Party Prep

We're having a fondue party for my birthday in three kinds... cheese...Tomato marinara (for the vegan and lactose intolerant)...
and chocolate for dessert...All of my friends are graciously bringing the bread, veggies, and fruit for dipping (THANK YOU!)

And we're using pretty plates borrowed from our church...
YUM YUM!!

All in celebration of me! I'm a lucky girl!

Tall People

(I'm 5'0" so just about everyone seems tall to me, but I am specifically writing this letter to people greater than 5'10" and who have predominately tall friends)

Dear Tall People,

I understand your desire to stand in the front row, because everyone should be able to stand in the front at some point and everyone wants to have that privilege. However, God and your genes made you tall and with that comes some responsibility. Please follow some sincere advice that will help you on your way.

The first thing you must always do is look around you. Tall people, you usually take up more room (I'm know there are many short fat people around the world, but still, even thin tall people have more mass than thin short people) and since you take up more room, please be careful when you move around. Look to your left and right. Look behind you. And most importantly, look down, because when you are a tall person, most of the world is below you, vertically that is.

The second thing you must do is yield the front row to the shorter people around. Even with a short person in front of you, your face will still have a front row view. Does your whole body have to see what is in front of you? I don't think so. That is why your eyes are close to the top of your body. Kindly let a shorter person, whose eyes are lower than yours, move to the front.

Lastly, tall people, you must not clump up together around a short person. It is very claustrophobic. Give us some space. It makes you seem like you have no awareness of anyone else's physical presence but your own. You are big. Your shoulders are like a wall. Your butt is too high. (probably because your legs are too long). You must be careful about what you do with these body parts!

Tall people, thank you for the things that you reach and the sites that you can see before anyone else. Thank you for telling us about the weather. I know that I will see better behavior in the future, if you follow my advice above. You will have many more short people as friends... just wait and see!

Thanks,
A short person

On Vacation

Sorry for the lack of posts around here. We have been very lucky to have Grant's parents visiting us from Michigan for the holidays. We spent the last couple days in beautiful and wintry Yosemite National Park -- pictures to come soon. Today was spent so far enjoying a Kwanzaa worship service this morning and cleaning the apartment for my birthday party. Soon we'll be heading out to a play, dinner, and stopping by my church for Singing for Your Life - an amazing 12 hours continuous circle singing event.

For New Years and for my birthday, which is on Tuesday, I'm having a party and I am challenging myself and others to complete an old tradition of 108 Sun Salutations to welcome in the new year. For my distant friends who can not join me in person, you can still join in for the sun salutations. Do as many as you can or desire. Give up some thank-yous for another year ending and a new one beginning. Do it as a meditation and prayer, reflecting on who you were in 2007 and discovering the path you want to take into the new year. Do it as a celebration of your beautiful God-given body.

I'll be turning 27 on Tuesday, January 1, 2008. 27 is the natural number following 26 and preceding 28. Twenty-seven is the smallest positive number that requires four syllables to say in English though it can be defined in just two: "three cubed." (3x3x3) It is odd and has many odd friends like 1, 3, and 9. It is a perfect cube. It is the number of books in the New Testament. It is the 28th (and 29th) digit of pi. It is the number of moons of Uranus. 27x4=108, a significant number in many traditions, and therefore the number of salutations I will try to complete.

Believe it or not, there are actually several people who want to do this with me!

And then there are the others who will be just coming for dinner after... yummy fondue!!

Yum, That's Some Good Baby Food!

Not really. I would not recommend adding baby food to your normal diet, unless you're a baby.

So on Tuesday night we emptied all of those jars of baby food that I showed you on Monday night into some plastic containers. We purposely picked out baby food that we thought we might enjoy, like applesauce, pears, and bananas. The apples and pears were ok. The bananas were questionable. And surprise! who stuck in that jar of peas? (still untouched in the fridge)

The jars were quickly washed and baby food labels were removed
As of Thursday labels appliedand homemade presents emerged... a little sampler pack of teas for the Grandparents (I think it's safe to post here... do they read my blog?) We had three types of tea but I forgot to get pictures of the other two once they were done.

How Old is the Baby?

Seeing these on the conveyor belt tonight at Whole Foods, the cashier asked us how old our baby was. We looked blankly at her, what baby? We don't have a baby. Why would you ask such a thing? No, we didn't actually say that. We thought that the question made perfect sense since we were buying baby food after all. If we did have a baby though, the baby would be "4 months & up."

No, we don't have a baby.

No, we're not expecting one either... don't get those ideas in your head!

Surprise! It's a Celebration Dinner!

Robin picking up Grant from work on Friday night and heading out for dinner in the city.

G: Which restaurant are we going to?
R: I picked the furthest away of the three that you picked since you're not on call tonight.
G: Good thinking.

Robin and Grant arrive at the restaurant to find it empty... well, it just opened a few minutes earlier...

R: I guess we didn't need reservations
G: It was good to have them just in case.
R: Why isn't this place busier? It looks really nice. There should be a line. I guess it's just early.

Robin and Grant look at the menu, the server is very, very attentive. Robin and Grant discuss how to best use the gift certificate that his parents gave him. Moments later he decides...

G: To hell with it! I being way too serious. Let's just have a good meal.
R: I should have planned something for us to celebrate. What are we celebrating?
G: I've had a long week. Let's celebrate surviving the week!
R: I know, happy 3.5 year anniversary!

R: I feel like I'm dating you again.
G: Because we haven't had a real face-to-face conversation since Tuesday?
R: That could be. So how was your week?

Robin and Grant continue talking about Grant's week at CPE and figure out what they want to order and their server was more than ready.

First Course
2005 5 Rivers (Central California Coast) Pinot Noir
Mixed Green Salad with Beet Tartar, Pear, Goat Cheese Mousse and Pecans
Butternut Squash Soup (served in the cutest little espresso cup)
Bread and Butter

Robin and Grant's server walks up to the table, then steps back and allows two other gentlemen to actually set the plates on the table.

Robin and Grant's server tries to give them extra plates. They look at him confused. Robin puts her plate under her bread dish and continues to eat the salad from the plate it was served on. Grant does the same, only he doesn't move his plate.

Second Course
Gambas al Ajillo (white shrimp, garlic, chili and olive oil)
More Pinot Noir (we got a whole bottle and it was yummy!)

Grant tries a few shrimps, decides they are not for him and Robin slowly enjoys the remainder throughout the rest of the meal.

This is Robin's super hot date:Robin and Grant's server takes all of the silverware and plates away and then places new silverware on the table, steps back and the other guy sets the plate of ravioli and cauliflower on the table.

Main Entree
Butternut Squash Ravioli with Brown Butter, Sage and Amaretti (this could have been dessert)
Roasted Cauliflower with Capers and Lemon

Robin pulls out her camera from her purse... the camera that she always carries around with her.

G: You're going to take pictures of this.
R: Of course! This is a great meal!

Robin suddenly feels self-conscious of taking pictures of her food in a fancy restaurant, so she decides not to use the flash and will put up with a slight blur in her pictures.

