Misalignment

Some days, I wake up energized and excited to go to my 6am yoga class. The crisp morning air awakens my mind and I bound down Emerson noticing every little detail, excited to start my day.

Today was not one of those days. I snoozed my alarm. Then I turned off my alarm. Then I realized class was starting in 20 minutes and I'd better get my butt out of bed if I wanted to get dressed and make it there in time. My head felt like it was full of cotton but I managed to pull on pants and a t-shirt and shuffle out the door. Working against me was the fact that the sunrise has been noticeably later this week. Working for me was the fact that my fiance, who only moments beforehand had looked sleepy and peaceful still in bed, decided to get up for a run, leaving me less motivation to stay snuggled up under the sheets.

I think I always feel like I should feel super motivated and excited about everything all the time, but if practicing yoga has taught me anything, it's that not every day is our best day - and that's ok. If I'm not feeling super-excited about practicing on a given morning, I can acknowledge that, tell myself it's OK, and work to the best of my ability. And feeling like I would rather stay in bed doesn't mean I shouldn't go to class - it actually means that I really, really should, because maybe my mind needs to work through some stuff.

...and good thing I went to class, because I ran into a friend from school! It probably wasn't my most mentally engaged practice ever, but at least I went, which is the bulk of the battle. Not every day can be my best day.

In a related story regarding general confusion, I also ran into the CEO of the company I'm interning for in the bathroom this morning - I've never met her personally but recognized her from her quarterly update videos. It was also during this bathroom trip that I decided to look in the mirror for the first time that day and realized that my cardigan was askew by one button. Good thing she has no idea who I am.

Enlightenment is the "quiet acceptance of what is". I believe the truly enlightened beings are those who refuse to allow themselves to be distressed over things that simply are the way they are.
- Wayne Dyer

Real-Life Yoga

Today, Ben and I got up bright and early at 5:30 am, ate breakfast at the hotel restaurant where I had the best Chai I have ever tasted in my life, and went out to see some of the sights of Jaipur. Our new buddy/autorickshaw driver, Saleem, chauffeured us around the city to the City Palace, the observatory and the Rambagh palace in his rickety, care-bear upholstered vehicle. After our sightseeing adventures, we did some more shopping, got a few presents for friends at home and I purchased a Sari! (I apologize to Suresh, owner of the Sari shop, for sweating on pretty much everything I came into contact with, and also for not finishing the hot Chai he so nicely gave me while I tried on Saris. It's 110 degrees outside)

Upon returning to the hotel, we relaxed for a bit, did some reading, and then went down to the lobby for a yoga class with Hotel Arya Niwas' resident yoga instructor. I don't remember his name so we'll just call him Little Mustache Dude. Little Mustache Dude was a good six inches shorter than me and old enough to be my grandfather. He didn't say much of anything by way of greeting, but instead led us down the hallway to a sort of lounge, where he rolled out two yoga mats and instructed us to sit down while he turned on the huge fan in the corner.

As soon as we began our yoga practice, I realized this was unlike anything I was used to. "Stand", he commanded rather than coaxed. "Spread feet apart. Now. Slowly slowly, raise hands up." There was no flow to the instruction, he told us where to move instead of using names of poses, and with his broken english it was sometimes difficult to tell exactly what he was asking me to do. "Bring hand up. Here. Now other arm over head and touch ear." Huh? He instructed modifications for every single pose, and when I tried to move in to the full expression of crescent lunge, a strict "NO! KEEP KNEE ON GROUND!" put me solidly in my place.

The yogi in me was confused. I practice yoga partly for the relaxation aspect and for my spiritual side - but I also practice yoga to challenge and stretch myself, to push myself to my edge...and really, this for me is where the self-discovery of yoga comes into play: by staying calm and focused through challenging situations, and by finding our edge and knowing what we are capable of, we come to understand ourselves better. This is what I have always loved about yoga, but here in this hot room with the giant fan blaring in my ear and Little Mustache Dude barking drill-sargent-like instructions that I barely understood, I was having trouble seeing what exactly I was getting out of this experience.

