Freckles and endorphins

Today marked the first day of my training for my debut attempt to run a leg of the relay in the Belfast Marathon at the start of May! Better late than never....I hope! I decided that in terms of exercise, a change is as good as a rest, so I decided to make my maiden voyage into this period of exercisehood by heading down to a public running track about 10 minutes from my house. I enjoyed a good 40 minutes doing a variety of jogging, running, sprinting, walking and an assortment of cardio exercises I've learnt at Tae Kwon Do within the last year. The sun was out, I had the entire track to myself, I was completely safe from dangers of the road, uneven ground, and overexcited dogs or builders, all for the reasonable price of £2.50. You can't be bad to that.

As I drove away, with an unexpected buzz of endorphins coursing through my legs, I found myself making arrangements in my head about what my commitment was going to be to training within the next month. I already have TKD every Saturday morning, so I figured that 2 extra sessions per week would be adequate/reaslistic. Anyone who knows me at all, is aware that I am not well-known for my sporting prowess. I have never been that into sport or exercise, being quite a clumsy person with terrible core stability and a shocking lack of spatial awareness. I am much happier relaxing on the sofa or sitting in the cinema than doing anything active, although I do always enjoy a day outdoors or a bit of activity when it does end up being forced upon me. (usually in hindsight, though, rather than anticipation!)

One thing that interests me on the rare occasions when I am pondering upon the topic of sport is the seeming simplicity of the cause/effect related to it. I mean, technically, if I devoted my life to the right type of training, I could be as toned, athletic and muscular in whatever places I wanted. (well- I hope I'm still young enough for this to be the case!) I think I only realised this recently- normally there is so much about our bodies we feel we can't change- I had myself in a box as 'unsporty' and happily accepted my body as what it is, built for comfort, not speed and all that. But I think what I have realised recently is that... I could be built for speed if I really really wanted! I could turn myself into a leopard-esque, concord-paced sprinting phenomenon if I had the time and resources and was willing to put the effort in! Couldn't I??? I mean, technically it's possible, right???

I think I properly realised this element of control that lies with me for the first time a few months ago when slimming for my sister's wedding. (Yes, I really am that slow!) I had never really lost a good chunk of weight before, just a pound here or there, usually only after a brief period of illness! When I made the risky decision to choose 'The Smaller Sized Dress' (the other one being a discouragingly enormous tent!) at one of the bridesmaid's dress fittings, I suddenly became shockingly aware that I HAD to lose weight, or the zip just wouldn't come up (at least without creating a mountain of back cleavage of Quasimodo-style mmagnitude) and my sister/mother would perhap kill me! (this was not unconfirmed by a number of pep talks from both that ensued at various intervals). In the sporting realm, I've always been slighly less hideous at sprinting than any kind of long distance running, and I guess this is parallelled in the mental realm, so it figures that in the first 10 months since my sister got engaged, I managed to lose approx 2 pounds, and then with the big drive in the last 2 months I managed to lose a whopping 12 pounds. I achieved this through:
a) 'Straight Talking' from both mother and sister
b) The usefulness of having a project to put my pre-wedding nervous energy into
c)Telling myself that soup was my New Best Friend and bread was The Enemy.
d) The shortness of the period of time I would actually have to endure it for.
As well as this I had to come to the realisation that the only times I lost weight was when I felt extremely and unnaturally H.U.N.G.R.Y. Again, another cause/effect thing that I hadn't really thought through. I gradually realised I could live with hunger, I wouldn't faint or start to hallucinate, but it was just a slightly uncomfortable sensation. And I did it, yes, in those pre-Christmas weeks of Jumbo Macademias, special edition crisps, endless parties, Starbuck's flipping Gingerbread latte and cold dark days where you just want to come from work, curl up on the sofa and eat a LOT of chocolate. The zip came up, everyone was pleased and surprised and I enjoyed a fortnight of having a waist! That was very exciting! I was blatantly never going to sustain it, because of the plain fact that I just don't like being hungry! Plus the builders' bum look and regular hoisting up of trousers probably was an unhelpful distraction in the classroom and elsewhere (and not in a pleasant way, I'd imagine), and given the fact that I can't afford to replace my entire wardrobe, it's probably a good thing that this hasn't continued!

But if I KNOW that it is technically within my capabilities to turn myself into a human machine, or a girl with a bikini bod to die for, then why the heck am I not out there doing it, and benefitting from the fact that age is still (hopefully!) on my side? I guess it's not all 100% laziness, even though I admit that a good proportion of it is. It also comes down to time management- it's important to me to see friends, and I have a lot of other commitments, so it would have to take over all of those things. And if it was more important to me to be a toned and muscular babe with a 6 pack, I think that would make me into a not very nice, proud, self-obsessed person. And I think I would lose friends, and the fulfillment of the other commitments I have, extremely quickly. Plus how often would I really have the chance to flaunt myself in a bikini in this freezing country?!?

