happy changes, break

I didn't do any school work all week until today, and I didn't do that much. I feel so good, I needed the do-nothing break so bad. I really needed it or I would have quit. As it was, I was skipping class like mad. My Weds classes got canceled and I skipped my Tues class (have to get notes from a classmate) so I had almost a week :) I am so happy. 

Over break (I will be in Ithaca the last two weeks) my advisor will be gone. We ran out of time to set-up a greenhouse experiment, so I will just do whatever her lab tech says to do, maybe analyze some data (good practice for when I have to do my own). She is super nice and not a workoholic like my advisor so that will actually be nice. It'll be just like working a regular job and I will have time to do lit review (I always have to do lit review, always. For the rest of my life, said Anu). 

One week of classes left! Two weeks for finals! And at the vegan meet-up today, we decided on a holiday party, it will be a day or two before I leave for Mpls and I'm hosting! Sadly Roman will be gone then (he leaves 2 or 3 days before me). What a relief. I can study now,  being able to see the end. It was just unbearable before, I really hated it and was too sleep deprived.

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Also my mom said she hated it when she moved, too, and it's normal and OK but I will feel different when I leave. I know she was depressed when she went to OR (in part because they get no sun) so I believe her. She would say if she thought it was just worthless, she implied that about high school (we went to the same high school and neither of us liked it! We handled it differently though). It's nice to get good advice from mom--the previous few times I had talked to her, she wasn't very helpful, so I was pleasantly surprised.

I found this old interview that I loved so much, I have never read a better one. The end blows me away. I read a book by the guy interviewed, God is Red, and it was very focused on blowing open problems with Christianity--not really relevant for me since I was never Christian. But what he says here is very good.

aahahaha

I just read a review of an awful, overly simplistic (IMO) New Age book that said, "If you can turn to any page of this book and there's a quote there to solve your life's problems, then you really don't have any problems. You probably just forgot your cell phone near the cappuccino machine back at the condo."

Ohhhh it made me laugh. I have tried to get meaning out of this book so many times and, yeah, search hard enough and there is (same for any book). But there are books with waaay more wisdom. 

This poem by a Persian poet was near me the whole time I was in Minneapolis and I never saw it. I couldn't have been more than half a mile away. The picture is too big to put here.

I wish I could read the original--my dad wasn't thinking at all, how could he not have taught me Persian?

I just had two tons of popcorn and feel really great. All the yoga I'm doing is sending energy flowing, but I don't get any ecstatic feelings like many report--it all feels like despair and other intense emotions leaving my body. It's not quite the same as depression because it usually doesn't stem from my own thoughts or experiences, though there is of course some of that--my own stuff is mainly worry. Most of it I just watch, and it goes through me, but I still feel it physically. It wears on me.

I have been feeling this the majority of the time for the last few months. The popcorn was like turning the "off" valve--yes you have to deal with your feelings and karma at some point, but you also need a break. So now I am so grateful to have a respite, a bit of relief. The steady flow will continue soon enough... I am trying to take a wide perspective. Things will hopefully slow down in a few months. Otherwise, if I assumed this is how things would always be, I would feel horribly depressed. But I don't identify with it, so it's more like a big work load than feeling depressed, per se.

For awhile I felt stuck, but I am not so concerned anymore... after my birthday I noticed some things clearing up and I had some new types of automatic yoga show up--the desire to do certain physical yoga things, like the cleaning out of the sinuses and throat. There are images of yogis pulling cloths out of their mouths and now I understand why--clearing out that excess mucus can clear you both physically and mentally. I actually stuck my hand down my throat in the shower and pulled some junk out. There's weird stuff like that all the time. It all sounds really cool but it's not, it's like drudgery. I'm cleaning house and it is dirty. And I have to scrub the whole thing with a toothbrush. It will be so great when I get to some kind of plateau--not ecstacy, just normalcy.

All my classes Weds were canceled! It is so great.

maybe don't read this if you want to be uplifted...

A classmate involved with a social justice group at her church asked me to come and talk about my experiences with WIC, to put a human face on important government programs. Afterwards I realized it was much more difficult than I thought it would be, because I had to think of stories that were positive--like the boy whose hemoglobin was so low, his drop of blood was actually clearish. If we hadn't caught the low hemoglobin, it wouldn't have gotten caught for months, most likely. WIC was very beneficial in that case. 

But most of what I could think of was not good. I never realized what a toll it took on me, everyday. There was the pregnant teenager who was in tears; besides being away from her home country and struggling to get by financially (a tragedy almost everyone I saw bore), her boyfriend left her for another woman before she found out about the pregnancy. When she told him about it, he said she was a slut and it was from another man (of course he was the slutty one). And he wouldn't help out at all, and worse, she was heartbroken. 