As I was moving into a series of seated twists, something occurred to me. The purpose of yoga isn't to make your thighs burn and your triceps sore every time you practice; the purpose of yoga is to give you the resilience to see the positive in every situation and to make the best of what is in front of you. This class certainly wasn't testing the strength of my body, but it was testing the strength of my patience. If I truly wanted to practice yoga tonight, I realized, I would have to make the best of a less than ideal situation and immerse myself fully in each pose, letting go of the need to be challenged physically.

As one of my teachers in uptown mentioned in last week's class, "Yoga isn't just something you do on your mat - it's something you take with you every day, to help you live a better life, treat people with love and be the best version of yourself." The real-life yoga is the most meaningful - learning to be OK with Little Mustache Dude even when he asked us to do ridiculous things like laugh uproriously for no reason to create a "shower of love," but most of all to be patient with myself, even when I let frustration get the best of me. And even when it's 110 degrees outside.

Namaste.

Not so fab at FabIndia

Just came home from the most intimidating shopping experience of my life.
Ben and I are currently in Jaipur, India, where it is about a billion degrees and you can't drink the water. In case you weren't aware, Ben lived in India for two years, in a small town in the Himalayas where he taught English and Drama at Woodstock International School. We're here partly on vacation, and partly to see his former advisees graduation on the 29th. Ben, having lived here, fits in pretty well - he speaks a bit of hindi and owns at least five Kurtas, so when he goes out on the street he doesn't look or sound completely clueless. He's also pretty good at negotiating with autorickshaw drivers, which is an impressive talent.

I, on the other hand, have never been to India, speak no hindi whatsoever, and strolled out of the hotel this morning wearing cargo-style Be Present yoga pants and a t-shirt from Target. I felt like maybe it was time to up my game. This, of course, meant shopping, so we hopped in an autorickshaw and zoomed over to FabIndia. The sun was beating down, I was sweating and thirsty (the water in our hotel room hadn't finished Iodizing yet), but dammit I was going to find some Indian clothes.

This is the thing about me and shopping - I like it a lot, and I'm awfully efficient at it. I think I have pretty decent style, and I know what looks good on me and what doesn't. I know my size in every brand of jeans at Nordstrom and can by clothes for work at Express pretty much without trying them on. In the US, I am a shopping machine - not so at FabIndia. All of the beautifully dressed Indian women shopping alongside me seemed to know precisely what they were looking for. I tried to pretend I knew EXACTLY what I was doing, picking discreetly through piles of long tunics and strangely shaped pants like I was looking for a different color when really my brain was pretty much exploding. Which are long sleeve and which are short sleeve? What's my size?? Does it even matter when every one of these is basically a glorified shapeless flour sack? Am I supposed to pick pants that are the same color, or a contrasting color???? HELP.

I ended up in the fitting room with a few Kurtas and two pairs of pants. First, I tried on the pants which may have been a poor life choice. Not even Heidi Klum could pull off these babies, which fit like skinny jeans around the ankles but have a wasitline big enough for three pregnant women. WTF. Fortunately, there is a drawstring, which I pulled as tight as it could go. Unfortuantely, the drawstring could not make up for the huge quantity of fabric that was now bunched around my hips. Fortunately, the genius in the design of the Kurta is that it covers all sins, including mountains of fabric. Hooray! Success. I honestly have no idea if they fit properly or not, but seriously, who could even tell the difference?

I liked the orange Kurta - Ben liked the teal one...so I bought both. Dude who worked there helped me pick out pants because apparently my color scheme was all wrong, and the goldish tan pants do not in fact work with the teal Kurta. Sorry random dude - my mistake.

I have visited many countries around the world, but everywhere I've gone, fashion has always felt relatable. Even when styles and trends are different from what you would find in America ( i.e. Norway, Greece, Japan), it still feels like different dialects of the same language. In India, everything just feels completely foreign... and I don't mean this in a bad way. Each new challenge is an opportunity to learn, grow and stretch yourself. Sometimes it's learning a different language or haggling with cabbies, and sometimes it's just learning how to wear Salwaar pants. Baby steps.

