cool stuff i wanna do at some point

     i'm not really a bucketlist kind of person. i don't even know if that's one word or two. there are places i wanna travel to and big things i wanna do, but actually compiling a list with the intention that i want to do them before i die will only bring out my crazy anxiety/hypochondriac tendencies and make me feel like i have to do them as soon as humanly possibly in case something horrible happens. ugh, now i'm bummed out.
     anyways, i have my first "paid time off" coming up and i'm taking a whole week off for vacation. i had to plan by vacation somewhat quickly because of the way the vacation policy is at my work. so i thought i had planned it enough far out that i could get one of my friends to take some time off too, maybe travel with me. but no such luck. it's hard because my closest girl friends are all married now. planning even a simple hang out with them can be hard. so a trip, near impossible. i'm not married, don't even have a boyfriend, so trying to plan a week off with actual fun stuff to do by myself has been really hard.
     people always say that i should just do stuff by myself, even if it's something that you would normally do with a significant other. in some cases, that is outright stupid. there are some activities that if you try to do them alone it's either pointless, boring, or just plain depressing. while there are plenty of things i don't mind doing by myself, and that includes going to the movies and having dinner at a restaurant, i still draw the line with some stuff. as i was looking through Groupon for activity ideas, i came up with a list of things that i need at least one other person to do with me in order to make it fun. so this is basically me letting my friends know that i want to do these things and we can do them for cheap! so lets schedule awesome times!!!!

things to do:

ride a gondola, obviously kinda romantic but could be fun with friends

jump around like an idiot at one of those Sky Zone places, even though it's mostly for kids

go kart racing, i will seriously kick all your asses at this

paintball, more of a group thing than just 2 people

ride in a hot air balloon, doesn't have to be romantic but you can't have a fear of heights

take a trip to Catalina Island and do whatever it is people do there, maybe ride a Vespa

visit the Queen Mary, possibly around Halloween since i know they do special stuff then

do one of those movie in the park events, it's basically a picnic which you cannot do alone cuz you creep everyone else out

i also wanna learn how to shoot a gun and go to a shooting range, just to try it out. i like action movies so it makes me curious if i would be good at it. maybe get some FBI style sunglasses and a stick-on mustache. come up with a fake name like Burt Macklin but for a girl. so i guess Berta Macklin. but that doesn't sound like a hot chic. i don't know, i'll figure it out by then.

i've been doing PaintNite already but i'm always up for more.

so come on, you guys! lets do this!

Fighting anxiety with joy

     As I mentioned in the previous blog, I've had a history of panic attacks since last Fall. When they first started, the thing that calmed me down the best was being hugged by somebody close to me. Even then it could easily take 30 minutes before I started feeling like myself again. I met a doctor who told me to pick an object to focus on and just breath deeply. That kinda helped but I still could have really bad attacks where I just couldn't stop these negative, worrisome thoughts that there was something physically wrong with me which was at the root of all my panic attacks. If I had any amount of heartburn or stomach pain it felt like I was having real heart problems. I kinda think that if I could had gotten a full cardiac work-up done, it may have allayed my fears and reduced the severity of my panic attacks. But I didn't know for sure what was going on with my body and the attacks just kept coming.

     Then one day I bought a dog. Actually, I texted my mom late at night with the phrase, "I need a dog now!" She found one for my by the next day. That's how I got Axl. 

He is the cutest little pomeranian. He was only 2 months old when I got him. He was so small and fluffy, I could just die. In general, having him in my life instantly made me calmer and happier. The first time I had a panic attack after I got him, it was really bad. It just kept coming back all night. I ended up in tears, hugging my roommate and she finally put me on the floor and made me do breathing exercises. After a couple minutes Axl came over and started licking my forehead. He made me laugh and my panic attack was dramatically reduced instantly. From then on, if I had a panic attack at home I would just go play with Axl and focus on how cute he was and how happy he made me feel. My panic attacks were getting shorter and shorter. 

     I found that even if he wasn't around when I had a panic attack, thinking about things that made me happy or laugh made my panic attacks stop. It started to become longer and longer between attacks. It had been over a month since I had had one when I was at the CIrque Du Soleil performance of O in Vegas and had such terrible heartburn that I started getting a panic attack right in the middle of the show. I took what I had learned from my experiences with my dog and just focused on the joy of the moment. The show was amazing and just focusing on it and how much I was enjoying it was enough to make it stop in less than a minute. And that's when I really started to realize the power of joy to overcome anxiety. 

     The other day I was looking on Pinterest and there was this picture:

And it made me realize how much I love the phrase "joie de vivre." It has such a wonderful meaning.

So when I was in yoga class and they asked us to focus on a mantra, I chose "joie de vivre." It put a smile on my face and made me feel warm and calm. 

     I have never been someone who makes goals for my life and five and ten year plans. I've never really known what I would say if I was asked those questions in an interview. At the most, right now my goals are to graduate from grad school and pass the boards so I can work as a physical therapist and do something I actually love doing. But I have no specific goals for which city to work in, or which place to work at, or what kind of promotions I want to get in the future. I would like to get married and have kids, but I don't think you can really call it a life goal. I don't know if it's how I see goals or how I see the world. But life just seems to fluid and mysterious. You can't plan every major life event. So if I did have to have a life goal outside of school, I think it would be to try and live every day with joie de vivre. With that as my goal, who knows what amazing things life may throw at me. And hopefully I will be making the most of every minute. 

