upgrade

i went to my new school for the first time today. it was kinda fun, in that nervous-unsure way starting something new always is. i picked up my ID card, went to an interview and used the library for the first time. let me tell you, i have definitely hit the majors. i imagine this is what guys feel like when they leave scranton/wilkes-barre and show up at yankee stadium: there's a palpable sense of BIG LEAGUES when you walk through the door.

i love learning. it's why i went into an intellectual discipline for my career. and though i loved the hell out of my law-school experience, it's supremely exciting to be set loose in this marble playground for the next year. i'm bound and determined to soak up every single drop that i can while it's my sole job to learn tax law in this legal-education paradise. it's a new feeling to me to have the best in life laid at my feet. i'm a teacher's kid. i went to public school in the deep south. i graduated from a state university for undergrad and law school. but this? oh, man. this is a cathedral of legal learning. the doors this will open for me should be pretty nice ones. i should be able to reach a much higher level than i would otherwise have been able to reach. i am grateful as hell, and i'm going to make the most of this.

it's a big damn deal. i'm open to this. let's go get it.

chia-like, i shall grow

thanks to a random act of bloggy generosity, i went to a wine tasting today. (thanks!) it was just the sort of thing i used to love to do in my old life, the one thing i liked to do for myself in the time when i wasn't myself. i really like good wine, learning about it, discovering new blends, vintages, vineyards, etc. after i went to the tasting, a new friend and i went to dinner at one of my favorite places in this town. dinner on the patio, right there in the smack middle of the crazy busy city that i love so well.

tonight, for the first time since all the weirdness began a few years back, i finally started to get a sense that a corner has been rounded. yeah, the next few months are going to hurt like a bastard. there's no getting around this. but there are little green tendrils of hope sprouting in my life. i'm starting to prove to myself that i, alone, can forge a life. i knew this intellectually all along, mind you, but there's a huge element of fear attached to making a change of this magnitude. i can now look at myself in the mirror and say, "self, you can do this. look; here's the evidence." with careful attention to detail, and a willingness to cast off the reticence and just freaking DO IT ALREADY, this will happen.

hell. i got myself a law degree in the midst of all of this. if i can do that, i can do ANYTHING. i can emerge from this fog, blink into the sun and get a freaking LIFE, even if it happens a decade too late. those little sprouts will become a pretty nice garden if i tend them right. tonight was the first step. let's do the damn thing.

seven days

i've finished seven days of "yoga month 2010: the en-sleek-ening." i'm really not sure what i think at this point. the classes themselves are great. the results? eh, mixed at best. i'm feeling a little stronger, and the poses are coming more easily, but i'm not sure it's translating to quantifiable weight loss (or qualitative toning/shaping/etc.). that's frustrating as hell, given all the work i've put in. but there are 23 more days to go, including today; there's time yet to improve.

physical improvement programs have always caused me angst and grief. first of all, it's annoying to be a girl-type person and lose weight. boys lose weight at a rate that's startling to me. my favorite sports blogger lost 50 pounds in 3 1/2 MONTHS. that is SO not fair. it took me damn near a year to lose the same amount of weight, doing largely the same sort of thing. grrr.

but biological gender difference aside, sigh, i think there's an inherent expectation among the high-achieving in the world that everything should come easily. i am SO guilty of this. i expect to be able to master anything i try quickly, largely because that's always been the way things have worked for me intellectually. (god, that sounds arrogant. but it's the truth.) but as much as i've achieved with my mind, i have struggled with sports, exercise regimens, etc. that kills me.

so this challenge is not only physical, it's attitude-related as well. i need to push to show myself that results can happen if i try hard enough. hell, i got into my dream grad program. i can sure as hell stick to an exercise regime. and i might even get something out of it as well. i hope, anyway.

down dog

the intensive 30-day yoga program is on. today will be day 4, and despite a persistent mild lower-back strain from still not being able to bring my legs out of a shoulder stand in any type of controlled manner, i am feeling pretty freaking awesome. the scale's a little lower, yes, but my mind is very clear, and that's the real benefit of all of this.

i'm not super-enthused about the spiritual aspects of yoga. i don't really like chanting "om," or talking about being in a space of god, or all that. my feelings on the sky-daddy thing are well documented. but leaving all that aside, there is something really mentally freeing about a 75-minute yoga class. i don't know if it's psychosomatic or real, but i have my theories. mainly, i think it's that yoga forces me to devote every ounce of mental and physical energy to the practice. check my balance, check my breathing, etc. i need to be dragged kicking and screaming out of my own head every once in awhile, and bridge pose makes that possible.

i've started reading hannah, just breathe... more regularly, and she does a fantastic job of encapsulating this sort of thing. better living through yoga and all that. i've started and stopped with yoga probably 10 times in the last decade. it's finally starting to click with me what the point is. that'll keep me coming back for sure now.

and hell - it's almost swimsuit season, right? :)