Saturday, March 26th, 2011 (11.03pm)

Today I cried big hot tears of sheer frustration and anger. And the object of my affections was Virus – the garrulous, pompous, egoistic, nasty, self-opinionated and self-important old man who takes the Science & Consciousness class. He filled me with despair since our very first class when he asked us all what level of science knowledge we hand and then proceeded to tell us how we would not stand a chance of passing the course and therefore should consider dropping out. His treatment of the students is worse than contemptuous and though the subject matter is interesting, he himself has nothing inspiring or motivating to share with us. Needless to say sitting through his classes, I feel like I am being drawn and quartered in a desert.

I also should add that despite his self-professed accomplishments, he is probably the least confident teacher I have ever met as he is easily threatened by a student who answers his questions as he is by some perceived slight if a student so much as takes a sip of water, changes position (and mind you we have to sit cross-legged on the floor for all our classes so by the time we get to his class, most of us are crippled by excruciating pain).

Unfortunately, I was the proponent of his perceived slight today as I was shaking my pencil while holding it. He proceeded to tell me I was displaying that I was nervous and that I would never be selected for a management position if I kept up that kind of behaviour.

I was livid. Afterall, what did it matter if I shook my pencil or blinked my eyes as long as I was sitting meekly and listening to him right? Well, apparently not. He proceeded to tell me that he was speaking from years of experience. I wanted to tell him that I had 5 years experience working in executive and managerial posts in a large multi-national as well as having anchored prime time news and hosted a breakfast show on national television and that his classes made me very anxious as it was bad enough that I new to the subject of yoga and consciousness, the last thing I needed was a sour, dour, bad tempered brute who taught the class like a dictator.

Of course that is a no-no and so I sat there biting back several retorts. When the class ended, it was all I could do to run behind him and tell him how I felt.
But I was too agitated and knew I would get very emotional if I did so I went to sit by the lake and listen to music while vainly trying to compose myself.
Mercifully mother-nature came to my rescue. The lake looked like a beautiful watercolour picture with the reflection of the trees, which was occasionally awakened by a surfacing fish, which sent beautiful ripples across the surface.

And as I started at it, struggling with my emotions, I realized that this was my learning. Not the last tortuous hour spent in the sour-face’s class. No. This was my real learning. To literally look the bull in the eye and not succumb to the urge to take it by the horns.