Fight or Flight... or panic

     it's been awhile since i've been on this thing. school has been crazy. as in driving me crazy. but now that the semester is over i finally have the time to write about it. i often use this blog for a little catharsis. and if my catharsis can help anybody else out there, then great.
     to explain the semester fully i have to go back a little bit. as i have mentioned in previous blog entries, i am in a grad program for physical therapy and had decided to turn the 3 year program into 4 years with what is called the "flex program." it came about when i started having real problems with anxiety. when i went on the program i knew that in the 3 rd year you have a part-time semester where you are supposed to work in an internship 3 days a week and take classes 2 days a week. i really wanted to spread this semester out somehow because i knew it wasn't a good idea to try and do so many units (18) again. but at the time the head of the department told me there was no way to flex it and i just had to do it.
     i thought i might be able to do it. after a semester of anti-depressants that brought me back to myself with the help of therapy and a lighter schedule, i felt much better and was back on top of my school work. the following fall semester i ended up not having any classes because of the way they set up the flex program. it's very hard to explain on here. because of this and the fact that the following semester i would only be completing "incomplete" classes, i lost financial aid and my school health insurance. this led to me not being able to see my regular therapist and psychiatrist who gives me my anti-depressants. during the semester off i was feeling great (since i wasn't in class) and decided to just go off of the meds.
     the following spring i was still off of the meds as i completed my "incompletes'' and did just fine. I stayed off them during the summer when i took my summer full-time internship and did great. i felt like maybe i didn't need to take the meds again. i even had half the summer off before this fall part-time semester and was able to be really active and lose weight. i was nervous about the upcoming semester but figured that since it took a year and a half of taking 18 units to make me super anxious the first time, that i could probably make it through the semester.
     the part-time internship was at a setting i didn't want to be in again at a place that was the last place i should be. we only had 45 minutes for initial evals and 30 minutes for treatments and they kept stressing how important it is for me to be efficient and that not everybody passes the internships there. just what i needed, additional stress on top of a naturally busy semester. the courses added up to about 12 units by themselves, which is my natural limit that i have discovered over the years. this would be hard for even the calmest of students. even with extra time on tests, this was going to be more than a struggle.
     i won't go into the specifics of all my issues with the internship that came up over the first half of the semester. i've already bitched enough about it with my school friends. but the stress levels were rising fast. faster than i was even realizing at the time. by midterms i was having sudden crying fits regularly and didn't have time to make myself real meals. my mom came up the weekend before midterms to feed me and give me some leftovers for awhile. i came to the conclusion that things needed to change. i started talking to different teachers about it. by the time i had finished midterm week i had cried in front of 6 teachers within a week.
     the day after midterms i called in sick to the internship so that i could go see a dr and get a prescription for my old anti-depressants and make appointments with my therapist and psychiatrist. i was so busy that i felt like i didn't even have time to do that before. the day after that i had a meeting with the teacher that runs the internships about how i really wanted to back off on the internship so that i could focus on the classes. i ended up having a conversation with him and the head of the department and they both wanted me to try and push through. i felt like they weren't really listening to me or believing me.
     during that meeting i started to have stomach pain that only got worse as the day went along. in the middle of the night around 3 am i woke up with indigestion and couldn't fall back to sleep. by 4 am my tossing and turning in bed had gotten really bad and i was feeling really anxious. all of a sudden i felt things i had never felt before. my whole body suddenly had a hot flash with sweaty hands and i starting to feel an intense tingling sensation all over my body with pressure in my chest. as i started breathing hard and grabbing for my phone my heart started racing and pounding so hard i was convinced i was having a heart attack. i called 911.
     i was home alone that night since my roommate was out of town and had to try and walk to the door and unlock it as i was feeling like i was dying. but the front door of this old house would get jammed up and i had such weak hands that i couldn't finish turning the lock. the paramedics had to break the door in. by this time both of my hands were cramping which only made me more convinced that i was close to death. the paramedics were amazing and checked out my heart and tried to calm me down. they saw that there were no abnormalities with my heart and were trying to explain to me that it was a panic attack and that i had to breath slower and calm down. this felt nearly impossible.
    i remember being so grateful that they were there and taking such good care of me. i kept thanking them over and over again. they guy who sat with me in the ambulance did his best to distract me with conversation so that i could calm down. i wished i could have him hold my hand and stay with me till my parents met me at the hospital. but he had other places to be and people to save. i ended up alone in the hospital as my brother and mom drove to me in the early morning.
    there were three waves to this panic attack. they literally came hourly and each one was not quite as bad as the one before it. i didn't leave the hospital for several hours. i was tired and wired at the same time. i needed sleep but knew i wasn't going to get any for awhile. and since this attack occurred in the middle of the night, i was afraid to go back to sleep. i went home with my mom and brother to my parents place with the agreement that i not do any work for the rest of the weekend.
    eventually my teachers at school found out about my attack and we had a meeting where it was agreed that i would drop the internship and focus on the classes and that i would redo the internship in the summer. and even though a giant weight was lifted off my shoulders, i still was having daily panic attacks. they would happen in class and then i would have to take an ativan which would pretty much make me fall asleep in class. and then they often happened either when i was trying to fall asleep or in the middle of the night. eventually i was put on stronger and longer lasting sedatives that stopped the panic attacks. the problem then was that while i still had a lot of school work to do, now i was tired all the time and didn't hardly have the energy to do the work.
    eventually the classes felt a little easier and the panic attacks were staying away with less meds. i was talking regularly with my therapist and she kept pointing out that i would use language that implied that i was a victim. she focused on my interpretation of the events and that i'm not a victim, i just have had a specific reaction to a specific kind of stress. but it was hard not to feel like i was under attack by my classes and teachers. it was hard not to see them as big jerks that were trying to put me through hell on purpose.
    when i'm under stress i get little relief from sleep because i end up with regular stressful dreams and nightmares. the ones where i was getting stressed out in class or in the internship were easy to interpret. others just left me feeling anxious when i woke up. i tried not to think about them too much.
    now the semester is over and the dreams have decreased but a movie i saw recently made me think about them. for the first time i saw the movie The Hunger Games. To be honest, it's a little too similar to my nightmares. this feeling of being under attack, hunted, chased, on the verge of dying were common themes in my dreams. it makes sense when you add the language of being a victim. the feeling of stress when you are under attack and go into fight or flight mode is the same as the stress felt during grad school. maybe some part of the brain can't tell the difference and brings these dreams and perception of being a victim about when i'm just taking courses in a program i signed up for. i chose to go through this. i chose to be here in this program with these people. but after being stressed for so long, i just felt like they were constantly attacking various aspects of my being: ruining my health and confidence and putting my future in danger if i didn't pass my classes.
     i haven't had a panic attack in awhile but i often find myself worrying that i could have one. i know it does me no good, but it's hard not to worry now that i know it can happen. i focus too much on the way my chest feels or how my hands feel. if something reminds me of how i felt that first time, i perseverate on it. it takes a lot of work to redirect my thoughts and get out of that place. i feel that this will be something i will be working on for some time.
    but the semester is over and i will not be taking any more finals for grad school. just internships left. and i have a new puppy that brings so much light and happiness into my life. he pulled me out of a panic attack once just by licking my forehead as i lied on the floor. i've found a lot of peace through my relationships. i am so grateful for my family and friends. they not only listen, they make me feel loved and understood. i hope i can provide the same support to them as they provide for me. and i hope that anyone else out there who is going through the same kind of thing that i went to has the same kind of support i had. no words of wisdom yet, just wishing you all strength and love.