Cookin!

So I might have mentioned this before, but my schedule for this semester included 19 credits... not to mention that most of the classes were 2 credit classes that really should have been 3 or 4 credit classes. Compared to the last few weeks, being in finals seems like a break!

I had 2 final presentations last week, both of which went really well, and a final quiz that went OK too. Today I had my Managerial Accounting final, which I was freaking out about but acutally I felt really good about it! My apologies to Ben, who listened to me ranting on about differential costs last night. On the plus side - I explained chapters 2 - 11 to him and he understood what I was talking about! Being able to explain the material in a way that made sense to someone who's never had accounting before made me feel like I was pretty prepared :)

Also on the plus side - I've actually had time to cook again! Here's what I've made in the last 2 weeks:
- Sandiwch cookies with Butter Cookies and lemon curd filling. I originally planned on making the lemon curd from scratch but this was last week, and I didn't have quite THAT much time on my hands...
- Then, on Friday... baked Salmon with mustard sauce! I made the mustard sauce up - it was basically some large-grain mustard, some dijon mustard, a little honey and a little white-wine vinegar. It was delicious :) Not quite like my favorite mustard sauce with heavy cream, but still pretty awesome.
- Grilled asparagus with olive oil, salt and pepper - simple yet awesome.
- Quinoa Skillet Bread - BEST EVER... so amazing, thanks 101 Cookbooks!
- and I used some of the leftover quinoa and asparagus to make a delicious lunch by sauteeing the asparagus in sesame oil, soy sauce, rice vineger, sugar and a little conrnstarch, and then pouring it over the quinoa. Definitely tasty and healthier than anything from the food court.

Next on the docket - don't know! Ben did the shopping today so I'll be pleasantly surprised by whatever he picked up. I'm hoping to make a pie soon too, or something...we'll see :) More cookies forthcoming as well, since I donated cookie of the month for my school's annual charity acution (this was the purpose of the lemon cookies as well)

Woooo ....yay for having a life again :)

Here's to the misfits...

Last Tuesday at around 6pm, I probably should have been getting work done for school. Instead, I was perusing Facebook and reading all of my friend's status updates in a desperate attempt to avoid doing anything productive at all. The debate among several of my friends seemed to revolve around one of the hardest decisions of all time: LOST, or Glee?

Being a marketing person, I immediately wondered whether the folks at ABC and Fox realized that put two shows that appeal to a lot of the same people in competing time slots? Most likely not - afterall, at first glance, a show about a high-school choir that wears a lot of glitter and a drama about plane-crash survivors and time-travel would seem to have little in common. But, my Facebook status updates would suggest that their audiences have a lot of overlap.

So, do are the same people who are entranced by watching a football team dancing to Beyonce's "Single Ladies" also care deeply about John Locke's quest for meaning and an epic battle for survival against a creepy Smoke Monster?

While their subject matter is vastly different, both of these show speak to the same part of the human soul - the part of us that will always feel like we're alone, and like we don't quite fit in with the world around us. "Other" in Glee means wanting to dance and sing onstage in a community that values football and cheerleading. It also apparently means having slushies thrown in your face every day (this never happened to me...even though I was in five choirs in High School...go figure...). "Other" in LOST means alienation of a different sort - what does it mean to do the right thing? What parts of ourselves can we share with others?

Every character on LOST has a secret - even though they are together in survival, they are often spiritually alone. Furthermore, the survivors as a whole are alienated by their shared past - they have endured something the rest of the world cannot understand and would never believe.

The concept of the "other" is a recurring theme in LOST - black vs. white in backgammon, Losties vs. others, good vs. evil, John vs. Jack, Jack vs. himself, Jacob vs. MIB... Glee explores otherness in the search for success and acceptance, whereas LOST explores the search for understanding and meaning.

