the neys have it, I am not a yogi

I am back home. Home. So strange to call this place home. While I was gone, I missed it terribly. Of course it was brilliant to be away, but coming home was good (minus the dishes that I found molded in the kitchen sink...). I remember that was the first time I loved Jewell after hating it for over a semester. I went to a get together of some of my high school friends, and I counted the minutes until I could go back to Jewell.
Soon I have a yoga lesson. I have been going with Zheng Si Si lately. Which reminds me, I never told the story of my first class. We were late coming in. The class participants all stopped in their various contorted positions to stare at the foreigner (not to mention I was by far the youngest). As we slipped mats into the back row, I quickly realized I was at a disadvantage. Being in the back, I couldn't see the instructor and of course couldn't understand her. Soon, her assistant noticed the floundering foreigner in the back row and came back to put my body in the positions. The problem lay in the fact that, while I knew what positions my body should be in, I hadn't stretched for ages and all of my muscles protested loudly at the thought. The assistant, however, thought I just had no clue what I was supposed to do, so she took it upon herself to force my limbs into their proper place. For example "bring your knee to your nose" (while laying on our back) Well, my knee wasn't coming anywhere close to my nose so the assistant started sitting on the back of my thigh to force it down closer to my face. Unfortunately, I don't know the Chinese vocabulary for "get off of me". "Put your palms flat on the ground" instructed the teacher, once again, my finger tips touched, but my palms refused to lay flat........so the assistant tried helping me with that one too. All the while, the rest of the class is turning around fascinated at the complications going on with the foreigner in the back row. Furthermore, Niuniu (who came to watch the class) had given me a piece of candy on our way to the class. Without thinking I just put it in my bag. During class, she realized she actually wanted to eat the candy and remembered me putting it in my bag so she started rooting through the contents of my bag to find it. While I am concentrating on not punching the assistant in the face....I hear a rustling noise coming across the floor. I look up to see Niuniu, walking toward me while concentrating on getting my tampon open. She comes over, asking me to open it so she can eat it. (Tampons are not available in China, most Chinese don't know what one looks like). Horrified, I told her, no! it is not food, you can't eat it! My Chinese friend who had come along to help translate for me, said "can she look at it, even though it isn't food?" I tried to explain to my friend what it was, but unfortunately I don't have the Chinese vocabulary to talk about menstrual periods and she doesn't have the English vocabulary. So, finally, after some curious pantomiming (that was definitely not part of the yoga routine and was driving my assistant out of her mind) I got the message across. The look of horror that crossed my friend's face threw me into a fit of giggles which echoed around the quiet room with it's relaxing music. I have a habit of having laughing fits in completely inappropriate places at inappropriate times. I couldn't get a grip. So I laid down on my mat (my assistant finally threw up her hands and left me) until I could look Xiao Yun (my friend) in the face without losing it again.
Hopefully, this class, is more relaxing than last.