Samsung Galaxy S4 cases

I recently got a new phone which means I need a new case. I'm very excited to find out that Society 6 started making S4 cases!

http://society6.com/cases

so below are my top choices, but it's so hard to choose.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

What do you think?

sigh :-/

     i'm having one of those weekends where i can't bring myself to do the work i know i need to do. a couple weeks ago was my spring break and i got done all the things that absolutely needed to be done right then, and then i just couldn't do anymore. i got frustrated trying to plan a hang out with an Orange County friend who just ended up blowing me off. kinda wasted a couple days waiting to hang out with him. but i relaxed and couldn't really bring myself to do anything else.
     and then last week was my first week at a new internship doing physical therapy with kids. it's pretty great but pretty exhausting. it's a really physical job and so many of these kids have cerebral palsy and they have all this tone in their muscles so when my boss/teacher is trying to teach me by having me do range of motion and muscle tests with them, i'm just working against all this resistance the whole time. by the end of the day i am completely spent.
     but of course there are always a million things coming up and i should be working on several things right now. but i just can't seem to do any of them. i just wanna stay in bed all day. i did make a few easter eggs look like characters from The Watchmen. that was fun. but then i watched the most recent episode of How I Met Your Mother and had a good cry. i think i'm bummed out a little cuz with all the stress of dealing with grad school, i have no one to come home to. sometimes i think a pet would help. but i don't know if my "roomie" (she is currently subletting a place in san diego but all of her stuff is still here) would let me get one since this is her dad's house.
     and i'm so over dating. i've been on so many dates for so many years. i'm tired of it. and i don't have a ton of free time to spend finding guys to date in the first place. i just want someone to come home to. i wanna have someone to watch movies and tv shows with. i wanna have someone to curl up in bed with every night. and i really need someone who can kicked me out of bed and get me to do the work i can't seem to do right now. sometimes it would just be nice to have someone hold my hand as i weather the storms. cuz grad school can have some really shitty storms.
   actually, for last week i have been crashing at my parents' place since they live closer to my internship. there are definite pro's and con's. i love them so much and it's so great to spend time with them. but it's a little crowded there. i'm actually staying on an air mattress in their office. it's not super comfy which is why i spent the weekend at my place so i can sleep on my bed for a few nights. i don't get work done at my parents house cuz i'd rather spend time with them. but then i come home and i'm too tired and bummed to do work here either.
     no solutions, just a countdown to summer. and thinking about the countdown only stresses me out cuz i think of all the work that needs to get done before then. ugh, being an adult sucks. wish i could just built a fort and act like a kid for awhile. but again, i wanna have someone being a kid in the fort with me. and i really could use a massage after sleeping on that damn air mattress. sigh :-/

where to live

            Sometimes I wonder how my life would be different if some of the technology and social media available today had been around just 10-ish years ago. When I was 19 in 2002, I tried moving to NYC to dance. It quickly became too difficult to be out there by myself. I was very stressed and very lonely. There was no facebook, skype, or the fancy smart phones to share texts and photos in a heartbeat. It seems a lot easier these days to stay in touch with loved ones who are far away than ever before. I wonder if I would have stayed in NY longer. If I would have stayed till I actually got into a company. If I could have become comfortable there with the life of a poor dancer working odd jobs to help pay the rent. Who knows what kind of different friendships and relationships I could have had there.

            I think ultimately I would have ended up back in California anyways. When I was younger I didn’t think about getting married or having kids. They seemed like things that could get in the way of a dance career. And when I realized I would be happier without the dance career, I started to think about those things. I know realize that I do want those things. And I came to the conclusion that if I could have it my way, I would probably stay in California. Not because the state is amazing or there is a city here that I just have to live in. It’s because my family is here. My oldest friends of 20 years are here. If I’m gonna get married and have a family someday, I wanna do it in driving distance of them. I want my children to grow up around them.

            I know that with this economy, people can’t be too picky about where they live. I know that when I finally graduate from my physical therapy program, I will probably have to move to wherever my first job happens to be. But if I get a choice, I want to raise my family near those most important to me. So I guess I’ll just have to see what life has in store for me. I used to think it would be romantic to move anywhere to be with the one you love. But you get older and realize that there are a lot of people you love. Hopefully I’ll get lucky and find someone I can start a family with here.

update, i'm 30 bitch!

