There is so much to be said about Sin City. Vegas is a desert oasis that my of age friends have been obsessed with since we were the age of the majority, somewhere my mother warned me about, and a place where my grandparents told me to visit, but not lose myself there.
The city itself is a cesspool of sin, shit and seedyness. Off the voluputous, money entrenched strip one finds ghettos, slums, and cheap living. Public relations and sanitation must do an excellent job of covering this up, as I believe I saw two homeless people the entire time I was there. In Toronto, I usually pass two by the time I reach the end of my block and get to the subway. It saddens me, that the amount of money which goes into these magnificent miniature cities, more money can't be sanctioned to take care of those in need.
However, this post isn't about the downfall of capitalism in 21st century American society. Its about Las Vegas. The city that never sleeps. Sin City. What happens in Vegas... well, you know the rest.
What does one do in Vegas?
Imagine huge hotel rooms with porno-style showers which never run out of water. Wall made entirely of glass, looking over the bright lights of the strip, with heavy curtains blocking out all desert sunlight since the theme seems to be party all night and sleep all day.
Sensory overload walking through the lobby of the hotels, through the casinos. Bleeps, blips, jackpots, people cheering, walking around, cigars, cigarettes, cocktails... incredible. Its hard to find one place to focus on.
In the clubs the music is too loud, the men too touchy feely, and the dance floor too crowded. But you make your way all the way to the bar to get a drink, then proceed to the centre of the dance floor to see what celebrities you can spot, and if its possible for you to brush elbows with them. You meet a guy. Your eyes lock. He grabs you and you dance the night away, culminating your night in a cab off to a different hotel on the other side of the strip. Coming back to your hotel room at 7 am the next morning, meeting the inquisitive eyes of your girlfriends, you blush. Amazing. Incredible. Super. What happens in Vegas...
Losing so much money on slot machines, then winning it all back the last night you're there... with a surplus. Luck be a lady tonight, indeed.
just realized I haven't talked about my birthday celebrations much yet, so here we go :)
My birthday itself was pretty stressful and retarded. I cut social psych early to get my eyebrows waxed, and went shopping at Sears to find a nice cocktail dress for Vegas. Mission accomplished. I got a cute tank top too.
By the time my social work practice class rolled around I was pissed off, stressed out, frustrated, and wanted to go home. I was planning on leaving at break, but our crazy professor got us involved in a community development simulation and I had to observe people. Yet another three hours of my life spent learning nothing.
I came home and my landlords called to check on the thermostat cuz the heater hadnt been working, so they had to come over. Motherfuck. They yell at me for having my computer under the thermostat saying all the hot air is screwing it up, and if I can move it. I refused to. They they yelled at me for having a piano, saying that they didn't want their other tenants complaining that I made too much noise, then had the gaul to knock and ask the other tenants in the house if I was too loud for them. I gave them the bitchiest, smuggest look ever when they both told them they never even knew I was home. Then they went into my bedroom to see if they could place the thermostat in there, saw the huge gaping hole left there from the Ikea delivery assholes (which Josh should have fixed awhile ago) and I get yelled at for that. Whatever.
I ordered pizza and cracked open a bottle of wine after that, K called me and we talked until about 1 am.
Josh came over Thursday to celebrate my belated birthday. I was kind of upset because I hadn't gone to child development that morning, and sat around all day, cleaning, trying to study, etc. But we finished off the bottle of Canadian chardonnay from the previous night, opened up another bottle of Chilean merlot, and ordered a pizza from Mamma's. We played PS2, goofed off on my webcam with some friends, and got crunked.
Friday night Josh's mom organized a small dinner for me with the rest of Josh's family at Cristina's, a Greek restaurant on the Danforth. She bought this relaxation box of relaxing goodies from Lush, which was totally unnecessary but soooo welcome. His dad came, along with his cousin Scott and his wife Cathy, which was the first time we've been not too busy to see each other since I moved back! We had a lot of wine and good food, and then headed over to Savage Garden see Josh's band perform their Halloween gig. I dressed up as a Catholic school girl and looked pretty hot. Too bad there was no one at Savage, and it cleared out as soon as they started to perform - I felt kinda bad cuz Jill and Chuck and I left halfway through their set too. Oops.
