Here’s a sweet quote from a book I’m reading, The Hotel On The Corner of Bitter & Sweet:
I have mixed feelings about this post. Part of me doesn’t believe in New Year’s Resolutions because I don’t believe that we need one more thing in our lives to beat ourselves up over for not “getting it right.” But, the over-riding part is all about goal setting (or “new moon wishing,” for those in the know 
). Last year’s resolution was inspired by Brene Brown and it was to “live with courage and whole-heartedly.” I went to therapy, started reading self-help books and practicing the techniques, developed a home practice, spent a lot of time talking and listening to the voices in my head (“archetypes”, for those who are into new moon wishing) and started to accept and love my whole imperfect self. Whole-hearted living isn’t exactly the sort of thing that you can “achieve;” it’s a practice, so I’m still working at it, but I do feel good about the changes I made in my life.
Speaking of changes – my dear teacher, Jean, told me over break that only 8% of the population keeps their New Year’s resolutions and that is because oftentimes people want something, but they’re not willing to change to get it. I took a look at my goals for 2012 and then took a step back to see what needed to change in my life in order to achieve those goals. I decided it all comes down to food. This is a big deal for me because I don’t cook and haven’t cooked, or gone to the grocery store in three years (and really, let’s be honest, I haven’t cooked in five years, but at least I went to the grocery store while living in Japan). According to my mother’s theory, I can read, therefore I can cook, but I know that in practice it doesn’t always work this way. So my New Year’s Resolution is all about food – learning to shop, learning to cook, learning to eat well and nourish myself in this way. I made a concept map of all this – food/herbs at the center, with lines drawn to the areas in my life that I think can be supported by food, with lines drawn to the goals I have for this year that are supported by the things that can be supported by food. It’s nuts. I know it, and Linds told me so when I showed her. But she also encouraged me to post in online so that people could see my crazy. I wasn’t really into this idea, because I don’t typically want anyone to see my crazy, but then again, that’s part of the practice of whole-hearted living, and, you know, accountability. Damn – two New Year’s resolutions in one.
Here’s my crazy. Be gentle! And Happy New Year and thanks for following!
I really should be studying for my last exam today, but let’s pretend that, by taking a break, I’m somehow consolidating and committing that information to memory.
One of the big changes for me this semester was learning how to feed myself. Typically, when left to my own devices, I will eat granola bars, yogurt, peanut butter out of the jar, apples/oranges and cereal. They’re quick, they’re easy, they transport well. On the rare days when E didn’t prepare all three of my meals, eating like this wasn’t so bad. But, I figured that a semester of that nonsense would result in some serious malnourishment, so I begged E for lessons before I left. I have to say that I haven’t put most of what he taught me to good use (around week four, I gave up and added “grain + frozen veggies” to my quick, easy, transports well diet), but I have been making some pretty simple/awesome soups.
The beginning is always the same: Sweat down an onion with salt. Then I add in whatever kind of soup it’s going to be and water (pipe stock, as they say in the industry). Then I ignore it on the stove for about an hour, season it (if it needs it – E was very good about teaching me to use salt. Hypertensive crisis you might say? Delicious, I say), let it cool, blend it to perfection (I used to mock E for his fancy food processor, but when my broccoli cheddar soup came out looking like broccoli nachos, I went out and bought a blender).
Here are the soups I made: Top left – broccoli cheddar, top right – butternut squash, bottom left – beet, bottom right – cauliflower. There was also a pretty awesome black bean chili, but I ate that before I took a picture of it (not for lack of opportunity – I literally ate that every day for two weeks straight).
If you’re interested in learning more about E’s views on soup, go here.
Just had to share this really sweet moment from this morning:
My clinical group and I went out to brunch at Bella’s today in celebration of finishing our Med-Surg rotation. Beth had to have her car jumped before brunch, and when we came out it had died again.
Sarah: Oh no! I don’t have cables!
Beth: It’s okay, I have cables.
Sarah: Oh great, why don’t you just drive your car over to the parking lot [where my car is parked]?
Beth: Um…
Me: She can’t.
So Erika drove her car around and pulled up alongside to jump Beth’s car, but couldn’t figure out how to pop her hood. Beth and I were trying to explain where the lever might be when a man came up to us and asked if we needed any help. Beth seemed like she had a handle on things, but the man was a mechanic and so she accepted. He got everything hooked up and the car started and we all thanked the man. My car needs an oil change so I asked the man where he worked.
Man: Oh, I don’t work as a mechanic anymore. I used to be one, but now I’m a nurse.
Me, Shelly, Sarah: OHHHHH! We’re nursing students!