Today is weird. Life is weird. My mind is all over the place but I feel like talking (or writing) so we’ll see how this goes.

            School started back up again. Back to life, back to reality (that’s a Dylan Moran quote). So I was really nervous about being in a classroom with 94 people I didn’t know. Luckily the one person I did know is awesome and introduced me to all these amazing people. The new friends I have made are so sweet and fun to be around. I only knew them a couple weeks when several came to my birthday party. I’m still a bit tentative when it comes to school in general but it’s a million times better than it was a year ago. I’m taking fewer classes but I’m still at school all day long and it’s exhausting. But having less pressure when it comes to grades is making a huge difference right now.

            Sometimes living in this culture is exhausting. It’s looked down on if you aren’t productive and always working hard. Sometimes I like being sick (like I am today) because it’s the only time when people tell me I “should” go home and rest. Guilt free relaxation and all it took was a little virus. I’m naturally the sort of person how wants to have relaxing, unproductive days at least once a week. It’s lovely. But only when I’m sick is it acceptable to sleep all day, watch DVDs in bed for hours, and eat yummy snacks. Sometimes I think I was supposed to live in Italy. Why can’t we all take naps in the afternoon, stay up late drinking wine with friends, and go hang out all day eating gelato and enjoying beautiful architecture and art? Maybe it’s the artist in me, the one that needs to “feed my soul” and live my life for pleasure more than productivity. I don’t want to be remembered for my career. I want to be remembered for my loves. I get weighed down by too many “should”s and get tempted to run away to Europe. Maybe one of these days I will find a way to go back and forth between here and there. Till then I will have to settle for my “me” days and tell the world to fuck off.

            My 30^th birthday party was a blast. I had never thrown a party like that before with all the decorating and the planning. It was actually fun dealing with all the details of it. I did learn that you could, in fact, use scissors to the point of pain. I’m still tender to touch on this one part of my thumb. It was amazing bringing friends who didn’t know each other together. Made me realize what amazing taste I have in friends. Some of the people who couldn’t make I genuinely am not unhappy with, I just would’ve loved to have their company that night. But there are some I am genuinely unhappy with.

             I guess I thought of my “bar friends” as being real friends. But apparently most of them can’t be bothered to hang out with me unless they happen to run into me at the bar they already were planning on going to that night. It’s not like I was asking them to drive 100 miles for some random, inconsequential hang out. It was my 30^th birthday. It’s a big one. And then, on top of not going to the party, most didn’t respond to the invite at all to let me know either way, or even wish me a happy birthday. I’m sorry, I just assumed that our “friendship” meant that they respected me enough for that kind of courtesy and thoughtfulness. It makes me never want to go to that bar again. Which isn’t hard considering it is now 40 miles away. I was gladly driving there and figuring out sleeping arrangements so that I could see them fairly regularly, but I guess that effort was in vain.

            So I’m here, feeling about the same as I did before my birthday. No big answers figured out. Not quite living the “grown up” life of other people my age. I’m not married. I don’t have kids. I’m still living off student loans and help from my parents because I’m too busy with school to have a job that allows me to be fully independent. Not that independence is all that it’s cracked up to be. Regardless of how I depend on them, whether financially or emotionally, I will always be dependent on my loved ones. I know I never want to be too far from them or go too long without being in touch with them. I have to start thinking about the big internships I have coming up next year. There are a lot of clinics in different states that I’m sure would be easier to get due to decreased competition for them, but I can’t bear the idea of not being in driving distance of my family and closest friends for more than a couple weeks. So I’m really only looking at the LA area, Orange County area, and San Diego area. San Diego wouldn’t be perfect but I could drive up on the weekends or have visitors there without it being a giant headache.

            Still nothing figured out when it comes to love. I have no idea who I should be with. I feel like whenever my friends think I should be with someone it’s cuz they see how similar I am to that person. But I don’t wanna date myself. I don’t want someone too similar to me. But since I don’t know what I want, I’m stuck with suggestions and hints that make me uncomfortable. I was watching the movie Seeking a Friend for the End of the World and found myself identifying with this one aspect of Kiera Knightley’s character.  She said she had parents who were so perfect for each other that she couldn’t bring herself to marry anyone who wasn’t as good a match for her as they were for each other. I just haven’t felt remotely close to finding the right match yet. And I’m the sort of person who, once I have figured out that I can’t see myself ending up with someone, won’t just stay with them so I’m not alone. I can’t do it. So I’m always alone.

            It would be nice to finally have a date for Valentine’s Day. But I’m not gonna go out with someone I really don’t want to be out with just so I have a date on Valentine’s Day. Having a crappy date with someone I don’t like seems like a much worse time than hanging out by myself at home. If I can hang out with friends instead, great, but I don’t wanna hear them complain about being alone on Valentine’s Day. I don’t wanna hear someone who always has a date for it complain about the first time they don’t. It’s childish to think that that day can’t be worthwhile without a date. It’s just another day. And if you’re a girl who likes the color pink, then at least you get to be surrounded by pink things everywhere you go. And you get to laugh at the people who take it too seriously and just end up ruining it for themselves. Having had a lifetime of no Valentines, I think I’ll know how to appreciate one when it comes my way. So, to my friends with Valentines who give them chocolates, enjoy. And I’ll help you finish those, if you want.