This is our YUMMY Ravioli:
Robin notices that fancy spoons seem to have appeared on the table out of no where. She then wonders about current state of mind as Grant gentle slips her wine glass away from her.

R: When did we get these spoons?
G: I'm not sure

Robin breaks out into giggles.

Dessert
Chocolate Pudding with Cream and Port Soaked Figs

Robin and Grant almost die with joy after their first few bites of dessert. They then ponder the implications of licking the bowl when the pudding is gone...

By the end of the evening we were just giddy with delight of our excellent meal together. What an unexpected treat! Besides reading the menu online, we really had no idea about what we were walking into. Palmetto was a great choice. See more here.

Robin and Grant start getting ideas in their head that more fancy restaurants might be in their future...

Thanks Mom and Dad for the certificate!

Dealing with Stuff

In an earlier post I shared my frustrations about dealing with all of the stuff in our apartment.

Last night, Grant and I were sitting on our couch and I was sharing with him about my frustrations with our current stuff management plan.

G: What bothers you the most?
R: Cardboard. I hate cardboard.
G: Ok.
R: If you lived alone, do you think your apartment would be full of cardboard boxes?
G: Not that I would like it, but yes, it probably would be full of boxes.

The easiest thing I can think about doing is moving apartments and then being really selective about what we choose to take with us. But neither one of us wants to move yet, so we're stuck going through everything and trying to thin it out. Either that or I will never feel comfortable in my own home.

How many towels should two people own?

Is it really necessary to have a back-up for all toiletries? Or can we just buy stuff as we run out of it?

Why are we still holding onto the nativity set? It has been 3.5 years since the wedding. The nativity is ugly and we've never set it up (not that we have a clear surface anyways!) Why are we keeping something I really really hate?

Would any of you be willing to come over to my house and scan all of my notes from college so I can recycle the paper?

Do I really really need that Abstract Algebra textbook?

Does he have to fill each desk drawer with wires? Wires wires wires... and only one would fit into the camera... and that was the only wire that wasn't in any of the desk drawers... it was in the closet... in the cardboard box that the camera came in... I'm NOT SELLING the camera... CAN WE RECYCLE THE BOX PLEASE?

There are two desk drawers not overflowing with wires. Those drawers hold files in carefully labeled file folders. Labels made with the label maker. Because everyone needs a label maker.

G: There are times when I think it would be wonderful to have a nice, clean, orderly apartment. But that is just not who we are. We would have to change a lot of our habits.
R: You mean that habit about collecting cardboard boxes? I have an idea. Stop buying stuff off of ebay.
G: Make a list of where you want to focus on in the apartment.
R: Item #1 of 1 - Get a box. Put all of the other boxes in the box. Recycle the box.
G: OK, but you have to find a new organized way to store all of the stuff that was in the boxes.
R: UUGGGGHHHH!

Yeah for Poland!

I got my first blog visitor from Poland today... around 11:30am. I don't know what s/he was looking for but I'm glad they stopped by! Hope they'll come back again!

7 school days until Christmas break... I'm so ready for a break! 10 days until the bonus parents come to visit! A trip to Yosemite! Being a tourist in SF! Lots of fun to look forward to! 19 days until my birthday... at first I was sad, but now I'm warming up to the idea. 27 is such a cool number and I have some exciting ideas about how to spend my special day.

Are You Reading This?

If you haven't started reading the No Impact Man blog, you're really missing out. The reflections on how life is after the project is done, in my opinion, are even more powerful than during the project. READ IT!!

Why NOT the Other Things

Why not Running?
Are you crazy? Running? Yes, I love the lake BUT I love my knees more and I really love that breathing thing. NO RUNNING FOR ME.

Why not Cycling? You have a really nice bike!
The streets are too busy. There are too many lights. It's all stop and go. It takes too long to get to the good places to ride. Long curvy roads with gentle hills. I have to wear my special bike shoes, so we better not stop anywhere where I would have to walk while we're on a ride. No bikes on single track trail? What are those guys doing in all of those pads? They call that mountain biking? That's just hurling yourself down a large hill. Cycling is not my sport. Cycling is just transportation to places close by where I don't have to carry much stuff.

Why not Kayaking? Isn't it worth giving up your closet space?
Come on. You already know how hard it is for me to regulate my body temperature in a heated room with adequate clothes on. Now you want me to wear a rigid and tight wet suit (plus paddle jacket and PFD and helmet and cap and gloves and rubber shoes) and you want me to sit out in the sun (which is in the 70's) on the water (which is in the 50's) with the waves that make me seasick? All that after I've already been driven crazy by all of the gear we had to pack and carry out to the car and unload and walk to the shore and then we had to assemble the yaks and talk to the people who stop and look at us putting together the yaks and then pack the yaks. NO WAY. Maybe in like 20 years I'll have the energy to do all that... plus we'll have an old enough age to actually fit in with our kayaking club. But I just can't bring myself to sell the boats.

Why not join a gym? There's one down the street and you friend teaches pilates there!
Ah yeah. You don't remember trying that 3-month special teacher summer membership thing that you did this summer? How often did you go. Yeah, I thought so. Big waste of money. Too many people caring about how they look when they're sweaty.

Ok, Ok, so why do you have those skis in the closet?
For long weekends away to Lake Tahoe or Yosemite! But you won't find enough snow in the bay to make skiing you're primary exercise.

Why Yoga?

One of my favorite regular readers recently asked a great question... why yoga? Of all activities that I've participated in, why would I choose this one to focus so much of my attention on?

This question will take a long time to answer so it will be something that I will have to come back to in future posts. Let's start with how I discovered it.

In Alma (winter 2002), I had this boyfriend who's dorm room with just across the way from mine and I would watch for his light to come on... he was home... and I would visit him and he had this wonderful book, Yoga: The Spirit and Practice of Moving Into Silence that he would read and then move his body. Sometimes he would let me join him.

In Berkeley (spring-fall 2004), walking down Shattuck Ave or Telegraph Ave, we would walk by several yoga studios/schools. They would have flyers outside their doors and occasionally I would pick one up and ponder attending a class. I never did.

In Berkeley (spring-summer 2005), we lived about 5 blocks away from an Elephant Pharmacy which had a video rental section. $1 DVD rentals for 1 night. Every time we went there I would notice the shelf with all of the workout videos. Pilates, Yoga, Kick Boxing, Step. I was already interested because the store had this huge display right by the entrance of all of their fancy workout equipment: mats, straps, blocks, balls, books, and dvds. Not wanting to buy anything without trying it out first, I opted for renting a couple dvds. I would watch them over and over... and eventually I would do the sequences without the dvds... and the cheesy background music.

In Oakland (may 2006), I asked around to a few friends for yoga studio recommendations. One friend talked about her Bikram experiences. But she said that a beginner shouldn't really attend. Another friend recommended Piedmont Yoga Studio to me and then took me to a couple classes with her favorite teacher. He quickly became my favorite teacher too and I have attended classes with him ever since. I even purchased my own yoga mat at a Long's Drug Store.