There was the very high domestic abuse rate I suspected but rarely able to confirm. Sometimes women would tell me about someone else they knew. Or they would assure me that their husband didn't drink, or was peaceful when he drank (the assumption being, most men get violent when they drink, that's normal).

And the woman given TB meds after her baby was born. This made her birth control ineffective and she got pregnant 1 month after giving birth. She hadn't been planning on more babies and quite frankly, couldn't afford it. She didn't abort but was angry about the pregnancy for some time--how must that affect the baby's psyche!? Financially it was very difficult for them. Turns out some intern made the mistake and the pharmacist didn't catch it.

Also there was a woman whose husband was out of work for months. He was working on their car and was brutally attacked, he nearly died--so someone could steal the car.  A neighbor, who knew this man (he was very kind and generous so well-known in the neighborhood) found him bleeding... The car had had their WIC folder in it; she came in to get it replaced.

Also the woman who had miscarried and was afraid of miscarrying again--that was many women, actually. All the women with small children in their home country, who missed them so badly they couldn't talk about. Women whose husbands were deported. The parents who had health problems but were uninsured, or went hungry so their children could eat. A few women came in beat-up--attacked while coming home late, from their cleaning jobs (often hotel). One woman was a domestic, though. She said she ran into the door! The door! That's the classic domestic abuse cover, I couldn't believe it; "La puerta? Esta segura?" I asked. Yes, she was sure. I run into doors all the time and have never gotten a black eye from it.

My god, there are so many more stories. They are treated so badly I can't stand it. I want all the women to go home, stand up to their husbands, and leave this country and economy in a huge mess. We depend on their slave labor and if they stopped coming, that would be great, and the joke would be on us. I am so thrilled about this recession. We will suffer the most and they will suffer the least, because they know how to do things like make shelter and grow food (most were driven off their land; from ranches or whatever. That's why they seem so uneducated to us).

Joke time

From Your Immortal Reality:

This Buddhist is walking in Central Park. He walks up to a hot-dog vendor and says, "Make me one with everything." The vendor gives the Buddhist a hot-dog, and after the Buddhist pays for it, he asks for his change. But the hot-dog vendor says, "Change comes from within."

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I met Colin T. Campbell, author of The China Study, at a vegan potluck tonight. Not quite as big a brush with fame as when I was ten feet from Josh Harnett at an anti-war rally (Iraq), but I might get him to speak in Mpls in 2010 (long waiting list, typical).

Yesterday I had this revelation, that if I never judge anyone else and accepting of other people's flaws, then I don't have to judge or be harsh on myself. Everything is fine. It was such a big relief. So now, if I think something critical, I have to question it and see how it's not true. If I think a fat person's body is gross, I have to go back and re-examine that. And then I know I will love my body how it is, no matter what. It was a really great thing to have click. 

I'm so excited because there will be beautiful snow on the ground for my birthday for the first time in a long time! At least 7 or 8 years.

For my birthday, I am skipping class and having lunch with Roman (he works at night) at the Moosewood Restaurant (hopefully it will be good, they aren't as vegan-friendly as you'd think) and my dad is paying, he called and arranged it. Yea!

I won't drop out of school because I take the secure route and it's my paycheck. But if I didn't have a stipend, I would seriously consider dropping out. Two years is a long time to wait for increased income potential. Luckily my degree will do more than that, but nothing I couldn't have learned about on my own.

Next week is Thanksgiving! And I think the last week of classes is 12/5, then 2 weeks for "finals week". I am so happy!!!!

I am going to skip class to go to restorative yoga, that makes me feel much better.

happy birthweek to me ramble

I really, really want to quit school. They're lucky they have me on a stipend, because that's the main thing keeping me here. My advisor wants me to take longer than it's supposed to take (2 yrs)--I have to find a way out of that. She keeps adding things in--and then you'll be here anyway, you can take another class here! Internally I think NO WAY is that going to happen, you can't keep dragging it out on me. But there's no good way to say that--I have to think of ways to make it happen. Who knows if there will even be funding. The thing is that they want me to have publishable research, not just MS research. So you need to base it on two years of data--okay, maybe I will finish the paper from somewhere else then.

I have to start saying no to her requests (or "this might take me awhile" is a nice way to put it). I haven't because I have wanted to seem super competent. But now I don't care becaue I feel too burnt out. This might be my worst semester as far as classes go, though. Next fall I have to memorize a bunch of plant pathogens for the plant path class, that'll be the worse after this. No more stupid statistics. As far as data and research go, they will keep giving me more work, but it's easier to negotiate than classes.

