Before: Today, I'm back at public speaking, which will receive a nasty nickname as soon as I come up with one. This afternoon, we're being immortalized on videotape in public speaking class. The idea is that we can see how much better we are at the end of the term, but in the meanwhile, it made all of us squirm. And I bet the others don't have evil cramps of doom.

On Tuesday, we were given a phrase to finish on paper. "Public speaking makes me feel..." We wrote down our answers and turned them in. The other four students in the class had written some variation of "... nervous." I wrote, "... like someone else should be speaking."

I will never eat again.

Carrie-Anne Moss, aka Trinity in The Matrix: Reloaded, told Esquire that she can't watch herself onscreen. "I just can't stand the sound of my voice sometimes, or how my face looks." I hear you, girl.

We borrowed a studio this afternoon and taped ourselves doing short introductory speeches, each student introducing another. I'm fairly sure we aren't supposed to watch our tapes until the end, but of course I popped it in when I got home.

The horror. You can't imagine the magnitude of the horror. I am spherical.

Aside from or because of my appalling weight, I've become a strange-looking woman. I've gained weight in my shoulders and neck, but not (much) in my face. There are dark hollows below my cheekbones and around my eyes; I look tired and even my lips are pale. My face doesn't match my body anymore. How weird is that? Don't most people get round cheeks when they get fat?

There are other questions bubbling in my mind, like why I still merit a second glance from men on subways and why my hair looks like hell and how I ended up looking like this, but I'll leave it with the chipmunk cheeks query. I have to go to the gym. My hip hurts when I walk, but I think there's something about the apartment that it doesn't like.

First wiseass to send me a Wide Load sign gets written up.