It’s official: Nurses are awesome.
I went to an all-girls school. I think I made it to one Bellarmine-St. Francis game, during which I probably spent most of my time talking about other things with my girlfriends. In college we didn’t have much of a football team. No really, they actually had to discontinue it because there were too few players. Again, I think I made it to one LC game (the last one), where I think I probably spent most of my time wondering how/why the football and cross-country teams had managed to latch onto each other (they showed up to each other’s meets/games half naked in orange and black body paint). Suffice to say, school spirit and sports aren’t really my thing.
Now I’m in grad school and people are all abuzz about the Yale-Harvard game. I guess, more specifically, they’re abuzz about the tailgate before the game, but really it’s all the same. With the game just a little less than two weeks away, the really motivated people have been rallying support and selling Yale-wear. I just got an email about these shirts and they were too funny not to share. In case you can’t read the bar underneath “Step 1: Drop Out,” it says “Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Matt Damon and 69 others like this.”
Where's Waldo?
Happy Halloween! I used to view Halloween as an excuse to wear stuff that my mother would never have let me out of the house in (except for the couple of times I dressed up in my old uniform and did the Catholic school girl thing), but after freezing my nearly-exposed ass off in Portland my first Halloween, I decided that it just wasn’t worth it. I entered a new phase of costume-wearing: The cheap, practical, warm phase.
This year I went as Waldo. Not super original, I know. But I had the shirt, the scarf (thanks Steph for the wedding party favor!) and the glasses (yup, didn’t even wear my contacts out – doesn’t get much more comfortable than that) already, so I decided to knit myself a hat. I bought the cheapest yarn I could find at the LYS, Knit New Haven, and modified a pattern from my Stitch n’ Bitch book (modified = used fuzzy math). For the curious:
Supplies: One ball of red and white yarn (my guess is DK/sport – I misplaced the labels, but I did 24 st to 4-ish”), set of size 5 double pointed needles.
Pattern: CO 119 st; 1.5″ k2p2 (red); 4″ knit (alternating white and red every inch); place markers every 17 st; decrease every marker for one round, then knit one round; do this three more times; decrease every round until only 7 st left (cont. to alternate colors every 1″); loop yarn through remaining stitches and tie off.
My finished product was a bit big, but only by a smidge, so my genius idea was to wash it and then blow dry it, since supposedly wool shrinks when you wash/dry it. Somehow the hat expanded even more, but now it has this cute slouchy look that I’m kind of into. Stacey, the manager at Breathing Room, who also crochets amigurumi as her day job, said that I might have accidentally stretched the hat while washing/drying it and that I could sew some thin elastic into the band to help make sure it stays on my head. Great idea! Thanks Stacey!
After all this, I donned my costume and headed out for a night of fun at GPSCY, only to be evacuated 30 minutes later because of a fire alarm. With $8-$10 covers everywhere else, we ended up drinking $1 Mike’s Hard Lemonades (I stopped drinking these about the same time I stopped wearing slutty Halloween costumes) at a pizza shop and then called it a night. The good news? I was one of the warmer people waiting outside in the snow during the fire alarm.
And on the heels of that last post, the first snow!
First Snow
I left the house without gloves (it wasn’t snowing when I left), my car still doesn’t have anti-freeze in it and my winter jacket hasn’t arrived yet.
I think the snow makes it look even more like Hogwarts
Thankfully I had the good sense to throw on rubber boots and a hat before I left, and, even though it required some digging, was able to lift my windshield wipers off my car when I came back.
Fall into Winter
Even though my little Californian heart thought (hoped?) we had at least another month before this stuff started falling from the sky, I became enchanted with this place when I visited last winter and the spell still holds me now.
I know I just told my parents that, according to people who live here and know these things, we weren’t going to have much of a fall this year, but here it is, in East Rock Park.
I went to my first Ashtanga Primary Series class the other day – it was tough, although my friend told me there were a lot of deviations and I got off easy =P I don’t know what it is about Ashtanga – I don’t love the style and I’m not that interested in half the poses – but for some reason, I’m completely fascinated by it. So I decided to look up the official series and give it a go. Here’s how it went:
1. Like I said, I don’t love the poses, but the sequence really works for me. There’s some serious vinyasa krama going on in Ashtanga.
2. Somewhere in the last three months, parivritta trikonasana became easy. I used to struggle through it with blocks and sweat and tears, and then one day I could just do it. I’m going to go ahead and credit my teacher, Jean, with this miracle – she gave me a tip about freeing up my hips in the pose and it’s been totally different ever since.
