Speakers

I'm not usually one to get excited about speakers or electronics in general, but this lil' guy is quite the exception.

After trading in a combined total of 200$ worth of textbooks to Amazon, Jason and I used our amazon gift cards to buy this amazing, Bluetooth wireless speaker. 

Endless possibilities of jam listening are in our future.

Plus, he's so cute.

The classic 84

I love Fridays. Naturally, most people love Fridays because it's the end of the work week and they can indulge in happy hour fodder. I love my Fridays for a different reason. My Friday usually consists of hours spent in the hot room practicing the classic 84 postures, otherwise known as "Advanced". The advanced postures were assembled by Bishnu Ghosh many years ago. They are the base from where Bikram derived his 26 postures. On Fridays I get to attempt to do all 84 with my fellow yoga teachers and advanced yogis.

The classic 84 is a difficult series. It tests one's limits of strength and flexibility. One could practice it for years and not get very far at all. It is humbling and beautiful.

Recently, I have experienced a breakthrough in my practice of this series. I got the shoulder rotation on the right side for full dancer pose. It looks a little like this:

The shoulder must fully rotate in its socket in order to grab the foot as pictured in pictures 2 and 3. The final expression of the posture looks like this (with both legs locked out):

Pretty awesome, right? And this is just one posture. The concentration and determination that it takes to continue to practice these postures for years and years in order to merely move one inch forward here and there is one of the most frustrating and motivating things about this practice. That's why I love it!

Luh deez gurlz

Working in a coffee shop affords one access to free coffee, tons of human interaction, and a coffee-scented perfume that stays with you the whole day long.  What I've got in my current coffee shop position is a slew of great people (possibly one that rivals the old crew at Open Eye?), including these little ladies whom I just adore. #ladiesofbrails

Massages

One of the perks of being a teaching assistant in a graduate program at the U of O is the badass health insurance. The graduate school student employees are unionized, which means we have awesome people fighting for us to have awesome benefits. Not only is our health insurance plan WAY better than that of a public school teacher in NC, but it is so good that it includes 20 massages a year. I am and have been most definitely taking advantage of this perk.

Frequent massages have led me to believe that:

 1) Massages are great and a necessity to healthy living and preventive medicine.

2) Why don't more people get massages?

3) I am going to permanently integrate massages into my health routine (even if they won't be covered by my badass graduate student insurance anymore after this term).

Reading Rut

Oddly enough, it's not very interesting at all. This marks the 6th or 7th book that I have started recently and not finished. Sometimes I'll read a page and know immediately or I might read half before I drop. Either way, nothing is quite holding my attention lately.

Vacay babay

I finally got my blogging app to work! So, here are a few shots from my spring break coast to coast tour.

We started in Portland. Notice Jason and I are jacket twins. I had it first, by the way.

Then, on to Seattle with Nate and Chloe. Here is the famous Pike St. Market. We arrived at closing time so didn't get to see them throwing fish, but we did manage to poke around a bit.

THE Seattle picture

Gas works park on a sunny day! Seattle gets about 56 sunny days a year. We were pretty lucky catch a few.

Friends! Sun! Seattle!

A thought-provoking (and joke provoking) piece of art in our airbnb in Seattle.

Edie's shoe store!

On the Ferry to San Juan Island. Jacket Twins strike again. It was a cold ride.

Hi!

Not much to do except hike on San Juan Island. But, it is a beautiful place.

Cliffs!

vintage lighthouse

rocky beaches

Ocean views!

The jacket twins are back for Sunset on the South beach.

Then, I hopped a flight to Ohio. This is the only picture I have from my time in Columbus. I was having so much fun catching up with Marissa that I LITERALLY did not take any pictures but this one. Here we were checking out a new brewery inside of an old farmhouse just outside of Columbus. 

Then, I was off to Pittsburgh to see Kurt and Alex. Here's Kurt with their new baby, Phoebe. He's really enjoying that beer. Being a new parent is hard!

She's pretty cute though.

Charlotte is 9. I can't believe it. She's super cool and fun to hang with.

And finally, here I am on my way back to OR. I dedicate this airplane bathroom selfie to Bekah Brunstetter.

Not pictured: I got to teach at two different Bikram Yoga studios during my travels! It was so much fun!

A rousing game

Walking on campus today I saw this. A yard littered with empty 40 oz beer bottles with masking tape on them. I can only infer that someone must have had a rousing game of Edward 40 hands last night. Poor kids...
In case you don't know, Edward 40 hands is a terrible game in which each participant must tape (using duct tape or masking tape) 40 oz beers to each of their hands. They cannot remove the bottles until they are empty. You can only imagine the drunken debauchery that ensues. Poor kids...

Yes

Irony

There is some irony in the fact that as soon as I decide to start blogging again, my blogging app decides to disallow me from posting pictures.
Fine. You win.

I will not blog about my trip. I will not show my pictures.

Here's where I win:
Instead I will blog about how I am unable to properly blog and there inherent irony in this situation.

Winning.

Dormant--> Active

Yikes. I've been inactive in my blogging for quite some time. At a certain point, the time since last blog came to exponentially represent the amount of dread rising within me at the thought of next blogging. So I waited. And waited. And waited. Now, here I am almost 3 months since last blogging. I've got a few things to say, though. So, I'm baaaaaack.