In Oakland (summer 2006 and after), I started to read yoga journal's website and started to practice on my own at home following sequences that I found in articles or some that I made up on my own. Eventually, I got my own subscription to yoga journal magazine. I made a commitment to myself to take one class a week (I allowed myself to spend money on myself... that's certainly a topic for another post) and I started purchasing a class "package" or "series" every two months.

In Oakland, (spring 2007) I applied for the program and we all know the story from here.

So, next before I write about why I chose yoga, I will start with why not other things.

Math Warm-up

I start every math class that I teach with a warm-up. When the kids are working on the warm-up, I have the opportunity to take attendance and check-in with each kid about their homework. I get a sense of how the class is doing and I know what to give more attention to as we check our homework together.

Here is the warm-up for Monday for my Advanced Algebra students. It ties in directly to what we are going to be working on for the day... finding the the roots of parabolas.

Warm-up: Write the following sentences as an equation. (HINT: only one equation and you've seen it before!) X is the sum of the opposite of b plus or minus the square root of the sum b squared minus the product of four, a, and c. All of this is then divided by 2 times a.

You can leave your guess as a comment and I will post the answer in a couple days. (give the name or the equation)

Giving your 100%

At my PYS Advanced Studies Program this week, our instructor, Tony, asked us, "How many of you are giving 100% to your yoga practice?" and no one raised their hand.

Ya'll thought I was just kidding with that Yoga Mat Sectrez on Monday, but it is sort of true.

This question came after Tony spent 10 minutes lecturing us about our behavior so far in the program. Regular people may come to public yoga classes late or leave early, but you're "advanced studies people" you should be more serious than the public... come on time! pay attention! don't leave early! do your home practice!!

So last night, home alone, as my husband was on call at the hospital, I returned to "the bible of modern yoga," to help give me some comfort and encouragement.

It worked. This morning I read through the appendix of the book (thank God my Sanskrit has improved and I actually know the name of the poses!) where Iyengar gives you a work out schedule for the next 180 weeks. Using this as a rough draft, I am going to create a practice schedule for myself. I've picked some key poses that I want to work on and then I'll build in some creative time to do poses that I feel like doing but aren't on the list.

Ok! Here we go... ready... set... YOGA!

Yoga Mat Secretz

In the spirit of lolsecretz and postsecret, I bring you Yoga Mat Secretz, the next thing in community blogging. Here is your first secret from the life of a yoga mat...
Please send me pictures of what your yoga mat is saying and I will post them here for the world to see.

The Yoga Journey Continues

Saturday was our fourth 6-hour Saturday class for the advanced studies program at PYS. We were sooooo lucky to have an amazing teacher for the whole day. Someone who has had an amazing journey with yoga and meditation. You can see more about Mary here.

The first three hours were spent on meditation and asana. We started with a 15 minute guided seated meditation followed by a long supported supta baddha konasana. Then Mary had us stand in Tadasana while we continued to focus on our breath. We did a very slow sun salutation, mostly with our eyes closed. We were the most careful to watch our breath during the transitions from one pose to another. There were times when I felt disoriented with my eyes closed, especially when I transitioned from uttanasana to a lunge. Like always, I doubted myself in my movements. So there were times that I cheated and opened my eyes to check on my foot and hand placement. Then, we had lots of fun trying to find our lower abdominal muscles. I thought this exploration was wonderful and enjoyed every moment. There were many other poses that we explored, then we ended with another seated meditation.

After our dinner break, we came back to class and talked about Mary's favorite topic: joints, especially the hip joint and its happiness in our body while practicing poses such as trikonasana. She gave us permission to explore how we placed our feet and hips in our practice. She told us to break the rules... a refreshing instruction from a yoga teacher.

At the very end of the class, we talked about teaching and did a 5 minute practice with a partner where we talked someone through a pose. This wasn't so bad for me since I teach every Thursday. The pressure is different since the person I was talking to was an experienced practitioner and I wasn't sure what to say to help her in a pose that she had already worked hundreds of times. So this prompted me to ask Mary about her inspiration for teaching. I asked her, "When you teach your classes, do you focus more on what your students need or are your instructions coming from what you are learning in your practice?"

At first she told me that this was an excellent question and that I should ask every teacher the same question. Then she went further in her explanation saying that we teach for ourselves and we practice for our students. But she also went deeper to say, we teach for ourselves and we practice for the universe. If we bring our sincere intentions to our practice, then the fruits of our practice will transpire in our teaching and our students will feel the benefits. This explains how sometimes it feels like all of the yoga teachers I study from seem to have weekly meetings to game plan their teaching for the week. But it's really something greater than them... our connection to each other... is this purusa? I will have to think more on this, a great topic for another post.

More inspiration to get that consistent home practice going!

On a very positive note, I completed my first pranayama exercise this morning and wrote a journal entry, just as the pranayama book instructed. Yeah!

Witness in the Neighborhood

Warning... this post has some angry words in it. Sensitive eyes should proceed with caution... make wide turns and look both ways.

Dear Owner of the Red and White striped GMC Jimmy that parks on our street,

On Friday night just after 5:00pm, my husband and I were parking our car and we saw a very large (15 passenger size) white van pull out of a driveway and hit the back driver side of your vehicle. This extremely large white van was being controlled by a little old lady who didn't seem very with it when she hobbled out of the van to look at the damage she caused. We asked her if she was going to leave a note and she said no. She said, "I'll catch him later." We're not sure what this means. Does she know you?

Here is an example of the type of van that I'm talking about. We were trying to leave a note on your windshield to tell you what happened, but a very angry man walked down the street (someone who knew the little old lady in the huge white van) and stopped us. He tried to play it like he was the owner of the GMC Jimmy (with the red and white stripes that was hit by the little-almost 100 years old-lady in the extremely-out-of-this-world-big white van). We couldn't tell if he was telling the truth. He said, "Just go on your way, you mother fuckers, this whole neighborhood is a bunch of mother fuckers." We knew that he would take the note off of your windshield if we left one, so we decided to come back later. Later in the evening, you went out. But on Saturday, I saw your truck again on our street, so I'm assuming you live near by... in that case, you must be one of the MF's in the neighborhood. It's a nice place in our neighborhood, isn't it?

Anyways, I took some pictures of your truck. If any of these scratches are new as of Friday November 30, 2007, and you want more information, then please email me at someonehityourcarandran AT gmail DOT com.Sincerly,
Your Neighbor

PS You have many nice stickers on your truck.

Yoga Class Update

We just finished our 12th week (24 sessions) of teaching yoga to high school students in East Oakland. Our official average student attendance is 10.6, however, that number is bolstered by 3 really great weeks in September where we had 17-18 students each time and brought down by November where we hit our low of 4 students twice.

At first we were pretty strict about attendance. We told the students that they needed to attend 30 sessions by the end of the semester (Jan 25) to earn one semester of credit. (6o sessions for a whole year of credit). Now that our numbers have dropped slightly, we've extended the deadline to the end of the school year. So the students that could only come one day a week might still have a chance of getting 1 semester credit over the course of the whole year or our students who are athletes, could come during the off season even though the dates don't line up with the academic semester. Unfortunatley, this change in policy hasn't resulted in the surge of student attendance that we anticipated. We'll have to go back to other marketing tactics... signs on the walls, announcements over the PA's and encourage word of mouth by the students who attend regularly.

