september 21, 2001. An interesting postscript to yesterday's yoga class: last night the Boy & I were sitting around the kitchen table. He was finishing up some paperwork for his job & I was writing part of yesterday's entry. As I wrote about yoga, I wanted to show the Boy what we had done, just because I thought it was neat and I was proud of myself, right? He watched me demonstrate a few postures and said 4 fatal words: "That doesn't look hard." I made him try it. Within seconds he was curled in a ball on the floor, whimpering. "It really hurts!" he moaned, looking at me with a mixture of admiration & resentment. "Yes honey. Yes it does." The difference between the two if us was that I had first attempted these postures in a room of 30 other people, include almost 10 of my teacher-training peers; I had felt like giving up almost immediately, but I was too proud, so I had had to stick it out to the point where it actually stops hurting. And having experienced that moment, I was much more calm about the pain that proceeded it. Even knowing that, it was funny to watch him roll around on the floor in a fetal position - funny because I knew that he was part exaggeration and part deadly serious. And funny because he's physically stronger than me, bigger than me, etc., so we often unconsciously assume traditional gender roles when there's a bug to be killed, a load to be carried or a jar to be opened. To see him felled by a 30-second stretch was sorta cute. Last night we met up at an information meeting for SMILE, a program that organizes university volunteers to work with special needs children in the gym & the pool. The Boy is thinking seriously about teaching elementary grades, and I know how important volunteer experience is on the old resume. Just to get into teacher's college requires a lot of non-academic qualifications, and as the Boy's somewhat strange post-secondary career is something he can't change now, getting some good volunteer experience would do much to balance the scales. This is how we ended up in a packed auditorium at 6 p.m. last night, holding hands & smiling nervously at each other. I had made up my mind that if he decided to do it, I would too, but I was (and am) terrified at the thought. I've taught senior highschool - academics. It's been 2 years since my last significant experience with special needs students. And I've avoided physical activity in school for the past 11 years. The idea that my success in this program will be based on my ability to successfully work with a special needs child in a gym scares me witless. It's so far out of my comfort zone that it's not even funny. The Boy, however, takes on a dreamy angelic countenance when he thinks about what's ahead. He's completely confident that he won't screw up in any major way, that the child will like him, that he won't say the wrong thing or over-compensate for the need. I don't know where his confidence comes from, but I'm glad that one of us is gung ho. this time 3 years ago: tiger lily was dating one of her professors, and that's what i had to take out the next day.