Yoga, Penguins & The Discovery Of Clown Core

I've finished my 30 day Bikram yoga trial with 20 out of 30 sessions. Pretty awesome, huh? The sessions this week all went really well, no dizziness, no nausea. I seem to be working my muscles more, though, which resulted in some achiness but felt fine & relaxed after class. If it wasn't for my feet deciding to go into total icicle mode one night I wouldn't even have to report trouble sleeping.

I've bought a 10 classes in 6 weeks pass now. I'll be more busy/not available due to Easter & the Royal Wedding/Early May bank holiday weekend so the plan still is to go as often as possible but probably won't manage quite as amazing a ratio in the coming weeks.

Work's busy, there's currently loads of stuff going on behind the scenes which is causing huge amounts of trouble/unrest in my team. Shit is starting to hit the fan now, I'm not affected myself (yet) but in the long run I foresee a restructure. If all goes well I'll come out of this unscathed, but one never knows.

Never a dull moment, eh?

Babs & I went to the movies on Wednesday. The original idea was to watch Hop (the movie with teh bunneh) but Vue had spontaneously decided to not have the 7.50pm screening. Thank you very much. We settled for Limitless instead, which was alright & a nice light entertainment for a weekday night. Interestingly, the futuristic brain-function enhancing drug NZT and it's effects reminded me a lot of those of amphetamines, although it's less invasive & it made users smarter instead of, erm, not really that much more intelligent. Had a few internal giggles but didn't elaborate.

We now have confirmation that it's only going to be Frani & I on the Burning Man extravaganza. It makes things slightly more expensive (smaller RVs don't cost proportionally less money & we're splitting fuel costs by 2 instead of 4), slightly more stressful (I have to drive an RV. They're massive. I'm scared) but also a bit more relaxed for me (I only have responsibility for the welfare & good conduct of one BM virgin). We also are officially sponsored by the lovely Wulfie to join the Lost Penguin camp!!!! Very excited about this, the penguins are awesome & the location of the camp is conveniently central. I've booked a non-stop flight London to Vegas. Now we have to sort out motels/hotels & campgrounds and start saving to actually pay for all of this.

Yesterday I attended my first party for this year. Elysian Project was very enjoyable, DJ Fiend delivered a banging set & I got introduced to the questionable joys of clown core (brought to you by Ed Cox). Bounced, chatted to new people & old friends and spent a lovely Saturday in Seven Sisters.

Tomorrow, if I'm not too knackered, I'll head into town to support Ben who's running his very first marathon (the crazy bastard). He's raised much more money than he'd planned to & now all he has to do is cross the finish line & make us proud :)

Next week's outlook: sushi (Monday), yoga (Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday, it's going to be hard), Planet Angel (Friday), afterparty (Saturday), an undisclosed event featuring Babs & I being secret agents at South Bank (Sunday) and quite possibly sudden death on Easter Monday.

Go me!

We'll Be Right Back

This week just flew past. Last week was pretty busy as well. That's my excuse, what's yours?

I'm still going to Bikram Yoga, managed 3 times this week (so far, I'm planning on going tomorrow) & went 4 times last week. I still have incredibly good sessions & sessions where I struggle to stay in the room/not faint. Yesterday's class was one of the latter - I've never felt so dizzy before, I actually had to lie down for the tree pose as I kept seeing stars & couldn't keep my balance. Really hope that was just a one-off, I have to admit that I had a very junk-foodie lunch (potato wedges & chocolate) which might've triggered the bad performance. Had a rather bad night's sleep last night as well, just couldn't fall asleep & then had *very* strange dreams. I'd slept rather well after Thursday's class, apparently yesterday's session unearthed something hidden inside my body or something.

I didn't go to yoga today, I was too upset after last night & I'm quite achey today. Instead I went to Ealing for a quick shop which transformed into a big shop on Oxford Street. Weird how those things go. Bought blue linen trousers & black ballerina flats (I've got a million pairs of them, none of them comfy, so I'm hoping this pair's going to be different). I got a bit overexcited after fitting into size 14 trousers again (I seem to have lost another kilo) at M&S so tried on a cool pair at Esprit which really didn't fit. I probably should go back to a proper vegan & healthy diet to support my exercise endeavors...

So what else did I get up to in the past 14 days??? Good question. I'm wondering myself. I spent last weekend at a (free) NLP basic training course. It wasn't a complete waste of time, but didn't really help too much with my goal setting & personal development. I'd expected to get a bit more than warped psychology, youtube clips & a sales pitch. I seems to have worked on some people, coz quite a few of the other attendants signed up for practitioner's courses (for a bargain £4000 a pop). What I did get out of it was that I'm stronger than I give myself credit for & my goals are perfectly alright.

On Tuesday Frani came over for our first Burning Man planning session. Things are coming together nicely, albeit alternative plans to the ones we originally had. Charlie & Jo have hit unexpected money issues & it might only be Frani & I going. Subsequently I've reserved a smaller RV (just in case) & we're currently operating under the assumption that it's just the two of us. I've booked my flights an hour ago, non-stop to Vegas which is incredibly expensive but the arrival/departure times are awesome & I'm won't be wasting hours in some random airport along the way. We'll be staying at a motel for the first 2 nights (near the Strip, NOT somewhere out in the sticks) & I'm going to book myself a room at one of the big casinos for the last night to totally posh it up. The rest of the trip we'll be in the RV.

I'm really excited about the trip, I've got a much better feeling about the whole thing than last time but that's probably because I'm in charge of everything. There's still a million things that can go wrong & I might end up doing the whole trip on my own but I WILL go.

I've also met up with one of Frani's friends to discuss a possible flat-sharing opportunity. I've sort of set myself the goal to get my living arrangements sorted out before Burning Man, I definitely can't spent another winter in my current flat without succumbing to total depression. Plans currently are on the very hazy side & there won't be any sudden movements before May, but I'm on it.

As for near-future plans, there might be a picnic tomorrow (it's actually sunny & warmish on the island). There'll most likely be more yoga, my 30 day trial ends on Tuesday & I'm planning on getting a 10 class in 45 days pass. Elysian Project is next Friday, then it's Easter & Planet Angel. And I'm going home for a few days end of April to escape the Royal Wedding madness that'll sure as hell wash over the capital.

I sometimes wonder if other people's life's are as mental...