A qualitative study on the effects of yoga practice on entry level graduate student angst.

I sat cross legged on my mat (one eighth lotus because I apparently can't even manage a half lotus) with my eyes closed as per instructions. It was the first time I'd been back at yoga since school started up again. I have been so incredibly swamped this semester that I can hardly find the time or energy to wash my hair or shave my legs. Food is more from the frozen variety now.

My yoga instructor began to bring our awareness to our breathing and told us to leave whatever we carry with us throughout the day, outside. If only for an hour, we were to just let go of all those heavy things. And I was glad that our eyes were closed because the mere mentioning of letting go made me start to cry.

I don't get to let go these days. Not much anyway. Running helps me keep perspective, lifting weights keeps me aggressive, not much reminds me to let go. As a matter of fact, lately I feel like I have been just hanging on to save my life.

Yesterday a small group of us spent 7 hours in the forecasting lab on campus (yes, on a Saturday) trying to derive the equation for a sound wave from the governing equations for atmospheric motion. Yes, 7 hours without break. Occasionally one of us would sneak out for a bathroom break or to go to the vending machine, but the derivation continued on, ceaselessly.

When I got home I sat down for another two hours re-writing my mess of equations and trying to remember how on earth we had just done step 3. Nine hours. One derivation. If you've never been introduced to the wonderful world of derivations, let me describe it for you. You know how you've been told that people who are bad go to hell? Well that's where you do derivations for eternity.

You start with a set of equations (that you only vaguely understand) and you have to end with another set of equations that you've never seen before in your life (and 7/8 of it is in Greek). It's like a maze. You have a starting point, and somehow or another, an ending point. And somewhere along the way you have to combine equations for no obvious reason other than the book sort of mentions it, and then you do weird derivatives and then someone says "Hey, how many of you guys have taken Differential Equations?" And only one person raises their hand, so the guy sighs and says "Ok. This is going to get ugly" and you wonder how much uglier it can get than the last four hours.

And then you realize that is just one question out of the three that were assigned and it's due on Tuesday but your priority is actually the class that is teaching you how to write a thesis because there are 4 annotations due on Monday for research papers you haven't read yet, as well as 4 more annotations that you screwed up two weeks ago because you didn't know what the hell an annotation was.

Then you realize your Advanced Atmospheric Dynamics instructor has also posted another article to read before Tuesday and you have a feeling that on Monday night you will get a notification that you are required to be at a seminar Tuesday afternoon right before your Advanced Dynamics class which will alter your ability to read that damn research paper because in all honesty there are just not that many hours in the day.

And you can't sleep anyway because now you don't know how to synthesize across all your research paper annotations (that you did wrong anyway) and it's due tomorrow and the study group on Facebook has apparently shut down for the night.

So maybe you should read the chapter in the Unix/Linux book for this week, because, oh yeah, that needs to be done by Thursday.

But then you're laying on your mat, exhausted from an hour of yoga, and your instructor is playing guitar and singing in the most beautiful voice you have ever heard and you're trying not to cry because there's no crying in yoga, and eventually people are going to open their eyes and wonder what the hell is wrong with you.

Maybe it's like when people have been crushed and trapped under something heavy for so long that when they're pulled out by emergency workers, the sudden increase in circulation causes all the toxins that are building up in the body to be released into the bloodstream and it kills the person. Lifting off the heavy weight can literally kill someone. There's a thought.

One of these days, when I have the time, I will make a graph (by writing a computer program) of my stress cycle throughout the week and do a Fast Fourier Transform to see if it is indeed a weekly cycle, and I can post the Fast Fourier Transform as well. Then maybe I can do a 12 page derivation of how I got from the beginning of the semester to the end of the semester without gaining 30 lbs or turning into a hairy monster that never showers.

Suggestions for further research might include the effects of sleep deprivation on a 14 mile run, or perhaps the replacement of healthy food with only chocolate and cheese while keeping calorie counts constant. The author would like to acknowledge the efforts of the Meteorology Department for ensuring the continued crushing effects of thousands of pounds of steel and concrete without which the author would surely succumb to the inevitable release of toxins into the bloodstream.

Checking in....

You can probably guess why I'm checking in. Yes, it's because I have a ton of other things to do and can't really seem to get out of bed, so I can fool myself into thinking I'm being productive by posting a blog that is neither going to get my laundry done, get a workout in, or help me pass my classes.

I didn't sleep well last night and lay awake from about 1 am to 3 am for possibly no reason at all. Around 2 am I decided I would go to the 7:30 am yoga class but then woke up at 7:49 and that was that.

I've officially entered the grad program, having finally finished all my prerequisite physics and calculus classes- and hey, who cares about the prerequisite meteorology classes? We're just going to throw you into Advanced Meteorological Dynamics. Which is less about meteorology and more about differential equations. What? At least I have my computer programming skills going for me.

If nothing else, I have learned that grad school is no joke. 

I also just want to eat Trader Joe's mini quiches for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Everyday.

Oh! I just got back from Chicago, but apparently I'm too lazy to post a good blog post about it. But it was awesome. If they didn't have January, February, and March, I could totally live there.

I have plantar fasciitis in my left foot that is sending me mixed signals about what I should do about it (half marathon in November and full marathon in December). And now, suddenly, after several weeks of having a strange pain in my thumb joint, I now have a strange pain in my big toe joint. No apparent cause for either of them. Which has me more worried than if there was a cause. Everything I've googled has informed me that I am at the correct age to develop lifelong, horrific arthritis problems. My current strategy for those two things is to just wait and see if they go away.

I was just browsing around on Facebook, and one of the hotels I stayed at in the Dominican Republic is celebrating its birthday today (I don't know?) and it made me stop for a second and think that maybe I should just go there.  http://www.fiordilotohotels.com/

It's got an Indian flare as the owner grew up in India. But everyone speaks Spanish, so it's interesting. But it's very homey and familiar. The owner teaches yoga classes which you can attend while you're staying there. Sometimes they order food in and ask if you want anything. One of my favorite places I stayed there. I could really use that right now.

Fall

There's a chill in the morning air, even as the sun rises above the horizon
and traffic on the streets sounds different- like waves from the ocean.
I am flooded with emotions that defy any attempt at words
and the progression into fall reminds me
of the end of fire season,
reminds me
of losing my dad,
reminds me
of Christmas,
reminds me
of colder weather.
The cold edge of autumn tells me to hush, be still-
and I am subdued as memories are a kaleidoscope of colored glass
held up to the sun,
broken, disconnected, mirrored and rearranged
by the passage of time and the addition of new ones.
Leaves settled on the ground tell me
Breathe.
Hunker down.
Be silent.
My heart crouches in the shadows of memory
as I quiet my soul against the coming winter.
And I breathe.
Invariably
I breathe.