A Pet Peeve

If you're dirty, it means you need a bth

I don't understand why people think that they need to be flexible in order to practice yoga. A yoga practice is just that, practice. Just as you practice anything, you do it in order to get better at it. As a musician would practice his or her instrument, a yogi practices his or her yoga.

Additionally, with yoga the goal isn't to get better at doing certain postures but rather to get better at achieving flexibility, awareness, and stillness of the mind. So if you say "I don't do yoga because I'm not flexible", it means you need to do more yoga. The cause is the cure.

I love this guy

Just watch them all right now.

Preferably while drinking a giant glass of wine.

The Game of Life

I played Life with Charlote while in Pittsburgh last week and was struck by the amazing/true/misguided/brilliant/insightful/horrifying things that this game teaches our youth about "life".

-spin a wheel and draw a card to decide your career (is it really that random?)

-choose go to college and make more money or end up with vocational job (vocational work isn't so bad, nor is it certain you'll make the big bucks these days with a college education)

-stop at the stop sign to get married (this is a requirement?)

- choose between the family path or the career path (must one choose?)

-land on a spot and sue your opponents for 100,000$ each (let's teach them to show no mercy!)

-buy your dream home, which can only be a mansion, luxury apartment, cape style house, or a delux trailer (bigger is always better, apparently...)

-retire happily in a huge mansion if you are the player with the most money at the end (money=happiness, clearly)

Naturally, I won the game but it was close. It came down to a 20,000$ difference in our final "salaries", so I decided to teach Charlotte a lesson about coming out on top: I gave her 10,000$ so we could both win the game of life and retire happily in the mansion together. 

"See?" I told her, "It doesn't really matter who has the most money. We can still retire together and be happy just hanging out". 

I'm not quite sure the point was made.

Blogging about my blog, learning about life

A nice reminder of what an awesome ESL teacher I was

It's the calm before the storm, I feel. Starting March 31st I will be insanely busy for a 10 week stint. Between teaching a course at UO, supervising student teachers, working part time as an assistant researcher, and teaching yoga who knows when I will have time to even think about how much time I don't have. Aye!

But for now, I'm feeling a brief calm and instead of using my time wisely to prepare for my class, I'm finding myself re-reading old blog entires which in it's own way is very useful for reflection and self-growth. That's the cool thing about having been blogging (relatively) consistently since January 2010.  That's 5 years! A lot has happened in the past five years and it's kinda neat to relive it all through my blog. Some things I read are embarrassing, some hilarious, and some even heart-breaking. 

 I think the greatest lesson to be learned from reading old blog posts is, ironically, contentment (santosha). This idea of contentment is something that I have wrestled with for a long time, hence me naming my blog Santosha. I don't suppose this to be the end of my wrestling, but maybe now I've just been ushered into a new class of wrestling. I've got some insight based on my experiences and how I can now reflect upon what I wrote.

Most importantly, I am amazed at the shift in my happiness or contentment during my time as an ESL Teacher. I started out bright-eyed and bushy tailed, excited about my job and life and somewhere down the line I became disillusioned. I let a desire for more (more money, more education, more degrees, more life experiences, more places to say that I lived in) cloud my vision of just how truly good my situation was. If I remove those desires from the equation, all of which are materialistic or ego-driven (aside from the desire for more life experiences, of course) I can reach the conclusion that I always had everything that I ever needed. Unfortunately, it took giving up those things to realize how truly perfect they were. So, in this sense, I believe it to be impossible for a human to understand contentment unless they have once abused their own understanding of it.  Or like Joni Mitchell said "You don't know what you got till it's gone".  

But, hey, at least now I'm cured of my grass is always greener syndrome.   

What I did today

1. Started Packing for Hawaii

Yes, we are going to Hawaii this Friday for a week. The cat is out of the bag. Well, there wasn't really a bag, but a few days ago Jason and I realized that we were going and we hadn't told anyone about it. Our short list of United States that we have not visited is about to go from five to four.

2. Chose a text book for the class I am teaching at U of O in the spring

I'm teaching a class on Multicultural Literacy at University of Oregon this spring term. It's secretly stressing me out because, like...now I'm teaching a college class??? Mostly, it's reminding me of how much I want to be back in a real ESL classroom, with real ESL students. And, why didn't I appreciate it when I had it?