One curious thing that Ben, my boyfriend, pointed out is that while LOST has the more unbelievable premise, Glee is the more unbelievable show. While Glee is set in the "real world", no teacher in a school could ever behave the way Sue Sylvester does and not get fired. Furthermore, her motivations are unclear - she seems to be cruel for the sake of being cruel. In LOST, even though the situation is fantastic, the characters and their motivations come from a very real place. The way the show explores human nature and free will is fascinating.

I'm getting off topic.

Point being - we can all relate to a time when we've felt left out or isolated - whether you are a high school nerd, an experienced time-traveler or just a former music major trying to survive MBA 6241 - Corporate Financial Decisions. We might not get a slushie thrown in our faces literally, but sometimes the metaphorical slushie of life is hard to avoid. We all have secrets we are afraid to share, even with those closest to us - our parents, friends and loved ones.

Feeling alone is an all too familiar part of life, so it is not too surprising that these are two of the most popular shows on television. Fortunately, we're all in it together, and we are all connected by the amazing and beautiful world around us. And also, the Twins won today. Life is great :)

When I grow up, I want to be like Norm

Norm is my statistics professor. He is a somewhat large, jolly guy with a bushy moustache and glasses, and an true, deep and undeniable love for teaching young business students how to do statistical analysis.

As a teacher, Norm has his work cut out for him. Not only does he teach a subject whose fun quotient is percieved as being on par with digging your eyeballs out with a rusty spoon, he has to teach it to first year MBA students.

The mind of a first year MBA student can essentially be described like this: A;SLDKFJQPO3IJ;AFDinternshipASDKWEIJ;B!!!!!!!!! We are so totally overwhelmed with readings, more readings, networking events, info sessions, mock interviews, conferences and looking for summer internships that actual academic knowledge is pretty much the last thing on our minds.

When I opened my stats textbook for the first time I could practically feel my brain melting from the effusion of formulas, greek symbols and extra tiny print. I was pretty sure that if I had to sit through three hours of this twice a week, I would probably die.

On the first day, Norm told us formulas were lame. "Tell me more," I thought. The next week, amidst lessons on data analysis and statistical errors, he told us the story of the three red-ball sample. I'm still not sure if this story is true. Basically, when he was a young student like all of us, he had a professor who kept three jugs of white and red balls in his office. One had a ton of white balls and almost no red balls, one had an equal number of white and red balls, and one had a ton of red balls and almost no white balls. If a student wanted extra points, the professor would whip out a jar and give them a three-ball sample from the jar. If the student correctly guessed which jar the balls were from, they would gain points, and if they guessed wrong they would lose points.

Norm wandered in one day, feeling particularly confident, and asked for a three-ball sample. The professor shook the jar three times, and produced three red balls. Logically, Norm guessed the jar with the most red balls - the most statistically probable answer. When he got his paper back, he was shocked to find out he had lost 20 points - the jar was, in fact, the jar with almost no red balls. He had gotten a nearly statistically impossible sample.

Norm made every day mildly hilarious. Whether he was proclaiming the merits of general silliness, promising to wear his P-Value t-shirt (he did - it had a picture of Uncle Sam saying "What's YOUR P-Value?"), promising to also wear pants and shoes with his P-Value shirt (as if we needed that qualification), or pretending to be an outlier by whispering "Take me out! Take me out!" in a despondent tone, he made a dry subject into an entertaining three-hour class that seemed to fly by. One time, while teaching the other half of our class, his wife Carol called - Norm held up the phone so that the whole class could say hi to Carol. Norm's Stats class was itself a three red-ball sample.

On Wednesday, as he was dismissing us for the last time, he thanked us for being there, and told us what an honor it had been to teach us. As he was saying goodbye to a classroom of 50 students he'd known for 2 months at most, he actually got a little teary.

Taking class with Norm reminded me why I am getting my MBA - not because of the actual academic material I learned in his class, but because I remembered how it feels when your work is really and truly a labor of love. No matter how overwhelming everything gets, I keep trying to remember that the reason I'm here is so that I can find a job that I care about - something I look forward too when I wake up, and that every once in a while, makes me tear up a little bit. When I grow up, I want to be like Norm - just without the moustache.