So, like everything else in life, it benefits from wisdom and balance. It is useful for me to know that I CAN improve my body and fitness levels, and I hope I'll use this knowledge to do my best to improve myself in this 'sprint' of one month until the marathon, and hopefully beyond that. I think there is something pure and helpful in thinking a little more about the cause/effect of sports and exercise, especially in this modern middle-class world we live in where so much is handed to us on a plate, and I mean that literally- most of us have very little idea of where our food even comes from. If we overspend we have a credit card or overdraft, or a parental unit to keep us from going without. Cause and effect is something I could do with reflecting about a lot more- in terms of my finances, friendships, the words I speak, my attempts at holiness, and my environmental conscience, to name but a few. To a certain extent we have control over a lot of things in our lives, and in a lot of cases it's up to us to get off our butts and make things happen.

However, as I arrived home feeling the mixture of motivation and guilt brought on by these thoughts, I looked in the mirror. FRECKLES. Oh yes. Those. Every Autumn/Winter I manage to completely forget about the full extent of my Spring/Summer frecklage, much in the same way I forget what it's like to have lighter evenings for almost half the year. And it reminded me that even though there is a good bit in our lives we can control, there is a lot - both good and bad, major and minor, that comes our way out of 'left field', whether we like it or not. In my life I have a lot of peace and comfort in knowing that God has everything in control, he reigns, that he is providential, knows me better than I know myself and cares about the tiny details, even more faithfully than my own mother does. I know others understand this through concepts of 'luck', 'fate', 'karma'- whatever our perspective I guess it's as universal as the law of gravity that in each of our lives there are things we have control over, and others that we most certainly don't. And like in everything it's up to each of us to work out the balance that keeps us from the equally harmful extremes of striving, obssessing and becoming a self-centred control freak, or sitting back fatalistically letting friendships, exercise and responsibilities fall by the wayside. And somehow being ready for the outbreaks of freckles, or unexpected bursts of endorphins that can spring unannounced into our lives at any point.

Maybe she's born with it

Sometimes work just really tires me out. It can be so hard working alongside people without a firm grasp of the English language, and with serious communication problems. Then there's the students. They make it all just about bearable. Last night at the very end of my evening class I had one of those magic moments a language teacher can usually only dream of. What started as a short discussion to faciliate use of new vocabulary items, took off into full flight as a heated and passionate discussion about beauty and personal appearance. Each student was speaking over each other, trying to get their point across, some red in the face from the effort. All they were thinking of was trying to be heard and I was standing back, with a smug glow, as I observed all the real language use that was occurring in a natural context with students no longer even thinking about pronunciation, or grammar, or lack of vocabulary- they had flapped their proverbial wings and flown into this wonderful fluency-based discussion that was purely about getting their point across. Yes, I'm a geek. I couldn't stand back for too long however as each heated point was being made in my direction, and it was up to me to react, make the correct facial expressions, and ensure the quieter students got to speak and the louder ones didn't rant for too long. I have to admit I love the power this gives me, and sometimes I really wish I had this facilitation privelege outside of the classroom, that I could so blatanly and authoratively interrupt people who are ranting on, and say 'Let's hear what Renata wants to say', or 'I think Jerzy is trying to speak, yes Jerzy?'. Unfortunately I know I wouldn't get away with that in a normal social setting, although often it is tempting!

So how did this discussion arise- am I such a wonderful teacher and facilitator that after having been at work since 9am that morning, at 8.45pm that evening I had consciously used my skills and expertise to build up the exactly correct formula to light the torchpaper of this fiery discussion? Er... I don't think so, although I wish this were the case! Truth be told, I had half heartedly thrown the question out to the group at large (directly out of the textbook) hoping that one or two of the more confident students would comment briefly on it, we would all nod and then the students would be relieved when I let them leave ten minutes early. No, clearly the credit for the passion of the discussion was solely due to the topic itself- beauty and personal appearance.