A Reel Musical Treat

Jason and I cover Mason Jennings' Memphis Tennessee on ukulele

It's just too good

to be savored

Have you ever enjoyed reading a book so much so that you didn't actually want to read it?

This is a seldom occurance, but when it does happen it happens hard. I am currently rationing out The Goldfinch page by page because I just don't want it to end. This book is meant to be savored.  I just may never get through it.

I liken this phenomena to when I was a kid, sorting and rationing my halloween candy as if I were preparing for an apocalypse in which candy would never be found upon the Earth again. I would sort by color, genre, and texture, save my favorite pieces for the end, sometimes never even getting to enjoy these bites-the chocolate having gone grey and flakey.

No, I did not grow up during the depression era, instead I just really have an obsession/problem/attachment to never wanting a good thing to end.  At least now, I can recognize this in myself and learn to enjoy the things that I enjoy. The Reese's cup that is The Goldfinch will not go grey and flakey, but instead it will be delicately devoured bite by tiny, bite.

Knowing when

I can remember one of my professors in grad school once saying:

 "You have to know when to stand tall like mountain, and when to flow like river".

I've always liked this idea.  It is a nice natural image to tie to the notion that it is important to be both rigid and flexible, strong and weak, firm and malleable. It is an homage to the opposites that make us whole beings. I've been thinking a lot about this lately.

In addition to relating to the idea of the yin/yang within all of us, it reminds me of the serenity prayer:

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change

The courage to change the things I can

And the wisdom to know the difference

This is yet another thought that I have always liked. This prayer is typically associated with AA and those in recovery.  Though I've never been in recovery or needed the prayer to get myself through the day or anything, it is something to which I often return. Again, referring to the idea that sometimes we must be brave and sometimes we must be accepting, it is a powerful concept.

The "knowing when" is the interesting question. It is a question that I believe to not have an answer, because the knowing is always shifting. What one would stand tall like mountain for, might not be the same to another or even the same to that same person at a different time in life. Even the idea of knowing when to stand tall like mountain and when to flow like river itself is governed by its inherent respect for the opposites. Though it is a strong idea (like mountain), it is a shifting knowledge (like river) of it that must be employed.

Just like a mountain or a river, I think that is beautiful.

2013 Year in Review

It's December 28, and I figured I better get crackin' at thinking about the new year. 2014 is just around the corner and I need to be ready. I have resolutions to resolve, old acquaintances to forget (or not forget) and 2013 reflections to reflect.

Part 1: January- March

Today, I'll start by looking back at early 2013. January through March were cold, grey months in Eugene. Honestly, I don't remember much eventful from those months aside from struggling through a PhD program with scorn, drinking beer, running, and eating soup. We did manage to get out and about for a few little trips and I may have seen sunlight a few times.



A few highlights included:

Cross country skiing for the first time
Running the LA marathon
Trips to the Oregon coast
And Jason's birthday.

Regardless, these months served me well by providing much to think on. Great things were underway for 2013, though it was off to a slow start.

"That's a make-up!" Or The day I got to practice at Headquarters for free

Here we are (the hooligans from week 6 who had to do a make up class at Headquarters on Saturday):




Even though it was my 12th class in 6 days, the make up class was quite nice. It felt good to practice in a real studio with less people. I could actually see myself in the mirror. And, I got to visit the elusive Bikram Yoga International Headquarters.
Bikram's wall of fame:

A whole new meaning to "living in the moment"

If there is one thing that surprised me about Oregon, it's how quickly the weather changes here. Yes, it rains a lot. But, it also rains, then stops, then mists, then the sun shines brightly for about 20 mins, then it's cloudy, then foggy, then pouring rain again--all in the span of a few hours.

People say you have to take advantage of the sun when you get it, because it could *literally* come out for a few moments and then be gone. You could plan your day around a certain expected weather outcome and easily waste it waiting for something that might not ever come or go.

So, the new plan is to go outside as soon as the sun comes out. Don't wait because it could be gone. Metaphor for life, anyone?