3. Cheats: I picked up my back heel in parivritta parsvakonasana. I know it’s supposed to be down, but if you’ve ever tried it, it’s incredibly awkward. If some Ashtangi out there can convince me that there’s some benefit, maybe I’ll work on it. Similarly, I do not bring my hands together in utkatasana. Utkatasana is another one that’s already uncomfortable enough on its own and you don’t need to go and make it more uncomfortable by forcing your shoulders do things they don’t want to do.
4. Skips: I thought for sure I could do every pose up through kurmasana (which is why I initially planned to stop there), but it turns out that pretty much every joint in my leg is incapable of twisting itself into janu sirsasana C and marichyasana b and d. I spent a few minutes looking at the picture, trying to persuade my knees and ankles to cooperate, wondering if the pose was even humanly possible and then finally giving up.
5. Vinyasa: Speaking of skips. I think my dear friend and Ashtangi, Laurie, told me that you’re supposed to do a vinyasa between every seated pose on every side (so, side A, vinyasa, side B, vinyasa). There was none of that today. I did both sides and then a vinyasa. This is one area of the sequence that I’m not on board with. I’m not saying eliminate vinyasa from the entire rest of the series – some of them are very well placed – but it’s hard on the wrists and I feel like all those jump throughs/backs (and let’s face it, these are more like ass-plants and crumble backs for me) are fluffing my rajas and I’m not getting into the juiciness of the poses. Although, it’s probably fair to point out that while I’m winding down during these seated poses, real Ashtangis are only halfway through the Primary Series and technically have like four or five other series after that (not really sure anyone actually does all six series), so they’re not as concerned with preparing for savasana at this point.
6. Ass-plants and crumble backs: Am I ever going to be able to do these? Ever? Today I was able to drop myself (literally, drop) into a cross-legged seated position on the jump through (slightly concerned about my tailbone) and the jump back was more of a press back to my knees, followed by a face plant, followed by me extricating my limbs out from under me and into plank, much in the way a cat does when it falls (“Me? Ungraceful? I have no idea what you’re talking about.”)
End verdict: Still fascinated, but I’m not sure I’ll stick with it in its purest form. If any ashtangis out there have some tips or stories to share, I’d love to hear them!
It was a strange kind of birth. Up until the time I started to smell burning tissue – kind of like the smell at the dentist when they’re drilling on a tooth – it was mostly like something on the Discovery Channel. My friend, M, got to see a whole surgical team splattered by blood when the resident cut through an aorta (on purpose), but I was watching a laparoscopic hysterectomy on a video screen above the surgeon. The surgeon, himself, wasn’t even touching the patient; he was operating the controls of the Da Vinci – this multi-armed robot that was doing the actual dirty work. The patient, 46, had been unresponsive to various treatments for her fibroids and was now having her uterus removed.
For two hours, I had been watching the surgeon methodically sever the uterus from the fallopian tubes and surrounding tissues (moderately fascinating). They had also spent about two hours prepping, so I had spent at least four hours feeling very uncomfortable – not knowing where to stand, whether or not I was in the way or if it was okay for me to ask questions and if I could ask questions, then to whom. I had become so acutely aware of these feelings that it came as a bit of a surprise when the surgeon announced that he was done. All that was left was to pull the uterus and cervix through the vagina. He explained that he would do this by slicing the uterus into smaller pieces so that it would be easier to extract. As he said this, I found my attention sharpening, my uterus cramping, the way it does at a birth when the mother begins to push. After several hours of watching, waiting, holding space, it was finally time: I held my breath as the surgeon made two or three longitudinal cuts, turning the uterus into some sort of soft-bodied sea creature. Then, he instructed the resident to pull.
“Slowly,” he said, “You don’t want it to tear.”
I watched on the video as the uterus made its exit, the cut pieces folding over one another the way a baby’s skull bones fold over one another to ease its passage down the birth canal. At some point, the resident had to start over and the uterus tried to reclaim its former home, the way a baby slides back into its mother between pushes. Pull, pull. Hand over hand. Keep pulling. And then it was out.
“Did you get it?” the surgeon asked
“I did!” the resident exclaimed.
The focus then shifted to the uterus, the prize in all of this. Reflexively, I turned my attention to the patient. I never noticed that I did this in birth – there was so much going on and it was clear that the mother needed me. But, as I opened myself up to the patient, I remembered that she was asleep – bundled in pads and sterile sheets, cords hanging off and out of her. I thought about how she would feel when she woke up – tired, sore, happy to be done and glad it went well. My eyes shifted from the patient to the video, the video of the empty space that once contained her womb – the space that was once so full, now empty.