It was extremely interesting to hear how women from a wide variety of cultures (Poland, Portugal, Lithuania, Czech Republic and Romania were all represented) were so passionate about the importance of making an effort to appear beautiful. I say women, because although there were five men present in the classroom, they were all pretty much left standing on the shore looking bemused and slightly dazed as this particular speed boat roared off into the blue. The discussion started around how amazing Madonna looks for fifty years old, and all were raving about how inspirational this is for every woman. I asked if people didn't think this was unfair for the 'ordinary' woman at home, without the time or resources Madge had to invest into this eternal youth. Did they not feel this gave their husbands an unrealistic comparison? One man started to bleat that he actually didn't think Madonna was that attract...but few heard him as everyone launched into speaking at once, in a cacophony of full volume and speed. One woman even voiced her view that if a woman doesn't look after herself and her husband has an affair, the woman is more to blame than the man. Although a few acknowledged this as extreme, the vast majority were in passionate agreement with the concept. But what about women who are less blessed with natural beauty in the first place? Or those who lose their looks in a terrible accident? Or those who have had a large number of children and haven't the time or money to make the most of themselves? NO EXCUSE was all I heard of the reply, with the wave of noise that roared towards me. I was glad there was no mirror there to reflect my 'end of a very long day' appearance, and started to wish I could reapply some lippy or run a brush through my hair before continuing to participate in this frighteningly honest discussion. I invited a mild-mannered Polish gentleman into the conversation, who had the lack of foresight to insist very sincerely that his attraction to woman was based on personality and character alone. If sound waves had the power to force someone out of a room, this poor polite creature would have been propelled out the door into the corridor at great speed on a tsunami of laughter and scorn. Suddenly there were threats to put him in front of a line-up of women and see if he really picked the ugly one etc etc. Another Polish guy tried to dispel the tension by telling us a humourous anecdote about how he approached a slim woman in a miniskirt who was sitting at a bar, only to find when she turned to face him, he was horrified to find that she was in her late sixties at the very least. The question of modesty calmed everyone down, and allowed most to concede that a balance was important, and that both extremes should be avoided- neither should we do absolutely nothing to promote oursleves, nor should we invest our entire self esteem into looking attractive, and we should definitely not dress in ways that are immodest for our age range.

At some point during the discussion, I shared something I had read in a magazine a few days earlier, about how when police are trying to catch a male 65 year-old criminal, they will sometimes use the technique of a glamorous woman seducing him in order to lure them into a trap. Somehow the man will always believe that the woman has fallen for his charms and good looks, no matter how non-aesthetically pleasing he is! However if trying to arrest a 65 year old woman, they would never send along a male model in his twenties, as clearly the woman would just laugh him out of the room. All students seemed to agree with this, even the men. Then we agreed that men are wired to be drawn to beauty, while woman take into consideration a variety of factors. Brings to mind a quote from Mrs Merton: 'So, Debbie Magee, what first attracted you to the millionaire Paul Daniels?' Also the question of our wider culture, where in the fairy tale 'Beast' and 'Quasimodo' are males, eventually beloved by exceptional beautiful females. And has anyone ever heard of a 'Thai groom?' Or a 'trophy husband?' Not to forget the American TV show, Beauty and the Geek , WHICH I LOVE, where pretty girls and geeky guys are teamed up for challenges during which they can teach each other and learn how to overcome their insecurities and obstacles. Often I wonder what it would be like if it was the other way round and they brought geeky gals in to teach attractive himbos some life lessons. I'd be first to apply if they did, but somehow I can't see how that particular formula would wash with the viewing public.

As I drove home last night, somewhat enlivened by the unexpectedly stimulating end to the lesson, it got me to thinking about how perhaps the openness of other cultures has helped them to work out the importance of beauty in their lives and to be able to speak honestly on the topic, despite some extreme views. I don't remember ever having had such a frank discussion with friends and family on that topic, it seems to be much more of a taboo here. There is something refreshing about calling a spade a spade and taking pride in 'making the most of what you have.' Over here the message is blurry. We all know we're somehere on a scale from Grotbags to Jolie, and on a rational day, in our heart of hearts, all females could probably all place themselves rather accurately on that scale. However in our weaker moments, one compliment can make us soar to feeling like a hot diva for days, and one rejection can cause us to feel like we should kid ourselves no longer and just grab that broomstick and fly back to the pink windmill where we belong. We grow up identifying with Adam Duritz's heartfelt cry in Mr Jones 'I wish I was beautiful...' and Janis Ian with 'I learnt the truth at seventeen, that love was meant for beuty queens, and high school girls with clear-skinned smiles...'I'm sure every woman has had the experience of thinking she is getting somewhere with a guy and that an interest is slowly growing, only to find a prettier girl has just had to flash one clear-skinned smile and the guy is right over there leaving us in a trail of dust. Friends tell us 'You're better off without him, he's too shallow', even though we know deep down it isn't true- as at the end of the day men will be true to what they want, and we all want a man to want and pursue us sincerely and above anyone else- and not because they are such a kindly and self-sacrificing person they took pity on us!

Even at 28, it all seems like such a mystery still, whether or not you have 'it', the 'mojo', the 'je ne sais quoi', the 'va va voom'- and how on earth you're supposed to start this snowball of confidence rolling if it was squashed to a murky slush in your teenage years. There's something refreshing and freeing about the Eastern European ladies' clarity and transparency in it all- just put a bit of elbow grease in and you'll be fine. It seems to them that being attractive is a clearly defined responsibility for all women, unlike here where it sometimes feels like a competition to be won, like an exam at school where people secretly swot away at home while they turn up the next day pretending they haven't bothered. 'Maybe she's born with it, maybe it's Maybelline.' My Eastern European friends would perhaps say- 'Of course it's Maybelline, now hurry up and get some on your face!'