Just to be clear... there is no chance that the class will be canceled since we do have student who are depending on us for credit. It would just be nice if we could keep our numbers up and build the program up and keep it going into the next semester and school year.

A really great thing about the students who want to get credit for the course is that they are coming every time (we have 6 that will for sure get credit for the year if they keep up their attendance and another 5 that will definitely get semester credit) and on Thursday we did something special for the first 30 minutes of our yoga class.

You'll remember this post where I showed off my new collection. We decided that it was time to bring the collection to the students. We knew that if we showed them pictures of Iyengar (and his crazy poses like this) at the beginning of the course, the students would freak out in their usual teenager ways. They would make fun out of their nervousness and some lack of cultural acceptance and appreciation. But, after 23 sessions of exploring their own practice and learning several poses, they were incredible to watch as they thumbed through Iyengar's Light on Yoga and Light on Pranayama and all of my Yoga Journals, amongst the other books that we brought in. Their excitement was inspiring. There was so much of "look at this" "can we do that?" and "how does he do that?" All Tosca and I could say was... serious home practice, dedication and hard work. Like anything, if you really want it, sometimes it requires a lot of your time and attention! (something which is hard for our teenagers... in a world where TV changes camera angles every 5 seconds, it's hard to give your full focus to much- but that's another post).

Hmm, time and attention to a home practice. What a good idea.

BTW: Newest book on the coffee table is Richard Rosen's The Yoga of Breath: a step by step guide to Pranayama EXCELLENT! I'm about 50 pages into it and am looking forward to this new exploration in my practice!

Thanks Timmay!

Thanks (or no thanks) to Timmay! over at Take 2! I got sucked in to the freerice.com where you answer multiple choice word definitions to donate grains of rice. Although, since I'm flying solo... no slade family to back me up... my vocab level has peaked at 34 with 3020 grains of rice. Please remember that I'm a math teacher that spends a great deal of her free time on a yoga mat.

Amongst my favorite words were bifurcate and hemidemisemiquaver.

Any guesses as to the definitions?

Spell checker doesn't even believe that hemidemisemiquaver is a word. Do you see the red underlining too?

One of them means forked and the other means sixty-fourth note. I think you can figure out which is which.

Yoga Proof... it can be done anywhere

So yesterday I complained about my lack of yoga activity over the weekend while camping because of the cold... but then I remembered a 10 minute stretch of time on Friday that Grant captured on film... I mean CCD chip. We were walking along the beach at Sonoma Coast State Park and Grant got interested in some waves or rocks or something while we were waiting for the sunset. I got tired of walking around so I decided to "hang out" and just watch the waves. Grant noticed me and came by to see what I was up to, so I gave him a little show.

I have one yoga teacher who says that us westerners rush things too much. We jump into beginner yoga classes and try to do our best at some pretty intense and advanced poses. My teacher says that if we really want to get something out of poses like triangle (utthita trikonasana) we need to work on the basics for 3 to 5 years. One of those basic poses is squats, as shown below. But who wants to pay $15 a class to do 90 minutes of squats? It seems that yoga teachers have to encourage a variety of interesting poses because they need students. Thus we have one of the many yoga debates that needs to be worked out as we in the west figure out how the practice and business of yoga will look for us.One of the poses that is not basic, and is not something that I'm even close to doing fully yet is an arm balance called crane pose (bakasana). I got caught doing it on Friday, on the beach. In the full version of the pose, my arms would be straight and my knees/legs held easily at my sides. In this picture, I'm just struggling to find the balance point for my weight front to back.
My feet really are off the ground... if only a 1/2 inch... I couldn't hold the balance for very long on Friday although today I held it for a whopping 4 seconds!

Anyways, that's my proof... no excuses! Yoga can (and will) be practiced anywhere. It's just a matter of time until yoga weaves its way into you and places thoughts in your head. You'll catch yourself om-ing in the shower or at the ocean and even worse... you'll catch yourself breathing! Watch out!

First Day Back...

I am not your typical yoga student who has fancy yoga gear. I have not purchased the special props that you see in the yoga studios. My "block" that I use at home is some left over mini cell foam from when Grant and I carved out seats for our kayaks. I don't have special yoga blankets, instead I carefully fold some camping mats and some rugs we don't use anymore. I use a belt as a strap, and pillows serve as bolsters. Even my yoga mat is strange. I got it at a Long's Drug Store on a whim because I thought it was required to go to a public class. (did I really want to use a mat that had other people's feet on it?) and it is a pink-purple color and says "Bally's" in one corner. I have never seen another student's yoga mat the same color as mine.

I definitiely do not have any specifically designed for yoga yoga clothes or a cute strapy bag the perfect size for a rolled up yoga mat. I don't even roll up my mat anymore. A rolled up mat, when bungeed to my bike rack, sticks out too far and flops down over my red flashy light that hopefully keeps cars from running me over in the dark. So my mat gets folded into eighths and squished into a firm pile of stickiness and strapped down to my rack.

On Thursday when I got home from my yummy 2.25 hour Thanksgiving class, the mat stayed in its position, on my bike, ready for me today to go to my Monday night inversion class.

I felt slightly disappointed in myself for letting my mat just stay on my bike all weekend. (I mean for not practicing yoga all weekend... well, I was camping for most of the time) As expected, when I unfolded it at class, there were a ton of wrinkles in the mat from the folds and the bungee. I tried to smooth them out and all I could do was smile at my mat and acknowledge that this is just the way I am. Never quite fitting in with the other students and all of their cute yoga gear... and then not really wanting to anyways. Wanting to have a consistent yoga home practice, but then never quite able to keep it together for more than a couple of days at a time.

But yoga (and my mat) are forgiving. After a few downward facing dogs, my mat was stretched out and the wrinkles had all but disappeared. My body was happy again after feeling tight during the day. I smiled and welcomed myself back to yoga, just happy that I got myself to class tonight and it was a great class. After several warm-up type poses, we worked on headstand and shoulderstand variations as well as plow pose (which usually scares me). Yeah for using chairs as props to make things a little easier. (the explanation of this will have to come in another post)

This was also my first day back to school after a week long Thanksgiving break. By lunch my head was cloudy from too much energy usage. The kids were nice enough... if not relieved to be back to a structured routine. It will take me a couple of days to get back into the groove. 4 school weeks until Winter Break!

Past Hobbies

There must be a message in here somewhere.

A week ago Sunday, we attended a pre-Thanksgiving dinner celebration hosted by a new friend from my PYS yoga program. Many of her friends that we met at the dinner are connected by a common activity: rock climbing. The only difference is that they still do it on a very regular (at least once a week) basis and they all have memberships to the local climbing gym. One person had pictures on his phone of their most recent trip to Waco, TX. Much of it was bouldering.

On Thanksgiving, we were talking to another new friend about his emerging rock climbing hobby. He told us of how he is just starting to purchase some gear and is thinking about joining the gym close to where he works. We also talked about how there is a new gym opening soon about 1 mile from our neighborhood. (The friend lives about 4 blocks away) . And then we were like, we should make a date to go climbing! Wouldn't that be fun?

