No wonder his movies tanked...

but hilarious nonetheless...

Too good not to share

What do I like?

This is a question I've been asking myself lot over the past week. I've been feeling a lot of unrest and dissatisfaction lately, and couldn't pinpoint where it was coming from. It got to the point where my personal life was bleeding into my work, and my advisor actually approached me and asked if everything was okay, because my efficiency and the quality of my work over the last 2 weeks have not been on par with what it normally is.

So, that's my cue to figure my crap out. I wrote earlier about how I felt I didn't know where my life was going and perhaps I was lacking faith. Through some prayer and conversation, turns out I just don't know what the heck I want anymore.

I live my whole life trying to fit into this ideal that may or may not be right for me. For example, I learn that a Biblical person does this with their money, and I decide that's what I'm going to do with my money. I learn that a good Psychologist does A, B, and C. I go ahead and do A, B, C, and D. I am told that someone who loves the environment is careful to pick up certain habits, and I make those habits a daily routine.

Which in some ways, there is nothing wrong with that, right? I mean, you SHOULD pick up tendencies, goals, etc. that are good and right. However,the problem is I never figured out who I was in the first place! I've gotten to the point where people ask me if I'm a city girl, and I really have no idea anymore. I think I am, but is that because of movies I've seen that romanticizes the lifestyle, or do I actually prefer the quiet countryside?

In yoga, whenever I try to correct bad posture or tendencies, a lot of times I tell people to just observe how their current postures or tendencies without judgement. Because in order to grow and to change, you have to know your starting point. From your starting point, THEN you can make the necessary adjustments. I have NO IDEA what my starting point is in terms of my desires, my dreams, and my preferences. Regardless of whether they are good or bad, I am completely at a loss.

So here begins my journey to discover my preferences. My goal is to only find out what they are without judgement. (I've even started a wall where I will post quotes, clippings, and pictures of things that I like). We shall see where this takes me!

For starters, I love a nice glass of wine with good friends:

What makes my Mondays

Hugging a 7 month old makes Mondays a better day...

Faith

Been dog-sitting the past week again. Here's the little dude.

He's a little cuddle-ho, but oh-so-lovable!
I've been kinda down lately for some reason. Feeling pretty discouraged about life, school, yoga, myself in general. Doesn't help that I've just been fatigued lately, no matter how many hours of sleep I'm getting. I guess there's just some things I've been struggling with, and I feel like I'm running and running with no end in sight.

I had the joy of catching up with one of my dearest friends in Austin this past week. Over happy hour, we shared with each other all that's happened in our lives since we last got together. She's been through a rollercoaster since I last talked to her. She had planned to pack up her life and move to Guatemala for missions when God closed all those doors and completely turned her life upside down by resurrecting and restoring a relationship that had left her broken over the last two years. Now she's completely confused as to what she's supposed to do, and trying to step out in faith even while being haunted by insecurities. At one point, she looked at me with this look of exasperation and said "Tracy, this faith is so hard. Packing up and moving to Guatemala, that's easy for me. Giving my life over to missions, that's easy for me. But staying in Austin and trying to follow God in this relationship - trying to trust Him and follow His lead - that is hard. That faith is difficult!"

I think I feel a lot of unrest in my life because I lack faith. I yearn for this ideal life I have fabricated in my mind, because in that life, it's easy to have faith and follow the Lord. To me, it's easy to have faith when I'm sleeping in the bushes of Africa or South America because faith is all I have. I feel called to the life I have now, but truth be told I'm a little confused as to where I'm going. And to muddle through my life, feeling lonely, not sure when and how God's promises to me will be fulfilled - that just feels like a constant struggle. But perhaps I've been expecting faith to be easy. I've been expecting to coast through my life, knowing exactly where I'm going. But perhaps I'm called to my life now because God's refining my faith in Him. He's teaching me that I have to turn to Him on a daily basis for direction, because there is no way I can find my way on my own.

I've always felt that my grad school years are a time of training for me to prepare me for something greater later on. But now that I'm in the middle of this time, I've lost track of what I'm supposed to be doing. It took a dear friend to remind me and set me back on track, and for that I'm so grateful.

Pa-pa-paparazzi

As strange as she is, I have to give her props for raw talent. I think she's one of the more talented Top 40 artists out there.

Life lately

A little jewel of a song I discovered today: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWT3K3LRlfw

I've been practicing yoga at Castle Hill this week. I finally had to make a decision to pay for classes again, but I really think the decision was worth it. Being able to get a daily practice in again with personal instruction has been invaluable. It also is making a difference in my teaching. As I'm having to make decisions about the fall already, I'm considering switching over to teaching exclusively Ashtanga. Not sure yet about what I will decide, but it's on my list of considerations.

But again, Castle. It's a delightful little gym in downtown Austin with a strong yoga program. Juan, the head of the program, is an Ashtangi. Thus, there is a traditional 6 day a week Mysore program both at 6AM and at noon. Each session is about 2 hours long, so I can usually fit in both first and second series (I'm only through half of it) which is nice. The best part for me (as a student) is that the classes are pretty small. When there are only 10 people or so, that's a lot of personal attention from the teacher.

I love that there are showers at Castle Hill. Makes a HUGE difference. The showers are nice bathroom quality showers, not the usual locker room showers. The lockers are free to any users and Castle also provides toiletries such as shampoo, conditioner, shaving cream, exfoliating wash, toothbrush, even spray on deodorant and a free towel service. I'll probably book a session with the acupuncturist (I have a coupon for that), measure my body composition in their little pod thingy, and grab breakfast one day at their little organic/natural food cafe.

Anyway, I finally resubmitted my meta-analysis a week ago and took a week off writing to catch up with the rest of my work. Then suddenly I got hit with a bad cold this weekend and am finally recovering and catching up on sleep again. Amazingly, getting more sleep is making me more efficient at school. Hmmmm..probably should take that lesson with me. Just have one more funding source to apply to tonight, and tomorrow I start writing the follow up paper to the meta-analysis. Hopefully as my body recovers and I adopt a more healthy sleep schedule, I'll be able to start adding more fun into my schedule again.

It'll be a good weekend though. I'm teaching my first Mysore class on Friday (so excited!) and will attend a little wedding reception Saturday evening. Sunday I'm going to kick-start my core strength with Matt B's core workshop at Kula.

I'm giving up caffeine

Attempt #5008 to give up caffeine.

I can't survive on as little sleep anymore, so I'm constantly tired and achy.

I even toppled over in the middle of demonstrating a posture in a yoga class I was teaching.

My ears have been ringing all day.

Caffeine is a dangerous, dangerous drug.