Dreaming things that never were

When I was little, I probably spent most of my time daydreaming. I read a lot, and consequently wrote stories a lot, most of which were set in nonexistent worlds and featured dragons, dinosaurs and wizards with great frequency. Sometimes all three together. My parents didn't seem to mind that my little invented worlds didn't really exist or even make any sense - they just let me keep dreaming.

My best friend Ellen and I would spend hours inventing our own universe full of dragons, unicorns, and other mythical creatures, most of which we invented. We even made a map of our imaginary world, big enough to cover almost an entire wall. My sister, my neigbors and I made hour-long movies with plots that, in retrospect, made absolutely no sense. We were Native Americans, we were Egyptian Princesses, and we were distraught pet owners searching for our cat who had been kidnapped by an invisible man.

the more I grew up, as is inevitable, the less I imagined. I missed being a kid - playing, daydreaming and inventing silliness. After my sophomore year at St. Olaf, I started teaching music at theatre e3, a music-theater program owned by my high school theater director. Spending my summers working with 70 kids, teaching music classes and hanging out with them on breaks, made me feel like a kid again.

There was the seven year old who came to camp every day in knee-high, neon pink rain boots, acted like she hated me and then inexplicably invited me to her birthday party. There were the three girls who found a stick in the grass, drew a face and hair on it, named it Petunia and proceeded to carry it around and talk to it for the next three weeks. My students were ridiculously smart, immensely talented, and they weren't afraid to flounce around onstage while wearing ridiculous costumes, singing in falsetto and holding a harp.

Meanwhile, I was trying to transition out of my own dream - I had gone to St. Olaf convinced I wanted to be an opera singer, but the further I traveled down that path, the less I really wanted it. I'd always envisioned myself having a home and a family - could I really handle a career that forced me to move every few months and plow through rejection after rejection for years before even landing a paying job? Did I really want to spend hours a day alone in a practice room? Not really.

So, while my students were dreaming wildly, I was slowly giving up on mine.

I taught for a couple more years before ending up in marketing in a corporate setting. How'd this happen? Still not entirely sure. I gave up the jeans and t-shirts of my teaching days for heels and dress pants. I gave up "sure, you can whip your shirt off and do a crazy dance, just make sure it's Ok with Eric...", for "do you think 200K units is a reasonable forecast?" Words like "realistic forecast" and "joint development agreement" became part of my everyday vocabulary. I began thinking about things in terms of the limitations of reality instead of limitless possibility - simply because, I was convinced, this was my duty as a Real Grown-Up Adult.

A couple of months ago, I was sitting with Ben in Baker's Square, eating pie and talking about how to fix Major League Baseball - the major problem being, large market teams have too much power and too much money.

"Maybe if we could get all the owners to realize that if they collaborate and don't let salaries get too high, it would be better for the sport?" Ben suggested.
"Yeah," I replied, "but that would never happen. Outright collusion is illegal, and if they tried to do it by tacit agreement that just wouldn't work. People are selfish - nobody would agree to that. Or maybe everyone would except Steinbrenner, who'd keep salaries ridiculously high and then where do you think all the good players would end up?"
"But if he realized what a good thing it was, and if we could convince him to do the right thing - "
"Never gonna happen."
"But WHAT IF, in my own personal imaginary world -?"
"Not possible."
"But what if - "
"Nope."

We paused. We smiled. One or both of us started giggling.

At that moment I thought, what's so wrong with ridiculous possibilities? Sure, realism is fine and it helps make decisions in the real world, but every single great achievement has started out with a dream that everyone thought was impossible.

I thought about how fortunate I was to have someone in my life who reminds me that sometimes, realism and parameters need to go out the window - silliness is OK. Dreaming is OK. Having pie for dinner, or building a fort in your living room and sleeping there when you have a perfectly good bed in the bedroom is more than OK. It makes me feel like I'm nine years old again - more like myself, or at least, the me I like the most.