that most of the students at learning how to knit. It requires a lot of concentration, and reinforcement for him to get it right. After a while he says "it's stuff like this that make me realize that my potential is not unlimited." Even he manages to create a swatch of knitting...with a few dropped stitches...by the end of the lesson. I tell them to unravel their knitting so that they can do it again tomorrow. Ramsey says "no way, I've got to show this to my mom."

So asks me for my favourite quote or saying to write down in her book. I don't quite remember the exact words so I paraphrase it for her. "It's not the mountain ahead of you that is the biggest challenge, it is the pebble in your shoe." Mohammed Ali