            And I’m really looking forward to having cable and internet again. The old system ran out last week and the new system doesn’t get set up till Friday. And using my phone as a “mobile wi-fi hotspot” is a pain in the ass cuz I really don’t get good reception here. Now, I think I’ll go spend the next three hours trying to watch one of my favorite tv shows online :/

the color yellow

     i will be moving into a friend's place soon. she will be in san diego for the majority of the first four months i live there, which is fine since i'm used to living alone. i'm looking forward to living there. i like her. i like the area. for the most part, i think this will be really great. there are only a couple downsides. the traffic to school will increase. but, whatever. what i'm looking forward to the least is how yellow and orange her place is. she has painted the entry room/dining room bright yellow (like, burn your eyes bright yellow), the hallway is bright orange, and the living room is white but the giant curtain is bright yellow so that when sun shines through it the whole room is yellow.
     she loves the colors yellow and orange. it helps that she can wear those colors without looking like she should be in the waiting room of a hospital. they make her feel happy and energetic and i guess give her warm summery feelings in general. i have always hated them.  intensely. apparently, as a toddler my parents tried putting a yellow dress on me and i made a disgusted face and immediately started pulling it off. i can't explain it. i don't have any intense negative memories connected to the color. but it makes me so uneasy and just agitated in general.
     the weird thing is i can really enjoy those colors on things like leaves and flowers. i can enjoy a field of poppies or a tree filled with yellow leaves about to fall to the ground. but i never wanna wear the color or see it on buildings. hints of it can work in artwork. but i don't want to have yellow and orange be the colors that surround me. recently i wore a halloween costume that had some yellow in it. my dad was amazed that i wore anything with yellow. but it was halloween, i was only gonna wear it once, it was super flattering, it was of a character i loved, and when i wear it while drinking i really don't have to look at it that much. but the idea of trying to relax in a room that is yellow at the end of the day is making me a little nervous. i don't know how well i will be able to put up with it.
     i know its her place and she has the right to paint it however she wants, but i'm worried that i will end up hiding in my room a lot just to get away from it. i kinda wish i could at least change the curtains in the living room to a light peach color. just to bring the amount of yellow down some. i don't know if i will confront her about this or just try and put up with it, but it is literally the only thing i am worried about when it comes to moving in with her. it seems so silly, but i have such a strong visceral reaction to that color.
    i was looking up stuff about color psychology and how people perceive the color yellow and it seems to be one of those colors that you either love it and it makes you feel amazing or you hate it and it makes you feel awful. it has even been shown in studies that people are more likely to get into arguments in  yellow rooms and that babies have a harder time falling asleep in them. and, it causes retinal fatigue faster than any other color. i personally often just feel like i'm being attacked when i'm surrounded by the color.
   so, like i said, not quite sure what to do about it. i'd like to live there with her at least till i'm done with grad school. i can only hope that i can live there without it really becoming an issue. it would suck if the color yellow ruined a perfectly good living situation. at least my new bedroom won't be yellow. sanctuary!

the big three-oh

     i turn 30 this winter. i wanna do something a little more special than normal but figuring out exactly what to do isn't easy. there's a few problems. one of which is that i live in Pasadena now and have some friends in the LA area, some friends in the orange county area, and my best friend all the way out by lake elsinore. i'd love to get as many of them to go as possible but finding the right location isn't easy. my orange county friends don't often go up to LA so i'm tempted to find a good spot in orange county. i want it to be a place where we can get dressed up, dance and have fun. i also really want to make sure there is no cover charge.
     there's also the problem of knowing when to do it. my birthday is at the end of january and the past two years it's been hard to get my school friends to come out for it cuz it's a few weeks into the semester and they often complain of being tired or having too much to do. so i was thinking of having it before the semester starts. this would mean it would be january 4th or 5th. but january 5th is my best friend's 29th bday. she doesn't know what she will want to do for hers yet. i'm hoping it will all work out. i absolutely don't mind having it be a double bday party. i don't care if we are both wearing tiaras and inviting a ton of people, i'd just rather find a day when she can come than a day when she can't.
    since i wanna have the drunken celebration early in the month, a few weeks before my bday, i figure i should still do something a little special the weekend of my bday. i've recently gotten into anti-gravity yoga. it looks something like this:

although it will take me awhile to get the arm strength to do this:

swinging like this is super fun!

and this is one of my favorite parts:

it's like being a cocoon. and it's so comfortable to just lay in it. i wish i could have my own to play and lounge in whenever i wanted. maybe one of these days...

anyways, it's made me realize that i would love to eventually take aerial classes like hoops, trapeze or silks like this: 

i also found out there is a place in LA where i can actually take a lesson on a flying trapeze like this

i realized that anti-gravity yoga would be a good place to build the arm strength i need to move on to these classes. so i think it would be really cool to take a trapeze  class for my 30th birthday. and if any of my friends wanna come and watch or even take the class with me, that would be awesome. and then obviously i will need some wine afterwards. i just think it would be a really cool, unique, fun thing to do for my birthday. i doubt i will be very good but at least i can say i tried it and i may even do it more than once.

so, if any of my friends have any suggestions on where to do the celebrating in early january, please let my know. hopefully it will be a fun night with good friends and good drinks. and if i can't see everybody that night, hopefully i can schedule special hang outs with the friends that miss it. i just wanna have some memorable times with my favorite people in this world.

adorable baby's 1st birthday

my favorite little girl turned 1 today :)

Happy Birthday Madilyn!

