Jai Ma!

Hi, it's been like, 8 years since I've posted.

The holidays are over!! I like the holidays, but once they're behind me and a new year is upon me, I am often glad that we're through for a while, and routine returns.

School starts this week (omg) and my client hours slug along. What a dip I've experienced! Between the holidays and the massive snowfalls we've had (love!), client hours have come to somewhat of a standstill. Ruh roh. Hopefully they'll pick up again as the new year rolls in and I'll be more-on-my-way to graduation. THIS YEAR I will be a graduate school graduate, assuming all goes well. I can't believe I started this journey two years ago and am already in my final year.

My latest 'thing' is Yogaglo. Man, am I into it right now! It's a website that posts classes recorded in a California studio - and for a low price per month ($18!) I can do all the yoga I want! I've been wanting to create a home practice while really loving the class atmosphere; this seems like a really nice meet-you-in-the-middle practice. Lots of classes to choose from, with varying levels, styles, uses, lengths, and teachers.

I'm a Happy Baby!

On the calendar for 2011-BhaktiFest, Joshua Tree, California, September!!

Into the bhakti, into the bhav!

December

Good morning!

It's Sunday morning and I'm waking up slowly. We had a great time at a holiday party with all my Groovy UV's last night, our partners, and all the tinies! Between 5 of us college friends and our partners, there are 7 little ones, and they could all win for cutest kid on the planet. The newest addition to the group is Marion, who is 3 months old and doing great :)

My sister made stromboli (that was gone in seconds), other additions to the table were roasted chicken and potatoes, pulled pork, chicken wings and wasabi sauce, salad, mashed sweet potatoes (we brought those. Mix them with a bunch of sharp cheddar...so good), oh and some really tasty cornbread muffins. The host's 'signature cocktail' was a pomegranate martini, complete with seeds garnishing the bottom of the glass. Even my virgin one was awesome :)

We...didn't go hungry.

The plan is to do this every year. Can't believe it's taken us ten years to get this going!

Spent yesterday morning working on a paper for my class next weekend. Still have a few pages/ideas to go. That should happen today, along with some errands/Christmas prep.

I really love this time of year.

Next year, I will REALLY love this time of year, because I will be DONE, yes DONE, with school.

Come, they told me, ba rum pum pum pum....

Or new born kind to see, ba rum pum pum pum!

Mid November Check In

Again, it's been a while.

We're coming up on the end of another year! Come January, I'll be in my last year of grad school :)
6 months into my clinical sequence, I think I may be adjusting to the...hecticity (! Wow. See what's happened to my brain?) I feel the tiniest bit refreshed, surprisingly...since nothing has changed regarding my schedule. Perhaps it's the new, crisp season ahead, and the holidays upon us.

I watched an old, good friend get married this past weekend, which may have revived me, in a way. Nothing like the celebration of love to restart the heart! My own honey has been wonderful as I've crashed my way through grad school. Always a supportive presence, always watching out for me. He's taught me lots of things, but right now, one of the most important things he's taught me is...about the importance of sleep! Totally valuable lesson for me these days.

Speaking of sleep....it's alread 9:30 and I still have a few things to get to before climbing in.
Goodnight!

I PASSED!

Acorns Away!

I'm always a little sad when my Peanut goes home. We had a nice weekend! Started out Saturday morning with a trip to the city. It was a beautiful fall day, cool in the morning, warming up in the afternoon. First stop: his new office. I love seeing where people work; it's so much easier to talk on the phone with someone if you can imagine them in their surroundings. Grabbed a coffee and a Milano. Next stop: Indian restaurant for chicken tikka (my favorite) and Vindaloo (one of his favorites) and about 8 pounds of naan (bring it on). With full stomachs and an Indian-food stupor setting in, we sauntered around the city, stopping at a little Indian market, the Open Center, and the farm market at Union Square. Saw some good looking produce, bee-buzzing-honey, and pumpkins galore. In addition, I was sort of blown away by the amount of crazy people we witnessed. I'm sure there are just as many crazy people in the suburbs, but it just manifests differently or something. Took a mid afternoon train home and ran a couple of errands before making dinner and calling it a night at my place.

Woke up early to get on the road for a birthday breakfast for my sister. Some family members were missing due to other commitments, which was weird because it often feels like I'm the one who can't make family gatherings for one reason or another (ahem, school). It was nice! The rest of the day, B and I lounged. We did manage to go grocery shopping so at least I'm ready for the week.

