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...

Sweat, Baby, Sweat

So I've signed up to Bikram yoga last week Monday & subsequently transformed into a yoga hermit. Sorry for that. Yoga has more or less taken over my life, well, the few bits that were filled with work & socialising. I can only go to class at 8.15pm on weekdays, which means I come home from work, bimble around for an hour or so & leave the house again at 7.20pm. I then come back around 10.15pm & collapse into bed. It's slightly better on weekends coz there is no work, but I'm still pretty much in a daze after class.

I've been to class 5 times last week & I'm probably going to go to class 5 times again this week (if I make the session this afternoon & tomorrow evening). My body alternates between being stiff & achy to actually feeling quite nice & supple on a daily basis. I've had some really good yoga sessions & some quite bad ones, where every move is a struggle & I'm absolutely shattered afterwards. The only thing that seems to be rather constant, unfortunately, is that I don't sleep very well after yoga, no matter if I've done it in the afternoon or in the evening. This is pretty annoying, as you're supposed to sleep better afterwards. I do seem to have lost a kilo since last week without actually being on a diet, which kinda makes up for the sleep problems.

Apart from torturing my body & mind, I've had Frani come over dinner & a major catch-up, I've met up with Cherelle for gaming & chatter, been to a wine-tasting session with work and to the movies with Babs.

Due to my evenings being busy all the time, I haven't watched a lot of TV (good) and struggle a bit with cooking healthy foods (bad). I've lost interest in food a bit, I'm totally uninspired when it comes to cooking (all I want is something to eat, which means I stuff my face with bad things occasionally). Maybe I should just start the detox now instead of in May, at least then I'd have a fixed schedule of meals & drinks & don't have to think about it at all.

They say you start to see results of bikram yoga practice after about 13 classes, which means I'm almost there & should hopefully see improvements in body & mind soon...

Namaste!

It's been a week since I got back from my India adventure & I'm happy to say that I still feel fairly relaxed. It was a good trip, not an amazing trip, a great introduction to India but by no means the full India experience. Kinda "India from behind the air-conditioned glass", which was fine & what I had expected. But I probably need to go back there & immerse myself a bit more - I'm actually thinking of going to Goa next year...

So yeah, I've been back for a week now. Touched down in Heathrow last Saturday afternoon, came back to the same cold flat & miserable flatmates that I'd left behind (no, I didn't expect them to magically change while I was away) but with a new energy & will to get going & change things. I did some laundry, tried to fix the Sky dish that some bastard had vandalized again (just one more thing that makes me not like this place) & went to bed rather early at 7pm.

Actually managed to sleep for a good 14 hours that night, which as awesome. Woke up sometime after 9am, set off some more laundry & headed to the shops. Found out that Sainsbury's in Chiswick only opens at 11am on Sundays (how am I to know, I'm never there that early) & it was only quarter to when I got there, so I took this as an excuse to hit Starbucks for a Chai Latte. Well, if you ever want to get put off of having children, got to the Chiswick Starbucks on a Sunday morning... it was teeming with pregnant ladies & small children. Still managed to find a quiet spot to drink my tea & then did a humongous amount of shopping.

I also decorated my room a bit more on that day with 2 pictures of Hindu gods I'd brought back from India (Ganesh & Lakshmi) & put some mirrors on my wardrobe (which keep falling down, but never mind).

Going back to work wasn't as bad as I'd feared, although I was greeted with "I'm so glad you're back!" & an inbox of 700 messages. I'm trying to employ a less hectic working style, basically organizing my To Do list some more & systematically working through it. Unfortunately my manager is really good at "finding" stuff in his To Do list for me that he'd totally forgotten about & which has now become quite urgent. Oh, and there obviously always are the requests from our Finance guys, which seem to work 24/7 & are prone to send time-critical queries either at 8am in the morning or late on a Friday afternoon. Nevertheless, I DO like my job :)

I didn't make it to the pancake day extravaganza at Charlie's house due to my dentist appointment overrunning by an hour (not my fault, they were running late). Check-up went fine, but there's 2 fillings that are starting to look a bit dodgy & need replacement at some point this year. I'm quite happy to have found a dentist that seems to be good & knows what he's doing (& also does late appointments on weekdays).