reading about religion 6 (Buddhism)

    ive been looking forward to this chapter. i think it was the most talked about religion in my childhood with my new age parents. i love the movies Little Buddha and Seven Years in Tibet. i've read the book Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse. and lately ive been following the Dalai Lama on Twitter. i think part of what is so appealing about it is the way the Buddha is portrayed. i grew up seeing all the depressing images of christianity. all the artwork is so dark and sad and Christ is always on the crucifix or about to be on it looking sick and hungry and beaten. but in Buddhism the Buddha is just sitting around with a smile on his face. and then there's the Laughing Buddha. adorable! the artwork is so beautiful and peaceful. love it.
    so the chapter starts off with the story of Siddhartha who becomes Buddha. i recommend seeing the movie Little Buddha for this. it's beautiful and shows the story well. plus it shows lots of other aspects of Buddhism. plus Keanu Reeves plays Siddhartha. what?!? he goes from being a prince born in luxury who becomes an ascetic who starves himself for his spirituality and then finds The Middle Path. he becomes The Awakened One. he was sitting under a tree and vowed to stay there till he figured out "the secret of our everlasting wandering from rebirth to rebirth." after 49 days it came to him. he saw that all things are impermanent and ever changing and we suffer because we wish the world were otherwise.
   buddhism is a lot like Hinduism in many ways. they both believe in reincarnation and karma. and they both want to be free of the cycle of rebirth because this world is full of suffering and happiness is only temporary. in Buddhism the problem with the human condition is the karma-fueled cycle of life, death and rebirth (samsara, same as Hinduism) but the solution is nirvana, which means extinguishing suffering. according to Buddhism there are Four Noble Truths: life is marked by suffering, but suffering has an origin, so it can be eliminated, and the path to elimination of suffering is the Noble Eightfold Path.
   The 8-fold path includes: right understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. that all sounds like a lot of pressure to me. to be "right" about so many aspects of your life. but it all comes down to "be kind, be wise, be mindful." that i can work with. it's the idea that human beings can solve the human problem on our own, without help from above. there is an emphasis on experience over belief. in fact, Buddhists don't see Buddha as being divine, he was a path finder and Buddhism spread because it had a powerful story. Buddha "taught his listeners not to be seduced by the authority of any text, tradition, or teacher (even himself), but to discover for themselves how to live an authentically human life."
    There are three main branches of Buddhism: Mahayana (which is very similar to Hinduism and is the most popular because you don't have to be a monk to reach nirvana), Theravada (where you do have to be a monk to achieve nirvana but if you aren't you can get merit towards a better life next time), and Vajrayana which is also known as Tibetan Buddhism and is the one the Dalai Lama practices. Tibetan Buddhists use mantras or sacred chants, they have reverence for the lama (guru or teacher), they have many practices that are passed down in secret from lama to student, and they have practices that are derived from Tantra. you might be surprised to find that most Buddhists don't meditate. much the way Hindu's have devotion to the God of their choice, some Buddhists show devotion to the Buddha (there are many) or bodhisattva of their choice.
   there are some ideas in Buddhism that are hard to explain and even harder to grasp. they say there is no self and no soul. which gets kinda confusing cuz, then, what are we talking about here? and then there's the idea of emptiness. it sounds daunting and depressing but it really isn't. it's freedom. i'm not gonna try and it explain it cuz i wouldn't know how to on here. so if you wanna learn more about it, just go look it up. but there is an ''implication of emptiness that we are all already Buddhas. It is the dualistic mind that sees Buddhahood as something different from us." they say that nirvana isn't something you have to wait for until you are dead. you can reach it here in this life. and that being a Buddha is not being an "omnipotent spiritual superman", but becoming a true human being.
   the idea of empitness says that there is no distinction between samsara and nirvana. it says that nirvana is inevitable. it is already here. "all we need to do is step out of the closed either/or mind to open the heart of emptiness. Samsara is nirvana if you just accept things as they are. ...There is nowhere to go, nothing to wait for. This is it." there is another great part of the book that says "you can't get to nonduality with the dualistic mind. You can't think your way to nirvana; it comes when you are out of your mind." i love that. sorry if that was hard to understand, the idea of duality and nonduality is not something i wont to go into here. i learned about it in my Mysticism and Meditation class at OCC. this might seem strange and foreign to a lot of my christian friends and relatives, but it's the most familiar religion to me. in a lot of ways i totally get it.
    i wanna learn more about Buddhism, i especially wanna get some of those books from the Dalai Lama. i love his peaceful smile. it's funny though, sometimes when i read his tweets about always being kind and patient with everybody i find myself thinking "you've never driven in LA traffic." i'm not sure if i will ever call myself a Buddhist, but it's a lot more likely than me calling myself a follower of any other religion. and now i wanna watch Little Buddha again. wish i had it on DVD.

adorable baby videos #4

more adorable videos and pics of madilyn!!!

and now an adorable video of madilyn and her momma :)

in this last one madilyn is playing with her toys and being adorable, but at about 3:40 she snores!

cutest baby girl ever! :)

my body hurts

and it is gonna hurt a lot more tomorrow and the day after. i took a real dance class tonight for the first time in who knows how many years. it was a beginning modern class at a studio in Burbank. although i've done years and years of modern dance, i'm so out of shape i knew i wouldn't be able to finish an advanced modern class. overall it was a very positive experience. very fun and it felt great to dance again. but man, am i gonna be hurting tomorrow.

so about 30 minutes into the floor exercises we were doing this stretch

and then when i brought my right leg down my right butt cheek started cramping. that was fun. so then i had to dance the rest of the class with one sore butt cheek. plus by the end of class i could feel a blister forming under my big toe. i could literally feel the fluid moving around in it when i was standing. gross. plus i always sweat buckets. and by the end of class i had a bright red face. it looked like i had managed to severely sunburn just my face. 

i miss dance class :)

so i found that it's still hard to find modern classes in LA. i know Lineage Dance in Pasadena and Dance CoLab in Burbank offer a few, but i'm not sure of any others. so if you know of any other dance studios that teach good modern, not contemporary, let me know. 

reading about religion 5 (Hinduism)

i finally finished the chapter on Hinduism! man, i got distracted from that for awhile. ok, here we go.