I'm glad I don't use coffee or any stimulants because that would push me farther than I should go. I wonder who uses hard stimulants... some people must. The kind of person who is very hard on themselves and pushes themselves to the end and then still has to keep going. It's tempting, luckily kombucha's as hard as I can go. It does make me tipsy, it has very minor alcohol content. I'm a kombuchaholic???

I never see Roman and I'm away from home so I kind of wonder "what is the point of all this?" Too bad I don't value earning potential more... Maybe if things get easier it will develop my character instead of making me miserable, that would be good. I keep telling non-Cornell people I meet that the environment is very unhealthy. And my mom always says--keep working harder! It's so good for you! Because she has had too low standards for herself, she knows. But she is also is too hard on herself, on another level. Now that I'm older, instead of arguing, I have to smile and ignore her advice. Sure, mom... God, I just want to move back home. Even if it is freezing there now (it's in the 50s here). It's also hotter there in the summer. I like the extremes, they develop good character. I just want to go home because it is home and I was right not to leave there earlier, it is a good place. Even if they eat hotdish.

"I have lived on the lip of insanity,
wanting to know reasons,
knocking on a door.
It opens.
I've been knocking from the inside!" ~Rumi

Now Persians are so materialistic--a far as I know, very few of them are religious fundamentalists like the media portrays. Forced asceticism has pushed them the other way. The yamas and niyamas in yoga are supposed to develop naturally; you pursue a simpler, wholesome life naturally as you shed everything that isn't you.
I wonder what will happen there. Obama is putting together a Clinton-esque cabinet and they were very pro-war, so who knows. Clinton was hawkish like Bush, he just had a shinier package. But they are busy bombing many other places right now, I have no idea what will happen.

quick update

Birthday next week--very very busy and feeling fried, like a scrambled egg. I am doing nothing on my birthday though, except go to my lame ag machinery class. Maybe I should even call in sick, to do that once shouldn't affect my grade. Oooh, I like this idea...

My nerves were so shot that last night I had to smoke to calm down enough to do my homework. I don't even like not being sober. Normally I get super lazy--but I was so anxious I didn't know what else to do. It worked well, I was able to study.

Have a lot of things to do this weekend.  But I found a library called the Alternatives Library and got a bunch of great books. They have so, so many great ones. I am reading a book on fasting, one by Yogananda on love (?), I Am That, another by Pema Chodron, plus The Power of Now and two Byron Katie books. But it's all great, it helps me manage my workload. 

I am having trouble with feelings of resentment, that I have to do all this work. I miss WIC a lot (the moms and kids)--I talked to someone who did Peace Corps and she misses working with kids and adults in Spanish, too--sad just like me. I couldn't stay there, but it was good work. I'm glad I switched from nutrition to horticulture, but nutrition would have been so, so much easier. I already had done graduate level work in nutrition. Now I have to catch up for hort. Plus I miss my good friends back home, I love Minneapolis too. Anyway, so I feel resentful, but really this is just a way to force myself to learn to be happy--it is all in the mind. Plus I live by a beautiful creek with big trees, so what could possibly be bad?

Also, Tuesday morning I went to a shaman. I thought it might be nothing, just a useless white person impersonating a real spiritual experience--really I was open-minded though. And it was incredible. She communicated with the spirit world and got all sorts of information I knew to be true, dealing with past karma. I am very grateful to her.

This article on Tibet was interesting. What is says shouldn't have been a surprise to me-- basically that the elite of Tibet were suppressing the people (as happens with political systems and authoritarianism). When China came in and suppressed them, they got upset and had a big uproar--it was okay that they were suppressing the poor, but they themselves should not be suppressed! For the poor (average person), it is the same old story. Tibet does need to be liberated, but not back to the same old system.

The website has lots of other good writings on the New Age movement, reminding me that anything too "feel-good" or that is not self-empowering should be looked at discerningly--there are a lot of "teachers" preying on needy souls (who don't realize what they need is already inside them--they just need genuine spiritual practice to access it IMO).

Funny, it all goes back to avoiding authoritarian systems, whether political or religious/spiritual in nature. I was very burned out on politics, but I will have to get back into things at some point, karma yoga. I like the idea of forming any sort of community program at all--eco-communities, libraries, CSAs, anything like that is a positive empowering step that helps everyone.

My nerves feel shot--I think it is because of the meditating. Nervous system impurities come up, and if you do too much, your system will feel fried. So I've been craving fat, which is uncharacteristic. Blargh.