Last week I moaned about having too much of a routine. This week I made an effort to make it more exciting and as a result, this week has been awesome, which proves my theory — if you don't like something, change it.
So, I made a tentative start to my Week of Excitement by shunning my routine of eating porridge for breakfast; start as you mean to go on and all that. I felt as though I was taking a bold new step as I rebelliously bit into my peanut butter on toast. It didn't matter that I had porridge a couple of hours later for lunch; I had already broken my routine.
In truth, I only made a few little changes in my week — I didn't plan anything spectacularly different to try, but I still managed to brighten up my week and give myself a little more to talk about than how much weight I am lifting in my gym class (one of my favourite subjects to bore people with). Instead I can talk about the evening I got a lift home on the luggage rack of a Thai guy's bicycle (he offered, I thought it sounded fun … you know how these things go) or the weekend I partied with a rugby team (swoon).
Probably the biggest change I made this week was trying a ballet class. I've long fancied myself as a bit of a ballerina, despite having all the natural grace and poise of a pot-bellied pig. My whole wardrobe is full of lightweight pink jumpers, grey leggings, slouchy jumpers and even several pairs of leg warmers. I love ballet. I've been meaning to go to that class since the very first day I arrived in Bangkok, but I always found an excuse not to; I had no money, I was too tired, it was too far away. This week I told myself to shut up and stop making excuses and to embrace my prima ballerina dreams. All my fears about a ballet class in Asia came to fruition; I was three times the size of every girl in the class, I was by far the person with the least co-ordination and talent and I couldn't keep up. For some reason I find it very hard to move my legs and arms together in a controlled manner. Just to give you an idea of quite how awful I was, at one point my teacher called out: "Very good balance, Gaby, but can you see that you're facing the other side of the room to everyone else?" But, despite all of that, I loved it and spent the rest of the day floating around on my tiptoes, Googling Darcy Bussell and watching Black Swan. I'll definitely be back this week.
The rest of the week has whirled by in a blur of dinners with new friends, dancing the night away, trying a body combat class (which was about as successful as ballet), discovering new parts of the city, getting far more Thai massages than one person needs and making plans to head to the beach for the weekend. My routine has gone for now and I don't miss it at all. Actually, I'm lying, there is one thing I miss in my new, disordered life; a decent night's sleep. I might make that next week's project.