     Hinduism is that religion from India with all the Gods, including the one that has a head of an elephant. finally heard the story behind that, just a lot of unnecessary decapitations if you ask me. anyways, it's a very old religion and has gone through many changes over the years. Stephen Prothero called it the least dogmatic and the most diverse. i like the sound of it so far.
     some Hindus say there is really just one god, some say there are many gods but one supreme god, some say there are many gods and they are all equal, and some say there are no gods. there is shared scripture in The Vedas, a shared sacred symbol called Om, and a sacred center Varanasi in North India. there is no founder and no current leader. they have no shared creed or mechanism for excommunication. i have to say, i like the idea of no leader. too much power in one person's hands in not a good thing.
    the problem with the human condition as identified in Hinduism is something called samsara. this is the vicious cycle of life, death, and rebirth. Hindus see reincarnation as a problem: "this world is a vale of tears, and whatever happiness we might cobble together here is transitory and impermanent. Even heaven... was created and will be destroyed, as will whatever gods reside there. The Hindu goal, therefore, is not to escape from this world to some heavenly paradise, but to escape from heaven and earth altogether." the Hindus call this goal moksha.
     i'm not sure how i feel about that idea. it feels like a better goal than i have heard in other religions, but i don't think it would be my goal. i like this world. it's beautiful. and the happiness is only really noticed in comparison to sorrow. it is the hard times that make the good times so special. we human beings have a tendency to get bored when everything is going well and create problems for ourselves. if we had the opportunity to always be happy, wouldn't we just screw it up? plus the things i live for the most are the people i love. what if your loved ones don't go with you when you escape? wouldn't you miss them? wouldn't you want to all leave together?
   there are three other goals in Hinduism: 1) kama - sensual pleasure, 2) artha - wealth and power, and 3) dharma - duty. but moksha is the ultimate goal. there are three different yogas (disciplines to getting moksha): 1) karma yoga - discipline of action (ritual actions), 2) jnana yoga - discipline of wisdom written down in the philosophical scripture the Upanishads, and 3) bhakti yoga - discipline of devotion - all you need is heartfelt devotion to the god of your choosing.
    Hinduism is big on rituals and storytelling. the two main books of Hindu stories include the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. the first one is incredibly long (much longer than the Bible) and includes the famous Bhagavad Gita. the stories in both are very dramatic and entertaining. both have been turned into cartoons, miniseries, and comic books in the modern age as a way of getting the stories out to the younger generations. i kinda wish i could see them.
     the explanation behind reincarnation is the idea of karma which refers to moral action and consequences. consequences flow from actions without any supernatural intervention. no one is judging you and deciding your fate. it's just cause and effect. and when you die you die with a combination of good karma and bad karma. so when you die there are good actions awaiting reward and bad actions awaiting punishment.  so you are born into another body and the cycle continues. another idea i like, just kinda makes sense to me.
     in Hinduism there is something called maya which is a veil of illusion that we look at ourselves and the world through. it keeps us from seeing that human beings are not different from divinity, we are one. "The essence of the human being is the same as the essence of divinity. ...The individual soul is divine. The essence of each of us is uncreated, deathless, and immortal." to know this is to achieve moksha. but it's not enough to believe, you must experience it. (sounds like a job for hallucinatory drugs)
    this idea behind what the soul is and it's connection to the divine and God, i really like. i think i have always felt that way. but i'm not sure i can get on board with the goal of moksha. doesn't seem like something i wanna work towards. but then maybe i'm just not ready.
   one thing i wanna look up more about is this one goddess he mentions in the book. her name is Durga and she rides a tiger or a lion while carrying many (up to 18) weapons and is fierce for righteousness. she slays the buffalo daemon of chaos. that just sounds awesome! i also wanna learn more about Gandhi because he barely mentions him in the book.