Saturday I met up with Cathy again, who treated me to a pedicure and manicure for my birthday. Again, so needed but not necessary! It was so incredibly sweet - the place she took me to was awesome, and it was so great to sit next to each other and chat for a few hours while our feet and hands got rubbed. They asked us if we were cousins... and so it begins! Everyone always thinks we're related, and we're just related by Josh... but its pretty cute. I guess there's some strange Portuguese/Italian resembelence. After that we went to Starbucks and talked some more about everything. I have missed those chats soooooo much and look forward to having many more of them. I came home and ordered sushi. Woo.
I called my mom later that evening and proceeded to have a nervous breakdown cuz I'm still upset and worried about school and money and being fat. I think we were on the phone for two hours. I'm really homesick and I wish I could go back. Its weird because I have SO much going for me up here. I shouldn't feel that way.
Today I got up and cleaned my kitchen, taught, cooked meals for this week, and dealt with my landlords coming over yet again to move the thermostat into the front hallway. I organized some stuff for classes, mainly for my child development and social psych papers I have coming up, and played with Phoenix.
Now I'm watching a show on haunted houses and wanting chocolate. But I guess that goes with that not wanting to be fat thing anymore too. Ugh.
I really need to call the chiropractor and acupuncturist and massage therapist this week. I feel so emotional and off.
I really, really enjoy teaching yoga. I really, really enjoy being a teacher, period.
I always thought my life was meant to heal others, but I think now I've found my true voice and teaching is my thing. I love learning. I love academia. I love explaining things to people, making it easier for them to understand. In a way, teaching does heal others, and its helped me heal myself.
I am so tempted to drop out of school right now, get a work permit, and just support myself being a full time yoga teacher. It's possible, as they're in demand and get paid handsomely, and then there's the perks, like getting three month long paid teaching vacations in Thailand and Costa Rica. However, I am scared that at 35, I might decide that this isn't what I want to do anymore, and going back to university then would suck balls. I only have one year left, so I figure since I've come this far, I might as well finish, right?
Then see if I can get into grad school anywhere for music therapy. Even if that's what I want to do.
Maybe I'll do a master's in music education. I don't know.
I would love to teach at the university level, however I don't know if I'd like that, especially with some of the professors I've had. In my social psychology class and child development class, the profs are decent lecturers but the class average is 50%. Thats a D. I am getting a 67% in social psych (a high C) and a 70% in child developmenr (a B-). Both profs have told me I have one of the highest grades in the course.
This rings a few alarms for me. They say its normal, but really, how normal is it when most of your class is almost failing? Why don't you spend time evaluating your teaching methods since its clear your students aren't understanding the material? Or better yet, how come you're not maybe reevaluating your tests since they obviously aren't a valid way of measuring student's progress? For example: my child development test covered chapters 1-6. It was about 275 pages worth of material. There were 35 questions. On 275 pages of material. When we asked our prof to tell us what to study, her response was we needed to know everything.
I'd almost rather take a 90 question exam, since it would more accurately reflect the amount of pages we had to read and study. When I studied for the first exam, I studied broad concepts and repeated themes of child development, since 35 questions must mean it would be very broad and general. Nope. It asked for very specific models of studies, effects, etc. Not the well known theories of development from Piaget and Bronfenbrenner, but of psychologists who have contributed very little to the developmental field.
I tried to voice my opinion for myself and the class when we had an open discussion regarding the marks received, but she just completely waived her hand and dismissed it, citing that we all just needed to "study harder". How can you call yourself a teacher and do that? How can you not care that your students are receiving low grades? Why don't you think that this reflects your teaching skills, and not our study habits? I am just so exacerbated and fed up with professors who don't fucking care! And to wave off any suggestions that we might have and continuously defend yourself? Why even bother having an open discussion or a debriefing, if all you're going to do is defend yourself and not work to bring about change?
I'm not stupid by any means. I know my shit. I want my test grades to reflect the fact that I know my shit. I want to get into grad school. I bust my ass and end up not doing as well as I'd hoped. Getting the highest mark in the class is of little comfort to me when that mark is a 67% or a 70%, because that still means a C or B will show up on my progress report, and I will have to do yet more explaining to professors during my interview when I apply for grad school.
Im trying to think of what else I can do to pass and get better marks. I seriously can't "study harder" any more than I am doing now.
Colour me jaded.
