You have to accept a thing or two when you are a female and you decide, for whatever strange reasons, to start boxing. I got used to all the winks and smacking sounds as I pass through the gym real quick. After all, I'm trapped in a room where testosterone is oozing out of the walls, and that in Central Europe, where menfolk has not quite yet been subjected to the PC drill. Today I had an interesting exchange with a Bosniak - that's not a pastry (actually it is that, too, but this particular one was not. It was a young Bosnian, aka a Bosniak. Or he, rather.). About my students' age - must have been 18, 19, who knows. He was on a stationary bike in front of me, until I punched the display out of my bike. I really don't know how. He picked it off the floor and helped me punch it back in (it is a boxing gym, you know. We punch everything.) He was very chatty, this one was. First there was some Bosnian-Slovak-English small-talk about who's from where, yada yada yada, what am i doing in Vienna, blablabla, do I like boxing, yakedy yak. Then with his broken English he asks: "are you here alone?" I, confused (I'm a polite girl and I believe in the best in people) say:"Well, yes, but I have family and friends in Bratislava.: Bosniak won't have it. No time wasting: "No boyfriend?" I don't even know the bloody kid's name, and he may well be half my age, but hey. I'm a well-brought up and dainty lady. "Yes, I have one in Boston." Too much English for him, "No?" he asks. "Yes!" says I. "Boston." "No boyfriend Vienna" says he. Well, no, eeerrrrh, no I guess, he's not in Vienna. That seemed to have jumpstarted some thought process in him as he proceeded to ask in now perfect English: "Will you party with me?" Now this is a moment that we all know so well. The moment in a story that's frozen and that one keeps coming back to, mulling over millions of smart and funny things one could have said, in an ideal world. Instead I looked around, my brain drew a blank and I said :"Cough, ehm, ummmm, we'll see." He asked immediately and confidently when shall we see, the smegging little bugger. I caught myself a little and asked him just what did he mean precisely by 'will you party with me", although I did have a pretty good idea. He smirked the slimiest smirk the Universe ever witnessed and said in a deep voice (and coming from a teenager to me, an old hag, that seemed funny): "Weeeeell, what do YOU mean by partying?..." Eerrrrr, blank, blank, scratch my head, shuffle my feet, ummmm. I did manage to cough up something to the effect that I don't think so, and thank him for his kind help. But I can safely say I failed the test of assertiveness and coolness 100%.Boxing trainers are also a funny bunch. Johann sent me from machine to machine, told me what to do for how long. Every now and then he'd come to me and poke at my quads or my biceps. He'd return and make strange grimaces at me, as if to encourage me to push harder. They were interesting in a rather odd way, not very motivating, however. He is still trying to talk me into training for the ring. Eh, might as well, if he will devise a mechanism how to get me from work to the gym on days like today, when my office is cozy and warm and lit, and the outside world is gray, drizzly, nasty, brutish, solitary, and short, like human life. He also wants me to spar with his wife, the beastly Frau Klaudia! He is out of his mind. I remember when my ex-trainer Kostas put me against his wife Alicia (whatsit with trainers making me spar against their wives?). She punched the lights out of me and gave me a nice juicy nose bleed. But that's the darned nose ring that I have. Must suffer for fashion. Well, Frau Klaudia is also into biking. So I concede to a bike race to begin with. Perhaps 50 kilometers. That sounds a little better. If I win, I get free boxing gloves, hooray. Frau Klaudia may be a mean boxer, but she ain't, NOBODY is, beating ME on a bicycle. Hell no. That means I have to get up earlier and pack in a ride before work every day now. As if I had any time left to pack new things in. But girl's gotta have priorities. No to Frau Klaudia. Dissertation can wait.
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