time off and loving it

     so as i have mentioned in earlier blogs, i have this semester off of school. i had a bunch of ideas of what i could do with my time and i haven't been very good at doing them. i'm procrastinating and delaying and avoiding like crazy. even when it comes to writing this blog, i put it off and do other unnecessary things. i keep not reading the 2nd half of the chapter on Hinduism from the book God Is Not One. there's something about the idea of "needing" to do something that makes me wanna go watch a tv show i've seen a million times. i must really need a breather from stress to be acting this way.
     i realized the other day that i have been focused on school and stressed out by my classes for 8 years now. the past two were the worst because now i'm in grad school. i remember being in undergrad taking my 2nd semester of physics and being in the middle of a total shit storm and thinking "well, it can't get any worse." but it can. that class was so bad, the only reason i got an A was because i did so much better than the others in class that what should have been a C got curved up to an A. i'm so glad those engineer majors had no idea what was going on.
     but when i really think about it, i've never really been truly lazy with nothing to do. ever since i was 3 i wanted to be a professional dancer. when i was 9 i realized i wanted to be a professional modern dancer. i was always working toward that goal. i was always dancing. even during my long summers off of school where i would spend all day watching tv in my pajamas, i still had to go to dance class that night. always working towards something.
     when i realized i didn't want to be a dancer anymore it came with the realization that i wanted to go to school to be a physical therapist instead. no year off to backpack around europe. no odd jobs while i lived with 7 roommates by the beach. i just jumped right back into it. and i went hard at school. not only did i have to get a degree, i had to take all the requirements to get into the grad program. that meant lots of math and science classes. there's a reason why i didn't get my BS in 4 years. it was a long road.
     and then right into grad school. i remember that first day at orientation, it was early and i was really tired and the head of the dept was doing a really good job at scaring the crap out of us. i literally sat there in denial thinking "well, this doesn't apply to me cuz i'm not really here and this isn't really happening." wow, what does that tell you? they spent an entire day talking about how stressful it is and all the different things they have set up to help you with that stress. and i thought "you really need ALL of that?" yup, they really do.
    so i'm actually getting time off and i genuinely don't want to do anything. it took me awhile to get up the nerve to start taking a dance class where i'm just helping out since it's a dance class for people with Parkinson's disease. but i get so uncomfortable with new situations and environments that i put it off for a few weeks. i didn't know what it would be like, and what the people would be like, and how the drive there would be, and where i would park, and if they would actually want me there. i over think everything. i worry constantly.
    i've been thinking about taking another dance class that is a modern class but it's at a different dance studio. i've never been. don't know how to get there, where to park, what to wear, or how to act. i don't know if i'm fit enough to even finish the class or if my body will give out half way through. just the drive there and back alone makes me anxious because i haven't done it. i don't know the tricks of where to turn, where i can get gas, where i can pick up a snack, the exact route back to the freeway. when i was younger and living with my parents i would have them drive somewhere with me either the first time i had to go there or we would do a dry run ahead of time and i would be the passenger so i could look for signs and really see everything without the pressure of having to be the driver. i get so worried that i will get lost.
     i get like that with other things i have to do too. i have to get some intern hours done. but i don't know the PT that i would be working with. i don't know the days and hours. i don't know if they will let me work part time so i can still make it to the Parkinson's dance class every Wednesday afternoon. i don't know if it will be stressful like school or laid back. i don't know how much they will expect from me. i don't know if i will like it and come home everyday glad that i went or hate it and come home everyday wondering when i can stop going. and i just hate not knowing. so i stay home and watch tv.
     all i really want to do right now is hang out. see a movie. get a meal and drinks with someone. watch a good show. listen to music. that's it. when i think about the semester coming up, i get anxious. when i think about getting back into it, i worry it will be just as bad as before. and when i hear my other classmates talking about classes i have to take a year from now, i get very anxious. they are so stressed out. just over worked and so tired. i'm really not looking forward to that. i just wanna stay in this lovely bubble of laziness as long as i can.

making fun of Emmy fashions

i thought i would make fun of a lot of the clothes seen on the red carpet last night since everyone else is too. what the hell, right? you will notice i am only making fun of the women. as long as men wear a suit i really don't give a crap. i'm also staying away from making fun of the wives and dates of the nominated, they are just there for support and don't need to be made fun of at all.

amy, i like you and this was almost great. but it's not flattering around the waist, it's showing every bump. i'm not saying you need to loose weight, but you can find a dress that is more flattering than this one.

chick from Mad Men, way off on this one. the shape of the dress looks like something from Dancing With The Stars and the pattern of the dress doesn't match it at all. i don't think the shape would work for this event, even in a better print. and i don't think the print would have worked for this event, even with a better shape. all kinds of wrong.

ashley, i'm not a fan of the dress but i'm more turned off by your hair. it's awkwardly tall. it should be at least half the height it is. wow.

glenn, bad idea. you may have thought the pattern on the front would have a slimming effect, but it doesn't. it's way too much and totally awkward. it's like all these crisscrossing arrows trying to draw our attention to different parts of your body. and the pattern underneath the crisscrossing, and the weird bottom of the dress. oh, it is just way too much. you look like a mermaid tangled up in dark seaweed and oil.

heidi, you are a beautiful woman with a great body, but two giants slits up the leg is a bit much. especially with the plunging neckline. i'm ten years younger than you and i wouldn't do it. one split is plenty. i don't wanna worry that i'm gonna see whether or not your kids were a c-section while i'm watching you on the red carpet. you don't have to cover up like the chick from Big Bang Theory, but lets try and pick one area of the body to show off at a time. it's just sexier that way.

julian, that's a lot of mustard. maybe if the color was on a different dress or that dress were a different color it would kinda work. but this is just gross. maybe it's just me, but there is something so unpleasant about that color. and to have that much of it in one spot would make me wanna turn away from you the second i saw you.

chick from Girls, i really only like this dress from the waistline up. but to have that lace pattern all the way down with that full of a skirt isn't very flattering. just makes you look really wide. i feel like an entirely different bottom of the dress wouldn't have been best. and please, try and smile occasionally.

chick from Game of Thrones, you look like a fortune teller at the Emmys. now i don't really know you. so maybe that is just how you dress on a regular basis. but if it's not, consider losing the black mesh poncho thing and just wear the dress underneath it. please!

Lucy, ive never really cared for you. i've never liked you in any roll you've done and in general you seem like a rather unpleasant person. so i have no problem telling you that you look ridiculous. like some sort of prostitute robot from the future. granted, a fancy prostitute robot, but still.  maybe the bodice would be ok if it didn't look like the whole thing was covered in washers.

chick from Raising Hope, i really like you on that show but this doesn't work. it doesn't look like it fits you right. there are wrinkles and folds all over the place making the dress very unflattering on you. that's the problem with shiny material, it shows every imperfection, whether it's yours or the seamstress's. the general idea behind the dress is good, it just looks like it was sewn by a blind woman on crack. 

phoebe, i have no idea what you are known for or why you were at the emmys, but this is just bad. first of all, please tell me your face is not frozen like that, because that expression will give me nightmares for a week. the flower on top is way too much, it's what you would see on a little girls church dress. and then the awkward shape of the bottom is too much. i don't need to see that much of your legs, the lining of the dress, or those orange shoes. too much!!!

this is the only dress i really loved and made me wish i could wear it. 

sarah, i love you and you always look great. keep up the good work. and if i ever figure out where you live you are gonna have to put a lock on your closet :)