With all of this fresh in my head, on Friday, I was walking on a beach north of here in Sonoma and I noticed these rocks...and part of me just really wanted to climb around and see what it would feel like. Grant was off somewhere down the beach taking pictures and I just paused to look at the shape of the wall. Of course, I didn't do anything... for 3 not so good reasons... First, I was wearing chunky sandals. Second, the rock was rough, much much rougher than my yoga mat and I didn't feel like getting any scratches. Third, I let my mind and my self-conscious talk me out of it. But the thought was there and on Saturday, I knew that the thought was in Grant's mind also, because he challenged us to climb up this pile of rocks...

Thanksgiving Day Report

Just like all other bloggers out there, I must tell you about my Thanksgiving.

First: the place. Our dinner was held in the home that a friend of ours, Paul, is house-sitting for the next month. Before dinner, we sat outside and watched the sunset and we saw...Second: the people. Neither of us have any family out here and we would rather not travel during the busiest travel weekend of the year. So we either joyfully gather with friends or go camping for Thanksgiving. This year we did both, we just left for camping on Friday morning. But on Thursday night, 8 of us brought together by our hostess, our very dear friend...
ATE and ATE and DRANK and DRANK. Grant and I made biscuits and smashed root vegetables. Other people brought sweet potatoes, greens, cranberry sauce, salad, brussels sprouts, and pies. Everything was great, even the nibble of turkey that I tried... until I got tired and needed to go home so that we could rest before our cold camping trip.

(As always, click on the photos for more photos!)

Hopeful Waiting

I proudly wear this sweater...waiting for the snow that will never come to Oakland.
The days get darker and darker, earlier and earlier. Yet the temps stay about the same.
The cold just will not come.
No wind chill, no flurries, no snow days, no ice, no white outs, no salty roads, no slush, no sledding.
Just the snow flakes on an old sweater take me to memories of seasons from my youth, grounding me in a place where one month fades into another without much notice.
Except at the market...
New arrivals of oranges, persimmons, and apples. Goodbye avocados! We miss you already.
Hopeful waiting, but acting as if.

Tomorrow we will have dinner with some close friends and early Friday we will leave for a quick camping trip north to the Sonoma Coast. Hope you all enjoy your holiday where ever you are and who ever you're with.

Nature Fights Back

Saturday morning hike in SF's Land's End we ran into many fenced off trails that lead down to the ocean. This path in particular leads to a cliff overlooking the golden gate bridge. On this cliff there is a labyrinth made out of rocks. Grant and I planned to walk the labyrinth until we met this gate, protecting us from the oil that may have washed up onto the beach. Grant and I both took the photo opportunity seriously and then promptly went on our way.
I love spider webs, especially when there is a fresh dew clinging to the delicate threads. When processing this picture, a thought came to me. It is amazing and sad; the way in which humans and the rest of the natural world interact. We are always pushing in on nature. We're really good at rearranging and destroying. We have some good attempts at restoring, but nature is never the same again once humans get involved. Even when humans try to make it seem as if they never got involved in the first place, they still leave their mark. But deep down inside, nature has a resiliency, a desire to keep living and an ability to negotiate around us humans. Even when we do horrible things, like spill oil all over our precious bay, a spider can find a new home.While on the topic of human interaction with the world, the family over at No Impact Man just finished their year long project. As I read their reflections, I'm starting to question our living habits and impact. At home, the most we've done to reduce energy consumption is installing CFL's in the light fixtures and sending Grant to work during the day (at least $5 a month right there!). Our refrigerator got replaced over the summer which had a positive impact on our electricity bill. For fossil fuel consumption, we try to get the majority of our produce from local farms and we drive a biodiesel car. But what else can be [easily- without too much stress or inconvenience] done? The next thing I'm thinking about is cleaning products. Any ideas out there?

This Week I will be...

No teaching services will be provided until Monday November 26, 2007.

(picture was taken inside the bathroom of the "CPE on call room" at St. Francis Memorial Hospital where Grant works and has to spend the night about once a week)

Thursday Thank You's

Thank you to Oakland Unified School District for giving us a whole week off for Thanksgiving.

In previous years I have thought about how ridiculous it is to have a whole week off. Why not give us a long weekend and then let us out a week earlier in June?

Oh yeah, you're right. We have been in school for 12 weeks straight with only 1 3-day weekend. That is a long time with out a break. I guess we do need a whole week off.

Amazing Yoga Hours

Since starting the advanced studies program at PYS, I have been keeping track of the number of hours I've been practicing yoga at home, at school, or at public classes. As I have added up the hours, I have also been keeping track of the amount of money spent or earned.

*** BTW We're starting the "thank-yous" early with a big Thank You to Veteran's Day for giving me the day off from school! Only 4 school days left until a week long Thanksgiving Break! ***

The first category is the advanced studies yoga program which costs about $13 an hour (plus the expenses of books). The program is 200 hours over the course of a year. We are currently 42 hours into the program.

The second category is free yoga classes that I get to take because I'm in the advanced studies program. I usually count these as money I've earned paying back for the program. My goal is to take as many free classes as I can to pay back half the expense of the program.

The third category is yoga that I teach to my teenagers at school. On Tuesdays I do the poses with them and on Thursdays I'm walking around giving directions. But I count the whole 3 hours a week as time I am participating in yoga activities and am getting paid an excellent amount... $50 an hour... yikes!!

The fourth category is public yoga classes that I pay for because my favorite teacher is not a part of the advanced studies yoga program.

The fifth category is yoga practiced at home. This is free yoga and I am not doing nearly enough of it. My computer calendar has a reoccurring event on it for 6am yoga. I usually miss it by not getting up until 6:30am.

I keep all of this organized on excel. I put in formulas to add up all of the hours, add up all of the money and then divide. I'm not trying to impress anyone here... I'm just feeling amazed. Since September 1, I have logged in 96.5 hours of yoga and I am currently getting paid $6.99 per hour. Later this afternoon, I'll take another free class and then it'll be 98 hours = $7.04 per hour. (note: this is slightly inaccurate b/c I need to save some of the money I've earned teaching yoga for paying taxes which weren't taken out of my check... I'm not sure how much that should be)

Yikes I've just thought about other things I could explore... like how I could find the daily $ over the last two months or I could figure out how many hours I would need to break even or to make money from the program.

This is what happens when a math teacher gets into yoga. You can all laugh now.

Thanks for reading.

Life Upside Down

Finding room in our apartment for all of our favorite activities (and their associated storage needs) has been challenging. Many rooms have double purposes. The living room doubles as a photography developing and equipment storage area. The dinning room is like the basement work area. The table is the workbench, complete with stains from both cooking muffins and experimenting with alcohol backpacking stoves. The wall has piles of boxes, several old magazines that we're "saving," and a car jack set. The bedroom closet doubles for a garage, holding 2 kayaks (and all the gear), backpacking gear, suitcases, and a tiny space for clothes. Looking at our linen closet, only one shelf is devoted to sheets and laundry. The rest of the shelves hold a variety of tools. Some for the house, some for the bikes, and the rest for the car. Candles stored next to air filters next to bridesmaid dresses next to the vacuum next to the cooler next to a pile of board games.

