When is yoga not relaxing?

I'll tell you when.

There I am. Clear mind. Slightly sweaty. Enjoying the music. We are doing sequences of downward facing dog, coming up to standing, extending our backs, stretching our hamstrings. Then we come back down to plank and push forward onto our mats on our hands, chest leading the way. As we begin to come down to the floor to begin the sequence over again I see it. On the corner of my mat. It is black and looks like a shadow at first. A shadow? I am confused. The music is still playing. I squint. SPIDER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I FLY off my mat, changing the energy in the room from calm and zen to panicked and alarmed. Holly is next to me being a good little student and flowing the flow. I almost knock her over in attempts to get closer to the wall thus further from my mat. People are staring. I keep whispering "oh my God, oh my God" and I can't stop. Goodness gracious, I'm not arachnophobic but I sure am close. The teacher has to come over, I explain with hand gestures and point to my mat. I am trying to be quiet but let's be honest, that ship had sailed.

She ends up having to fold my mat up (trapping the horrible creature) and brings it into the hallway, releasing it. She hands me my mat back but all I can picture is "it" crawling all over it, leaving a trail of disgusting germs and totally throwing me off my game.

The whole rest of class I kept feeling things crawling on me. I was just a little bit distracted. A few minutes would go by and I would forget about it. Then I would realize how good I was doing and therefore re-live it. Out of all the mats in class, all 20 or so odd mats, why, Mr. Spider, did you have to crawl onto mine? UGH.

The silver lining? Actually, GOLD lining because it was just that groundbreaking and should in NO WAY be overshadowed my by traumatic episode..... I DID MY FIRST HEADSTAND TODAY. Holly helped me. It was so cool. After months of yoga I thought I had enough built up core strength to try and it was a success :) I was so proud of myself!

So, I'm going to remember this day as the day I did my very first headstand :) and not the day I encountered a creepy crawler. I thought I would share! Now I am showered and exhausted. Goodnight to all!

Nyquil, you treat me well

Well there were a lot of things on the calendar for this weekend but my "allergies" turned into my first headcold of the year. Boo! So instead, I spent the weekend in my apartment. And let me just say, I am amazingly talented at entertaining myself. I watched a few movies--Eat, Pray, Love, The Last Song, Mystic Pizza and caught up on bad TV. I also reorganized my shoes that were turning into the second floor of my closet. Oohh.. I got some work done on my Nature Study paper. It's the science class Hil and I have together and to say it's painful would really be giving it too much credit. Our teacher is pretty OCD when it comes to format, word count, citations, etc. We are going a little nuts. However, ask me anything about langur's (monkeys) that live in central India or what kinds of plants grow in the rainforests in Ghana.... I'm your girl.

I got a little laundry done as well (well, that was the last little bit of expended energy before the cold really hit...) And I slept. A lot. 12 hour nights and two naps on Saturday. I felt like a bear going into hibernation.

Yesterday I spent my entire day in English building for our first all-day editing session for our literary mag that comes out in May. We were reviewing submissions and the writer in me actually didn't mind the long Sunday.

It's going to be in the mid-70's through this week. We have informal rush on Thursday and formal rush on Saturday.

Here's a picture from last weekend... pre-sickness! Senior girls :)

A good Wednesday night

Well, I am becoming more domestic by the day. Today, I opened my first cookbook (Christmas present from my amazing mother) and felt inspired. I decided to make dinner for the roomies. I was going to be good and go to yoga at 630, but the thought of a home cooked meal? It was just too enticing.

On the menu? Jeffory's roasted chicken, asparagus with brown butter, crusty sourdough bread and white wine. The white wine was a perfect choice since the chicken recipe called for a 1/2 a cup in the gravy.

I know how to follow a recipe, la la la. But the timing thing kinda threw me for a loop. When to boil the water for asparagus, when to heat the bread, what it meant by the liquid coming out clear. The brown butter was maybe getting too brown, the chicken had been sitting for a while, should I do anything with the soggy lemons? And Redlands finest grocery store, Vons, didn't carry spanish onions. I spent a good 11 minutes searching the produce section for this particular genre of onion with no avail.

Sans spanish onions....the end result? YUM. The rue I made had the (white) onions, lemon, and garlic that I used to roast with. Then I added chicken stock, dry white wine, a little flour and lots of salt and pepper. The onions got all withered and candied. The asparagus turned out perfectly cooked (even after I left them drying in the sink for too long because the rue was boiling too high and the brown butter was popping....) and the bread, which I accompanied with olive oil dipping sauce, was soo good. I didn't want to get up and tackle the chicken carcass or wrap up the bread so it wouldn't get hard. So I poured myself another glass and enjoyed our cozy apartment, the lit candles and my friends. :)

A good Wednesday night, I'd say.

1201 Party!

Our first delta party of the semester! All our girls who went abroad are back and it feels so good. Today we have a recruitment event from 11-1. Rush starts in two weeks and things are flying by quickly as usual. Its going to be 75 and sunny out today... no complaints :)

Winter break, best friends :)

Happy belated birthday to my favorites, Jackie and Abbie (unfortunately Abbie was all the way in St. Louis and missed the WA celebration...)

♥

Last first day of classes

It kind of has a catchy ring to it, doesn't it? Last. First day. of classes. Ahhhhhh. And the panic begins... haha. Not really. I've been making the daunting transition quite smoother than anticipated (watch me say this and then have a meltdown tomorrow... ha) BUT all things considered, college is college. I've had 3 1/2 years of it and to say I'm starting to get the "real world" itch would be very accurate...

This morning I had Nature Study, my last general ed class requirement. Hilary and I are taking it together, which makes it less painful. We have it at 9:30am which ended up being our first hurdle. Having come off a previous semester of no morning classes and a break of lazy days, we were walking to breakfast like nocturnal creatures confused by the daylight. A half an hour later, armed with mediocre drip coffees courtesy of the commons, we walked into what we thought was going to be a dismal science class-- surprise surprise, not that bad! The class is discussion/lecture based MINUS exams and no text book. No exams? No midterm? Only papers? That, I assure you, I can handle.

Hilary seemed less than thrilled. I do have to say our 73 year old professor, Dr. Smith, was pretty monotone. But he was intriguing enough for my last science class ever and the added gift of no exams makes my life a lot more pleasant. Other classes on the schedule: Lit Mag, Ceramics! (first art class of college!) and my senior cap stone (which is basically taking the raw material I've written of my novel and going through the never ending editing process. Joy.)

I am all about resumes, cover letters, letters of intent, networking, and editing, editing and more editing these days. Not all bad. Quite the change of pace! It is all exciting, at times anxiety ridden, but for the most part I've been filling my days with the prospect of something so new, so soon. LA, Seattle, Portland, San Diego, San Fran? I feel like Where's Waldo... we will see where I pop up :)

My new years resolution? To BLOG MORE. Goodness gracious, lately it's seemed so daunting to click my "blog" bookmark and type away. But I may have forgotten how good it feels to catch up with myself, unwind, and reflect.

I am back to a January of blue skies... this, a year from now (where ever I am), I will miss.