Can I just say...it was a BEAUTIFUL THING not having to study this weekend! See, I left out that I took the comprehensive exam on Tuesday of last week! Four months of prep work, and it's over. Now, please pray that I passed! We should hear in a couple of weeks. Please God, please God, please God! That was a TIRING four months of my (and my poor boyfriends life). However, during the time I had to study I also started my crazy clinical training schedule, so part of my exhaustion was/is also from juggling client hours between two sites.

It's been so long since I blogged, and I'm sure I have more interesting things to talk about, but for now I have dishes to do and pajamas to put on and all that good Sunday night stuff.
Hopefully tonight I can sleep through the noisy acorns that have been falling onto the roof, rolling down it, and bouncing off my decks, front and back....

The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics...in Action

More accurately, my closet is teaching me about the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics this very moment. If you saw it, you would scream! It's the classic scenario: the closet is literally stuffed to the gills and I stand there every morning complaining about having 'nothing to wear'. It DOES take a finite amount of energy to maintain an organized closet, and I'm totally all out!

Anyway. Back to the other stuff...like my exam coming up in two weeks, and class starting back up tomorrow (honestly, where did the summer go? I didn't even see it while it was here). I am logging some good hours at my internship sites, though, so at least my anxiety about having enough hours to graduate when the time comes has been somewhat reduced.

This coming weekend is Labor Day weekend; yay for the long weekend! I'll be with clients part of Saturday and studying throughout the 3 days...and the fun things my boyfriend and I have planned are a birthday celebration with friends of ours we haven't seen in a long time on Sunday and a kirtan on Monday. Jai Uttal and Krishna Das will be there; we've seen Krishna a bunch of times (and it's always great) but Jai, we've never seen! We were talking about the kirtans we've gone to in 2010 and so far we've seen David Newman, Krishna Das, and Dave Stringer. I don't think I'm leaving anyone out? Last year we saw Krishna, Snatam Kaur, and Bhagavan Das. Bhagavan takes the cake for most far out. It was an experience. Did I ever talk about it?

The birthday celebration reminds me; we had my birthday celebration with my family this past weekend. I got some very nice gifts :) One being a new CamelBak water bottle that I constantly carry with me. I also got some sweet Kat Von D perfume. I love her! She rocks. I just got some cool things this year...including a Kindle (waiting by the mailbox!) and a Swatch watch (that was from my honey.)

I think it's too late for me to try to make any more sense, so...
G'night!

2nd Law of Thermodynamics

A principle from physical sciences, aka the law of entropy.
This law postulates that all entities tend toward a state of decay. Every system will have a maximum structure that, over time, erodes. And every system has a finite amount of energy to maintain itself at that maximum structure. For example, the organization of a closet. Over time, it will become messy. The amount of energy it takes to main the high probability state of an organized closet uses more of the finite energy a system has vs. the energy it takes to maintain the low probability of the homeostasis of a messy closet.

A) This will be on my test in a couple of weeks. B) I have no idea what that says. and C) When I pretend that I do know what that says, it is somehow eerily representational of my life at this moment. I am maintaining my maximum structure with a finite amount of energy and I think I may become a bit of a messy closet shortly!

My schedule is idiotically crazy, as it has been for a little while now and it seems to be gaining crazy-momentum. Juggling work and driving here and there and making appointments and phone calls is one thing. The other thing...the harder/hardest/most painful thing, is managing the constant anxiety I am feeling surrounding my sessions with clients. I am so so so so SO NEW at this and boy, is it clear to me.
In general, I consider myself (after some hard work over the years) a confident person. In this moment, in my clinical training, I am experiencing a big blow to that (goodbye ego, whatever was left of you!) The second guessing of my abilities and extremely low self confidence is sort of taxing. Even though I recognize the process and know that whether or not I'm good at being a therapist doesn't determine whether I'm good or not at being a person, it's still totally brutal feeling like I'm sort of sucky at what I'd really like to be good at.
My saving grace is that before I started seeing clients I read in one of my textbooks somewhere that these exact feelings, these serious check ins about my capabilities will happen. I will find myself experiencing anxiety, changes in eating habits (great) and sleeping habits (no!!) and major doubts in my competency.

I wonder when it changes?

I ordered a book from Amazon today called "Doing Family Therapy: Craft and Creativity in Clinical Practice" by Robert Taibbi. While it looks like a great guide for the beginner therapist, what sold me on it was one sentence about being afraid but doing it anyway...