So it is no surprise that finding an adequate space for my yoga practice can be a challenge. If I want floor space, I need to be in the living room, where I distract and get distracted by my lovely husband. If I need a wall to lean against, I need to be in the bedroom where I get even more distracted by my reflection in our mirrored closet doors.

Doing yoga in front of a mirror can be beneficial. In poses like warrior 1 or warrior 2, when I think that my knee and thigh are at 90 degree angles, it is nice to look over in the mirror and see what is actually going on and then make adjustments. I would move my body using the mirror and then try to remember how the pose felt so that I could recreate it on my own without the mirror.

Unfortunately, not all poses can be adequately critiqued using a mirror. Poses where weight is on your neck, such as bridge, headstand, or shoulderstand cannot be observed because it is dangerous to turn your neck. So in those situations, I use the "interval" mode on my camera. In this series of pictures below, I was trying to see how straight my body was in shoulderstand. When I look up at my feet, where should I be? A while back, when doing the pose I had Grant move my legs to where he thought was vertical. Last week I wanted to see if there was any change. The other two areas of focus were my shoulder position relative to my chest and neck and my pelvis/upper thigh area. To the average person, some of these shots may not seem to be so flattering. But to the yoga practitioner, I think there are lessons to be learned.

Setting up a support for my shoulders to rest on.

Laying down on the support, rolling legs up and over head, toes touch the floor before...

lifting legs up into...

Shoulderstand. Pelvis is tilted with legs to far forward/over head. I think I need more core strength to straighten that out. Shoulders look pretty good, but elbows are splayed. So I still need some opening in the shoulders so I can keep my elbows in a better and easier to support position.

Lowering down into a variation of plow pose where you try to lower your knees to your ears. Toes should be pointed but I can't reach the floor yet.


The internet seems a little slow today and I'm getting impatient with uploading pictures to blogger... so the rest are HERE. Enjoy.

Happy November

In my California, the seasons are marked with food. Even though it was in the 60-70's today and I was comfortably wearing thin yoga capris and a lightweight long sleeve shirt, it still felt like fall when I had my yummy slice of homemade pumpkin pie.









This was our second experience making pumpkin pie. The first was last weekend. You remember this post where Grant talked about us cooking for our church. Yes, it did feel a little strange when we were at Trader Joe's buying 16 cans of pumpkin and telling the cashier that no, we weren't making any pie.









Well, we couldn't keep up the act. We couldn't help ourselves. We had to make pie! And the second time was excellent. (the first time was alright, but don't always trust the baking instructions for a recipe that comes off the side of a can!)

The Reading List

There is a cycle around hobbies that repeats itself every so often and it goes like this...

Husband discovers something that he is interested in. Husband searches all over the internet gathering information about his new interest. He reads articles, he reads blogs, he listens to podcasts, he finds out about local meet-ups, and then he orders books and then he orders equipment and more stuff. After a while, (length of time is really not consistent) husband discovers a new interest and the cycle repeats.

We have been through this cycle for kayaking, biking, baking, backpacking gear, and most recently (and still going) is photography. (I know I'm missing something here... perhaps husband will comment and let me know)

I fully admit that I do benefit from all of his time spent researching and reading and learning and practicing. Yes, I enjoy the fact that my husband can fix my bike when it acts moody, that he has all of the knowledge and all of the necessary tools to do any repair. And yes, I love that he knows how to grind his own wheat berries into flour and then bake bread and can make yogurt in the yogurt machine that sits in the back of our hardest to reach cabinet. I also love that he can teach me how to have more control over how my camera captures my photographs and I also love what he can do with photographs once they are in his computer. I love that my backpack only weighs 25 pounds because of the time he spent with careful gear selection.

For a long, long time, I had been complaining (in envy) that I didn't have time for hobbies. Why did husband have time to play while wife did not? Why did husband have the opportunity to learn all these new things when wife was stuck putting up with teenagers? Teaching high school math in East Oakland just took so much time and energy. Especially the emotional energy to deal with students who don't know how to handle all of the drama that is going on in their lives. I would come home from a day at work and not want to think or do anything for the rest of the evening.

But all that is changing. It was about 1.5 years ago that I made a commitment to myself to attend a yoga class once a week. And now I'm hooked. I spend time researching on the internet, I go to classes, I read blogs, I purchased a yoga mat, and now I have purchased books. Lots of books.

Here is my current reading list...plus there are three more in the mail... and a few more that I'm thinking about getting...


Off Topic: Here is a sneak peak for Tim & Anna about a surprise that will come in the next few weeks...

Slump

Last week was my first slump of the school year.

I'm going to change it up and explain this in swimming terms.

By the end of high school, my favorite event to swim was the 500. This was the longest event at the high school level, lasting 20 lengths of the pool, and up to 10 minutes, depending on the swimmer. I wasn't that fast and I usually averaged around 6:40.

The gun fires and you leave the starting block, entering the cool crisp water, heart racing with excitement and anticipation, glad that your goggles didn't fall off, checking out where the other girls are in the pool, hoping that your counter buddy at the end of the pool remembers to flash you the right number. You hit the first turn hard, legs are still fresh, blood still racing. At the end of the second/third length, you quickly remember that you are not a sprinter and that your race is not over yet, you pull up. At the end of length 6, you start to feel the excitement wear off. Your heart settles down, you acknowledge that you still have 14 lengths to go, you buckle down and make the decision to stay with it until the end, you pace yourself, you breathe, you stay focused, you find your groove and you go.

We just finished week 9 of 36 for the school year. I'm about to make the turn into lap 6. My initial excitement and energy about this school year has worn off. I am no longer running on the buzz of hearing the starting gun. The jitters are gone. I know my kids. They know me. The first report card has already come. Reality has set in. We're settling down, we've got a long way to go, we're getting into the groove.

It was just a challenging transition week for me. I'm starting to feel the pressure of a busy schedule. I slept for 9 hours last night and woke up feeling like I could have slept for a couple more. I love what I get to do. But because I get to do it so much, it starts to feel like a chore. So when I woke up this morning, I got all ready to go to a yoga class but I was running late. I was torn. I was looking forward to a class with my favorite teacher, someone I don't get to see that often since my advanced studies program started. But, I didn't want to walk into the class after it already started so I just stayed home. I did my own practice for ~75 minutes and decided I would work on some inversions. To my surprise and great relief, I put myself into a handstand all by myself for the first time ever. I was never the gymnastic type as a girl. I hated even the easy things like cartwheels or forward rolls! As soon as I was up, I yelled for Grant to come see me, hoping he'd get there before I lost my balance (even though I was against the wall). He was proud and also relieved because after today he won't have to help me anymore.

So it was a drag of a week. I could tell I needed a change of pace. So I will now regularly add unassisted hand stands to my home practice and the world will look different.

New pictures from this week... HERE

New Profile Picture

We were at a fund raising party in August hosted by a good friend. The theme was "Rockabilly Pie" and in exchange for giving money to the American Diabetes Association, we got to eat wonderful pie while listening to a live performance of the Fancy Dan Band. YUM and YUM.

