Food was served in containers on a long table.  We queued in silence in our “meditation” clothes, avoiding each others’ line of vision.  Forks clattered against metal trays and I felt a bit like a prisoner as I sat at my place.  A miniature plastic stool, facing a wall.  A tiny plaque, that read 13, trail of ants – confident and purposeful.  I watched them intently.  Challenged them to invade my food.  What if they did?  What would I do?  I can’t kill them, or hurt them…

My neighbour seems unhappy, or ill.  She arrives late to everything, and I wonder whether I should tell someone in management…write a note and leave it in one of those transparent boxes on the desk.

My second neighbour is a crazy Brazilian.  Electric hair static and fine.  She likes Nutella.  Great spoonfuls plunged into her mouth.  There’s a trail of it stuck to  her chin.  I can’t tell her.  She’ll have to wait until she faces a mirror, wonder how long its been there.

I mustn’t keep watching them like this…like they’re characters on a television show.  Personalities are forming despite this voiceless, social disengagement.  I’m developing one-sided friendships and sympathies with some, irritation and rivalry with others…what is this based on?  Energies?  Stolen glances?

There’s a romance blossoming between one of the young boys in the back row, and a young girl.  She’s in the middle of the room, so she must be a revisiting student, but she can’t be more than twenty.  I watch him watching the door, waiting for her to enter.  He thinks that no-one can see, but I’m rooting for him…urging her to acknowledge him.   If she sees him, she hides it well.  I smile at their backs.  Feel protective of them.  Wonder whether they’ll risk being expelled and find each other when night falls.

It is a new moon this day or the next.  I know that, because my stomach cramps are getting intense.  Did the maths in morning meditation.  Tolle says we can get closer to enlightenment if we use this time to transmute pain-body into being fully conscious.  I must focus!

7 am.  Breakfast is almost done.