She did quite enjoy the buzz that zinged through her veins, giving her a better rush than any amount of caffeine, and she was slowly getting used to the amount of beauty she'd started noticing in unexpected places, all around her, but she worried that she might be losing her grip and so made a point of practising random acts of snarling on hapless victims like Mr Timberland / Mr Sunshine to stay in form.
She'd also caught herself once or twice acting grown-up, instead of leaping at the chance to make sport of opportunities that presented themselves. Well, she'd exercised some discretion - but discretion, like bodies weakened by resistant tummy bugs, is lazy, and shirks exercise when it can.
Still, the exercising of discretion didn't require long sweaty conversations about the bandwidth situation, which was what almost all conversations in the gym tended towards given the opportunity. No wonder UCT was so populated by sad bodies, she mused, there were only so many conversations one could have about the complete absence of any bandwidth to speak of on Campus before one's blood pressure produced B-grade horror movie special effects.
What she found most difficult about it though - the love bit, not the bandwidth bit, which would require more space than a polite blog to elucidate - was the karmic balance it seemed to exact. All around her relationships were decaying, divorce lawyers working overtime and copious amounts of Ignatia being gulped. Her bright eyes and bouncy gait seemed to mock their pain and suffering, a discordant note in the melancholy music of misery intoned across the Campus and beyond.
But then the benefits of congenital superficiality asserted themselves as the music moved on from Tom Waits to Van Morrison, and she shreiked with pleasure as she cranked the iPod louder and galloped around the office, singing loudly and tunelessly. Ah yes, fretted Gramsci, jamming his legs into his ears, love had a lot to answer for...