It's SteeTime!

IELTS (pronounced alternatively by people as EYE-Elts and EYE-Lets) is the standardized international English test from the UK and Australia, equivalent to Toefl for the US. I had to do it for a myriad of reasons but mainly to prove to the aforesaid 'Commonwealthers' that I can indeed communicate in English. Disgruntled but excited I booked my test for this past Saturday and pictured myself getting 98% because ‘I even have a blog-o!’ How good must my English be? Woke up at the crack of dawn!   I had received warnings of non-refundable expulsion for late-comers so my senses were acutely aware of my alarm clock. Thinking I was too early, I arrived to find a horde (word I used in my speaking test) of anxious-looking people already waiting outside the British Council building. I immediately befriended the most cheerful face sitting at the end of the line who was to become my friend for the whole day. Payal had carried 5 pens, 5 pencils, several rubbers and a sparkling sharpener...

I avoid weighing scales. Period. Atrocious behavior for a health care professional, I know, but the last time I weighed myself a while ago I was so shocked I employed some radical action. That included not weighing myself until after my hardcore exercise programme, until my jeans stopped being so tight and of course after the ‘final diet’. The diet that is supposed to be the diet of all diets. The one which will finally work. The elusive food regimen which would shed the kilograms once and for all. Ha, wishful thinking! I, like many women, have been dieting on and off for as long as I can remember. My yoyo-dieting started at the age of eleven when I suddenly realized that my thighs were bigger than most girls in my class. Of course then, puberty had not been explained fully especially the part that girls reach it at different times. Then of course there is the love-to-hate body part that comes in and out of my life. It’s usually the only thing you...