Redheads have more fun?

Last week, in my rush to grab a T-shirt for an exercise class, I came upon one I had bought in Urban Outfitters in America a few years ago, with the slogan 'Redheads have more fun' on the front. Having had my hair dyed progressively blonder over the past few years it got me back to thinking about what it has been like to grow up as a 'ginger' in the UK, and how this has most certainly shaped my personality and character.

I was told that I was laughed at hysterically as a baby by people who lifted me out of the pram and saw my shock of bright hair, and my first memory of being called a hair-related name was when I was 4 and accompanying my mum to leave my sister off to school, and the patrolman used to greet me as 'Coppernob' every time I would go by. It was OK being a ginger child in the younger years, all the mocking was done with fondness, and I was the kind of annoying child who enjoyed standing out and being different, especially when I got picked to dress up as Fergie and re-enact her whole wedding ceremony in front of hundreds of other children, including dress, limo, handsome prince, the lot! That was one of the best days of my life! My sister did have some choice names for me as a ginger-haired sibling, including 'The Ginger Broomstick' but that was par for the course in wide ranging barrage of insults we regularly exchanged with each other on a whole variety of personal attributes!

I guess it started to get worse when I went to secondary school, and realise that ginger hair did not seem to be an attractive feature to boys in general, and in fact most seemed to tease me and indicate that they found it repulsive. I had people asking me out for a joke, and all the names under the sun. It didn't help when you read magazine polls that indicated massive percentages of guys preferred blondes and brunettes and something like 0.5% preferred redheads! Perhaps it is a case of 'which came first, the chicken or the egg?' when we look at the ginger role models in the UK, including Chris Evans, Anne Robinson, Jasper Carrott and more. It doesn't take much psychological analysis to realise that surviving the abuse and serious damage to a fragile self esteem growing up, requires you to either turn into a clown, a frosty ice maiden, or to develop the classic 'redhead's temper'.

I was astounded when I got to university and met American guys for the first time, and realised that they actually LIKED red hair, and it was truly amazing to hear complimentary things said to me, to friends, and even written in letters to me about my 'wonderful' red hair! Looking at their range of redheaded celebs on display, though, perhaps it is easy to see a striking change between the UK and the USA, with Juliette Moore, Jessica Rabbit and Daphne from Scooby Doo all being most desirable and glamourous females. OK just realised the last two in that list are fictional, but there are definitely many more- Julia Roberts, Debra Messing to name a couple more!

When I bought that T shirt in America I brought it home and wore it proudly, but my sister immediately went out to Primark and bought a tacky one saying 'Blondes have more fun' and wore it triumphantly and smugly. I tried to make the point that mine was clever and witty because it subverted the norm, but she made the point that hers was better because it was actually true. I guess she won.

The other day, after the exercise class, a friend asked me, with a teasing glint in his eye, whether or not it was true that redheads have more fun, and if so why I was doing my best to go blonder. I guess it depends how you define 'more fun'. If 'more fun' is being honked at more by passing vans, and whistled at a little more, and less worried about whether your hair will clash with the red or pink clothes you want to wear, well then, strike me down, I've been on a veritable merry-go-round since I gradually started introducing peroxide into my life. However I can't say that eligible men have started camping outside my front door, despite the fact that I am definitely more blonde than ginger now. Perhaps if while being slightly blonder, I can regain some scraps of the confidence that was more-or-less battered right out of me in my teenage years it will not be a bad thing, but everyone's goal is ultimately to be loved and accepted for who they are.

Even as an adult, and even amonsgt friends, I sometimes really can't stand the smug superiority of non-gingers when a ginger joke is made, as if they have somehow escaped a curse or an evil spell cast by the 'unattractive fairy', and even when it's all light hearted, I can still tell the people who really mean it and it just makes me want to scream, 'Just because you're not ginger it doesn't mean you're immune from being unattractive- what about your big nose/lack of hair/massive forehead/decaying teeth etc etc!!! ' -see what I mean about the enduring psychological damage!

I guess all of us are lucky if we get through school unscarred by some taunt or other , and it's up to us to somehow struggle through it, emerging a stronger person without too much bitterness. If we're not too tall or small, we're too fat or skinny, if we're not ginger, we have glasses, or a brace, or a stutter, or a strange name or a birth mark or a scar. Perhaps being ginger and going through teasing has made me more aware of the plight of the underdog in general, perhaps it has made me stronger and more feisty, more of a clown, even an ice maiden! If I could make as much money as Anne Robinson has by now I'd be laughing on the other side of my botox-ridden face at all my tormentors!