After listening to the band, my friend Jane thought it would be fun to take some pictures of me. It's hard for me to say no to being the subject of a photographer's view. Unfortunately, my husband, who is in the process of starting his own photography business, doesn't like taking pictures of humans. So I have to wait for other photographers to capture me on their memory cards. My new profile picture is one of her captures.

She has many other beautiful portraits ready to be viewed... HERE!

Importance of Community

One of the hardest things about moving to Berkeley 4 Augusts ago was not knowing anyone. No friends lived here already. No one was here to help us move in or to greet us. We slowly met people around PSR's campus but very quickly felt out of place. We were neither on campus or off. We didn't live in dorms where we would eat meals with other students. We weren't commuters who had their own community to drive home to. We felt isolated in married housing.

Thankfully we found our church within 6 months of moving to CA and new neighbors moved in across the hall. But even then community has been hard for us to build. With all of the busy-ness that people create for themselves and all of the distractions that our society has invented (TV and internet are the biggest I can think of) to pull our attention away from actual personal interaction, I feel like sometimes I forget how to interact and that people don't have a lot of free time to interact with me. I start to feel self-conscious about what to say or how to be. Then it seems like building a community is an impossible feat.

Even though it has been tough for us to create a solid social network, we know how important it is and we keep working at keeping the community that we have. The work does pay off. The smiles and hugs that are shared have lasting effects. The quick phone calls just to say hi or to report on the small good things in life can change a whole day around. These acts might seem so common to many of you but these are things that Grant and I have not been used to since moving here. I started to think about all of this community stuff because of a post that I read at the No Impact Man blog. This gentleman is nearing the end of a year long experiment on how to live in NYC and finding out what really makes him happy and full of life. It certainly is an encouragement to me to step away from the laptop a little bit more and call up a friend out of the blue.

Damn time zones.

Weekend Adventures

Grant at 8:30 on Sunday morning starting his on call shift at the hospital.Grant, 6 days later, hiking at Mt. Diablo State Park, thankful that it is the weekend again. Grant and I are now relaxing at home, side by side on the couch with our laptops going. We're unwinding from our packed Saturday (packed by choice). I checked my blogs. Did you notice that Grant had a new post? I didn't know until a friend told me about it this evening. We watched the latest episode of After World. We watched the new Strong Bad email. Now it is time to update my blog! While I'm typing this, he is trying to distract me with you tube videos.

Some of my favorite numbers are 1, 2, 4, 27, 36, 225, 169, and 196. Of those, 36 is my favorite. But 27 is also good. One of my friends just turned 27 this week, so Grant and I went to his B-Day party. Being that I wake up early for work and then I like to go to bed early, we were part of the early crowd at the party. We knew that we had a packed Saturday ahead of us, so we happily were in bed by 11pm.

We woke up just after 7am to eat breakfast. Yes, we woke up by 7am on a weekend just to eat breakfast, early. We did this in hopes that our breakfast would be digested by the time my 9am yoga class started. Grant decided that he wanted to try out my yoga class, so he needed to get up early also and eat breakfast in hopes of good digestion in time. After the 2 hour class we were very hungry again. So we went home and finished leftovers from 4 different meals created during the week.

Next stop was the farmer's market. Grant and I split up momentarily for me to walk to the bank and get some cash. The farmer's don't tend to take credit cards. Grant ended up following me to the ATM but I didn't realize it. He should have told me before we split up that he was going to change his mind after us separating and follow me. Because I wasn't looking for him. He told me after that he was talking to a friend of ours on the sidewalk a few storefronts down from the ATM towards the farmer's market and that I walked right past him with great focus and determination. It makes perfect sense to me. I wasn't looking for him until I got back to the farmer's market. And that's where he found me. As planned.

After picking out our vegetables, we walked back to our car (it is unusual for us to drive to the market- we usually walk or ride our bikes but today we were on a special outing together). We put our veggies in the cooler with the cheese that we packed as a snack to go with the crackers, raisins, and sun dried tomatoes, which we had also packed as a snack. We brought a cooler because we hoped to keep the veggies cool while we were on our outing. We entered the freeway and went through a tunnel that lead to the other side of the hills that separate us from the rest of CA (I hardly ever go to the other side of the hills... ever! But we were on a special outing). As soon as you peak out from the tunnel, on the other side of the hills, you can see it. It is round and rolling, but much taller than the other round and rolling things on the other side of the hills. This larger round land mass was Mt. Diablo. Poking out of the ground, reaching 3900 feet, it towers over all of the other hills. It took us about 25 minutes to get to the exit and another 15 minutes driving up curvy roads to the park's entrance. Soon after we parked the car at a pull off called, "rock city." The whole time in the car we were listening to a "This American Life" episode (one of our favorite radio shows).

We spent much time exploring rocks in rock city. Climbed up. Climbed down. Snacked. And I found this artifact. Does anyone know what this is and what it might be used for? Of course I know the answer. Why else would I think it was worthy of a picture? This is really just a test of my audience. Do not let me down audience!

After our trip to the mountain, we drove back to our side of the hills just in time for dinner with our good friends just before they went to a movie. The timing was perfect. Like it was meant to be. We ate at a thai restaurant that we had never been to before and it was pretty good. I had the usual: pad thai. After dinner, our friends went to their movie. We walked them to the theatre and then crossed the street to our car. We then drove about 2 miles down to road to a bar where there was a farewell party for another set of friends who are moving to Chicago. They are moving tomorrow. Their stuff already left. We shared a beer, caught up with some friends, said goodbye, and then made our way home .

This is my favorite graffiti on the rocks at rock city. If you have made it all the way to this point in the blog, you definitely deserve a big TY.

The Scariest Question to Ask a Yogini

Today I’m going to talk about a scary topic. It is something that is “hidden in the closet” of every yoga practitioner. Sometimes we are willing to open the closet door and show you what we have and at other times we’d really rather that you not ask. Today we’re going to talk about “the home practice” and specifically my home practice.

September's theme for my advanced studies yoga program was “home practice.” Based on the application to get into the program, I thought that it was assumed that everyone had to have some sort of home practice to be accepted. Yet we still talked about this in September. Last Thursday was our first class of October. Noting this, the teacher asked us, “How’s your home practice?” Silence followed. No response from the students. She continued, “Well, you have one, right? Last month’s focus was home practice, and now you all have one? Oh and by the way, ‘home practice’ is really code for daily home practice.” Hmm, yeah, that sounds like a good idea!

One problem with developing a home yoga practice is figuring out what to do while you’re practicing. What exactly are you practicing when you are doing yoga at home without a teacher calling out directions and adjustments? By what method do teachers string together a set of poses and what if my sequence is incorrect? What if I don't do this pose correctly? Fortunately, sequencing poses has not been a problem for me. I just get stuck with my own questioning about whether I am doing a pose correctly and how much alignment really matters overall.