Sometimes I don't know what's stopping me from taking the plunge, forgetting about grad school, and just going around the world teaching yoga. So many job opportunities, so little time.
I went to a Moksha Yoga teacher's retreat of sorts this weekend up at Ted's cottage in Muskoka and got to meet and network with a whole bunch of people.
My friend Lavonne keeps trying to convince me to open up a studio in California and she wants to invest in me to do that. It makes me sick how much money this woman has to throw around, and how she believes in me enough to trust me with it. Actually, it makes me tear up because she's been so good to me. I couldn't afford to buy any of my yoga books for my teacher training, and she bought them all for me. They weren't cheap.
So many great talks, campfires, canoe trips, new friends under the moonlight this weekend. I could go for this once a month. My head is spinning with ideas and information, and now I need to try and channel this energy to the book I have before me, if I have any hopes of passing Child Development this semester.
Rediscovering you is amazing. It's like we never missed a beat, much less a year and a half. No matter what happens, you'll always have a piece of my heart. If there is anyone I am thankful for every day of my life, its you. Words are never going to say how much you mean to me and I cannot find the words to thank you for all you've done for me. You're an amazing, incredible, wonderful human being, and I want nothing but the best for you.
Coming home has been amazing. Safe, happy, healthy. I couldn't ask for anything more.
While at work the other day, someone walked by me smelling of something strangely familiar, something I had not breathed in since April.
Liliko'i.
The Passion flower, or Liliko'i according to Hawai'ian natives, was named after Spanish and Portuguese conquistadors because they thought the petals closely resembeled Christ's crucifixion - The Passion of the Christ. The leaves and petals of this flower have been used for thousands of years to treat hysteria, insomnia and epilepsy. They also contain small traces of natural MAOI-inhibitors, found in drugs which treat depression and anxiety disorders. Rather than use this in homeopathy, I have a jar, somewhere, as an essential oil, which one day, when I unearth it from the boxes of stuff I am bringing to Toronto, will wear. Such a delicious, empowering scent.
I inhaled the sweetness deeply and was immediately transferred back to nearly six months ago. Hoping on a plane across the continent, across the ocean, depressed, alone, scared, hollowed. Scenes flashed through my mind - meditations, prayer circles, chanting, yoga practices, nights in the hot tub, splashing in the ocean underneath the moonlight and billions upon billions of stars beaming from the Pacific sky, forming a safe, magical canopy over us. Comming to terms with who I am. Comming to terms with my spirituality. Comming to terms with everything I've been through in life and becoming so extremely grateful for it. For the first time, embracing tragedies. They brought me closer to God. Embracing my differences with my mother. They brought me to forgiveness. Embracing my differences with everyone. Again, finding forgiveness and letting go.
It's incredible how six weeks can completely transform a person. It's incredible how one can go from absolute hatred for the Divine and come again to embrace God and be eternally grateful for the rocky path they'd been led down life so far. For if it wasn't that path that I was led down, I wouldn't know what true happiness is. I wouldn't have the relationship with God I have now. I wouldn't know what true love is. I would't know how to fully and completely love myself, and really, truly accept myself. There's such a huge difference in saying the words because you think others want to hear them, and because you want to believe them, and actually living out those words.
Gratitude is the greatest of all heart-openers. When it enters the heart, love pours out. For every kindness we receive, gratitude inspires a hundred acts of giving.
The picture above was taken at Kalani's Point, in Pahoa, Big Island, Hawai'i. This little flower kept trying to leap in to the ocean and be swept away by the current. Every time it blew off the cliff, a tradewind would come along and boomerang it back towards the edge. In many ways, this flower has been a metaphor for my life. Every time it was about to let go, a stronger, more powerful force lifted it up and carried it back to saftey. God is always there, always around, and always supportive, whether you're struggling petals or a human being.
Personal Goals
- Step up the meditation 4-6 times a week instead of the 3-4 I have been doing.
- Date without fear, love smart, and find that special someone.
Business
- Finance my education, my move back to Toronto, and my trip to London/India smartly and cease spending money on things I don't absolutely need.
- Continue to teach more yoga and find a good job in Toronto with an ethical company, whether it be with Lululemon, The Big Carrot, or a Moksha Studio.
Health
- Lose another 20 lbs.
- Practice yoga or go to the gym every day.
