An update on an update.

I looked at a draft of an update that I wrote after the first week of teacher training and I didn't remember writing a word of it. I was addressing my earlier concern about being self-conscious in teacher training, and the conclusion I reached was: I'm too tired to care! Which is a relief, and kind of a fun place to be. Now with two training weekends down and the third about to begin, I'm excited to wear myself out again. It's inversion week, so I expect it to be exhausting. Then it's back to Muncie for one week of cold hard reality before Spring Break. Unfortunately with all these trips to Chicago and a big fat check I have to write to the IRS, I won't be heading anywhere exotic. I'm hoping when I get back here Sunday night the snow will be melted and the sun will be shining for the rest of the school year. I'll use the week to catch up on reading and do a nice long practice every day...I hope. I'll also have 100 papers to grade.

MC, y'all! A trip to Ohio.

Last week there was a new Louise Erdrich novel and this week was the Mariah concert, so I am brimming over with excitement. I haven't even gotten to the book yet. I did make the trip to Columbus for the concert and it was a delightful hiatus from reality.

Wednesday afternoon three strange men helped me push my car out of a snow bank and I was on my way. It was a sunny day with no snow, so the drive was quick and easy.

My lovely hostess Heather lives in a neighborhood known as Victorian Village, so I was swooning all the way into town. I need to live in Columbus! Right away! There were beautiful homes, excellent restaurants, and high-quality yoga studios.

Poor Mariah had a cold, but as she said, "The show must go on!" The crowd (or at least the crowd around me) was a little quiet, but it was still a fun show. It was hard to be back in my office Thursday afternoon just like a regular day.

Someday I'm going to have a dress like this:

Abominable Snowtown

I'm grateful for yoga teacher training for a lot of reasons, but an unexpected one is that by being in Chicago, I've missed both of the big snowstorms we've had in Muncie this year. This is what I came home to Sunday:


I had to use my keys to hack ice off the screen door handle. This was at 11:00 p.m. with all of my bags hanging off of me because I had to park on the street and wade through the snow with no boots on. I didn't want to make two trips.

Before the first weekend I'd wondered what kind of dummy voluntarily makes four trips to Chicago in January and February, and imagined the nightmare scenario that the weather got so bad that I couldn't make it to Chicago. So far that hasn't happened. Knock on wood.

Tomorrow I have my big trip to Ohio to see Mariah. It's been snowing all day and will tomorrow as well. Wish me luck digging out my car!

Two Training Weekends Down, Five To Go

I've spent some time in the last couple weeks thinking about what I'd like the focus and tone of this blog to be. The final decision: yoga updates, book reviews, and anything else that I feel compelled to share. The tone: enthusiasm!

I should give a little update on my prior posts. I was nervous that I would lack confidence when it came to speaking up in class and having my body looked at. I'm happy to report that I haven't been. I was only nervous because I wasn't sure what I was walking into. It's a small group of kind, supportive people. At this point in life, I don't have much to hide. I am so ready to grow and feel forward motion that throwing myself into a mildly uncomfortable situation feels good.

The concern du jour is this: I teach four sections of the same English class. By default, I go over the same material four times a day. Some parts of the class are repeated more than once per section (things like homework and essential tasks/concepts). I spend a lot of time feeling like a broken record. So imagine my disappointment when it came up in yoga teacher training that there's a huge need to come up with different ways to give instructions because you will wear out on saying the same things over and over. Rats! This is one thing I probably could have anticipated if I took the time to think about it, but I preferred to think that teaching yoga is going to be the panacea for all of my little dissatisfactions. That's not realistic. But I'm still really happy to be doing what I'm doing. I have a few more of these little reality checks to write about in future posts.