Pulling my hair out at the library

I find people so annoying sometimes!

A significant portion of my last year at University was devoted to meditating and reflecting on many of life's profound questions. I had turned to spiritual activities as a way to help me get through my horrible time at Uni. What it meant for my character was that I tried to change many things about myself I didn't like. Namely how quickly I lose my temper and get angry at people. My sister often said to me (when I was in a good mood), 'Amira, I just don't know when you're going to 'switch'. One second your laughing, the next your shouting'.

I tried to iron out this personality flaw by doing a lot of meditation and practising positive, calming self-talk, and it helped to a large extent. But it only lasted if I had been doing meditation. If I didn't meditate on a certain day I would find it difficult to control my anger.

Anyway, here in China I don't feel the urge to meditate - back in Birmingham meditation was more important to me than eating, and in fact I lost my appetite for most of the year, something very out of character for me. And what's more, I don't feel the urge to change my personality/character flaws either. These days I'm living by a new principle - be yourself, but what's more important, don't be ashamed of what you are.


Enough back story. The main crux of this post is how frustrated I got today at the library. I was doing my reading there when I heard a very annoying walk. That last sentence does not sound grammatically correct, but I don't know how to explain it. I am quite sensitive to things like how people walk and the sound their feet make. Just from hearing how people walk I will immediately categorize them into 'like' or 'dislike'. This man was most definitely a 'dislike'.

His walk was very self-righteous, as if he wanted people to stop what they were doing and look at him. I'd heard him pace up and down the hallway next to where I sat before, but I avoided making eye contact. This time I looked up.

I am also very good at 'feeling' is someone is looking at me. I can sense it without having to lift my head from the table. This annoying man, I sensed, was staring at me. Sure enough, when I looked up, he was. But it was one of the most annoying, smarmy stares I had ever been subjected to. I had half a mind to get up and punch the living daylights out of him. When he reached the end of the room he decided to walk back towards me to turn on a light. He walked through some shelves to get to the light switch and that son of a $%#^@ was scanning under the shelves and looking at me.

'What are you doing', I said, giving him the most disgusting look I could spread across my face. He answered with a playful smile. 'No, I do not want to be friendly with you, you smarmy son of a pig's butt', I thought. 'I don't need to speak Chinese to whip yo' ass either'.

When I get worked up like this, it takes me a while to calm down. Even five minutes after he sat back at his table on the opposite side of the room, I was visualising getting up and smacking him across the back of his head. I tried to concentrate on my reading, but feeling his presence in front of me, it was impossible for me to get the images of violence I wanted to inflict upon him. So, I took my things and moved to behind a pillar, so that I wouldn't have to see him.

I was just getting back into my book when I heard someone scratching something very vigorously. A few tables behind the smarmy man was a man who was scratching his head with a comb. The way he was digging at his head made it quite clear that he was probably flea or nit-ridden. I'd never in my life seen someone scratch so much. The comb was obviously not doing much for him, so he put his head onto the chair behind him, and started moving his head up and down, using the back of the chair as a scratching post. I stopped my reading and just stared at him for at least five minutes.

I tried to calm myself down again and finally, although another man started tapping his feet, I managed to get back to my reading.

Anyway, tomorrow I will try to be a little calmer, but if that smarmy starer stares at me again he'll have another thing coming...

In the library