A second, and larger, problem with developing a home yoga practice is time. Most yoga students claim that they just don’t have enough time to fit in their yoga practice. We go to public classes which take 1-1.5 hours each perhaps once or twice a week. How do we fit in 90 minutes of yoga every day? But is 90 minutes the perfect amount of time? Could we fit in 30 minutes? When should it be? Before bed? When we first wake up? From our teacher’s perspective, she would be happy if the average yoga student consistently practiced for 15-20 minutes everyday. This student would see changes in their body and mind because of their consistent practice. Our teacher then added that since we were advanced studies students that we should be practicing for 60 minutes every day.

I’m still stuck on the problem of when. Sometimes you just have to create time where you don't think you have it.

Monday night I stayed after school to do some needed lesson planning (since I had spent my work time over the weekend on marking period grades). I got the call from Grant at 4:40pm to come pick him up from the bart at 5:07pm to take him home (as planned). He already knew that I intended on taking a yoga class at 5:45pm. (A perk of the advanced studies program is taking some free classes). I had brought my clothes and my mat with me to school, and I had even had a snack right after school so that my stomach would be relatively empty by 5:45, but I wouldn’t be starving before class was done. On my way to get Grant I started to feel tired and started to wonder how much I really wanted to take this class. But how could I pass it up? It was free! I must go! But I didn’t want to wait around for it to start (if Grant were to drop me off on his way home). But I didn’t want to drive home and then hop on my bike to go back to the yoga studio and I didn’t want to walk to class because I didn’t want to walk home by myself in the dark. I could go to a later class! There were two choices, one at 7:30 and one at 7:45. But that’s too late and if I’m feeling tired now, I will certainly be too tired later! But it is a free class! I have to go! Ugh, what am I going to do?

So what do I do when I get flustered over too many choices? I don't make a choice. I just went home.

And at home I decided to do my own free practice for 60 minutes (which turned into 80 by the time I was done) in the comfort of my own bedroom with my own pillows and blankets. Every pose practiced in the order of my choosing. All of my favorites, one after another and even a few poses that I knew I needed to work on. Oh and I even got to do some of that chanting that I talked about in the last post. It was great.

Home practice. Yup, got one.

Feeling It in my Bones

Most of you know by now that I am taking an advanced studies yoga class. It is a 200 hour program that will take us from September to close to forever to complete since we only have class 3 hours of class a week! This past Thursday we had a very interesting class with Ann Dyer, a teacher who amongst other talents loves the yoga of sound. Her introduction to yoga and sound class usually takes 3 hours. Unfortunately she only had 1.5 hours with us to share her wisdom.

We started out with a simple and well known chant called Shanti Mantra that goes like this…

Om saha na vavatu
Saha nau bhunktu
Saha viryam karavava hai
Tejas vidnau vahai tamastu
Ma vidvisha va hai
Om shanti shanti shanti

Sanskrit, like many other languages, can be translated many ways and it all depends on who is doing the translation. The English translation that we were given in class is:

May we be protected together,
may we be nourished together,
may we work together with great vigor,
may our study be enlightening,
may no obstacle arise between us.

Our next exercise was to learn how to feel sound in our bodies, especially in our bones. We learned different vowel sounds that resonate in our bodies and where each vowel can be felt the strongest. We would chant a vowel sound and then gently touch different places of our body… the sternum, collar bones, shoulder blades, chin, forehead, belly, hips, sacrum, pubic bone, and ribs looking for the vibration.

Through this exploration I learned something about my body that was really no surprise at all once discovered. As I was looking for sound vibration along my clavicles, I noticed that I could only feel vibration on the right side. My left side didn’t vibrate. Ann said that often we don’t feel vibrations in the areas of our body that are giving up trouble. This was so true. My left shoulder and left side of my upper chest has always been tighter than my right. During poses like downward facing dog, I often feel stress at the front corner of my armpit. I’m not sure exactly which muscles are unhappy there.

Ann’s suggestion was that we incorporate chanting into our daily yoga practice to help us reach our “troubled” areas. So yesterday morning, I spent about 10 minutes “a-ing” into my left shoulder and collar bone. And today I can feel a faint sensation.

Over the next few days, my plan is to continue 'a-ing' into my shoulders, but I will also "oouu" into my hips. (how do we spell this vowels?) to see if there is the same vibration increase and hopefully more openness in the joint/muscles.

Almost Famous

There was an article about my yoga class in the Oakland Tribune, our local newspaper. No, it's not as big as the NY Times or Washington Post, but it was still fun to see my picture in print! You can check out the article and some pictures here and video here.

My heart is a flutter.

Time Zone Woes

Just got back from the movies. It's 10:00pm here. I feel like calling a long distance friend to catch up. BUT you're all asleep... or it is 1:00am your time and I'm not sure if you're asleep yet and don't want to risk waking you up. Grrr. Not matter how hard I try, I only think about calling you, beloved Eastern Time Zone, when it is the evening.

Another Chance to Graduate

In the state of California, recent laws have stated that in order for a student to graduate from high school, they have to pass a test called the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE). Students get 6 chances to pass the test while in high school. The first in February of 10th grade. The next two are October and March of 11th grade. Then October, February, and March of 12th grade. The last ditch test is July after 12th grade, but then you don't get to "cross the stage" with your classmates at graduation. There are two sections of the test: English and Math. Once you pass one of them, you never have to take it again. You just keep retaking the test that you failed.

I'm not sure what is on the English test, but the math test is not hard. Basically, you have to know math up until Algebra 1. A quick list would be converting and working with decimals, fractions, and percents, solving basic equations, slope/intercept/graphing, area/perimeter/volume/measurement/unit conversions, basic probability and statistics. I have tons of released questions and several books that have been created to help me help students pass this test.

This year, I am teaching two sections of "CAHSEE Math" for junior and senior students who have not passed the math test. In all I have about 20 students, although there are others out there who just didn't have time in their schedule to take my class. The pressure is on because they take the test on Wednesday. On Tuesday, most of them are taking the English test. So that leaves one more school day to help them prepare.

I'm worried for them. I would hate to see them get all of the required credits they need to graduate, yet not graduate just because they didn't pass a test. Yet, I also think that it is ridiculous that some of them have not passed the test already... it's not that hard. What's even worse is that some of them have just been sitting in my class for the past month doing little to no work or thinking about this test. How many times can a teacher say, "this is your test, your graduation!" to a student before giving up and thinking that the student really doesn't want to graduate? But, when it is so easy to drop out of school, and the student is actually in the classroom, how can you not think that they want to graduate? Some would say laziness (which we do have alot of!!) others would say test anxiety. I think both and a bit of ego. They can't get over the fact that they don't know stuff and they can't admit that they need help, so they just sit. Perhaps some of them think that they will just magically guess all of the right answers and just squeak by the minimum number of points to pass. I'm praying that they are using this weekend wisely and are gearing themselves up for the test.

A bonus for them is that if they pass the test, they could transfer out of my class and into something else that they need to graduate. Unfortunately, the test results will not come until late December or early January. So the class changes will have to take place at the start of the spring semester.

The test is on Wednesday and that means we still have 12 weeks left of the semester. What will we do? That's a really good question. I want to focus on real world situations where a person needs math skills. I have some ideas, but I need more. So I'm asking you, those few of you who read this blog, where do you actually use math in real life? What is this math thing good for, anyways?