Wednesday was the Day Of The Bearded One, aka Beardyman. I'd had the tickets for this gig for ages, it was originally supposed to happen last year November but got postponed, which meant that John was now unable to attend as he's fucked off to the USA for a 2 week roadtrip (I'm imagining some kind of geek Fear & Loathing style adventure). I managed to get Dan as a replacement, which in the end was really fun. We might've got a bit drunk, there was a lot of shimmying & a few hugs. All in all, a very good evening. Oh, and Beardyman was bloody amazing, needless to say that, really, he always is.

Yesterday evening Frani stopped by for a major catching up session, I cooked us some tasty Indian food, we talked for hours & almost didn't get around to looking at my holiday snaps! She might know someone who's looking for a flatmate, whom I hopefully will meet next week. Her flatshare is also on it's way to relocating, but they're already 3 people & might not want an extra person. Boo.

Oh, and now that I'm back from India we've started to rev up the planning for the other big holiday I'm taking this year. The ticket is bought, the RV is booked, there are vague plans in place what to do with the rest of the 2 1/2 weeks I've got off... BURNING MAN, here we come!!!! Frani will be joining our little party as well, which is awesome. Unlike last time, I've got a really good feeling for this trip. Bring it on!

Today will be mostly spent waiting for the Sky engineer to rock up ("sometime between 2 and 5"), then possibly a trip to the health food shop (need vegan cheeze) & maybe to the sports shop to buy one or two shorts for yoga. I'm planning on doing a 30 day Bikram Yoga challenge, at the moment this is still failing because I don't have appropriate clothes (need tight shorts or something, it's 40 degrees in that room). I'd thought of starting tomorrow, but I'm now heading over to Seven Sisters to keep Fliss company, which might delay the whole thing a little. But I'll definitely start this month, can't go to the 6pm class anyway because the 30 day pass doesn't apply to that, which means I should have enough time to sign-up & go to the 8pm class sometime next week. But first I would need something to wear, right?

I'm seriously hoping that this year will be the year that I'm happy with myself & my life. I hereby promise to do everything I can to make this happen!

Tell No One

Last night Babs & I went to Secret Cinema's latest event. It clashed quite spectacularly with Planet Angel's Valentine's Ball, which was unfortunate, but I'd bought the ticket back in November for their December event which didn't happen & it got transferred to the next event which took place yesterday.

As always, we didn't have a clue what they would be showing, the only thing we could be certain about what that it would've been incorporated into an impressive show. The dress code was late 40's, which I totally didn't do as I've got no 40's style clothes & couldn't really be bothered to get just for this one evening. So I rocked up in a nice skirt, jumper & boots, which was fine as the place actually was a bit chilly.

We were told to gather at Wapping station at 6.30pm, where we got collected by the Secret Cinema actors who staged a protest, drawing us in & urging us to follow them. So we paraded down Wapping's streets, shouting out our slogans & trying to no get run over by taxis & busses. Our little procession ended at the Tobacco Dock, where we joined the impressive queue. Waiting wasn't all that bad, though, in true Secret Cinema style actors entertained us throughout our wait. Apparently we were queuing up to audition as dancers! Once inside, we started exploring the venue. We seemed to have been transported to 1940's Covent Garden which also doubled as a theatre, complete with make-up rooms, dressing rooms & ballet rehearsal spaces. Downstairs was more market like, with flowers stalls & food vendors, a bar or two & shops. Everything very much hinted towards theatre & ballet, with red ballet shoes featuring rather prominently. Babs had a cupcake while I got a bag of white chocolate popcorn (absolutely yummy!), we watched performers & engaged in conversations with the actors.

It all culminated in a giant dance performance, which ended in a girl almost jumping off a balcony (erm, an actor, obviously) & then got ushered into the cinemas on the upper floor. By that time we kinda were sure that they would be showing "The Red Shoes", which got confirmed after the obligatory short films & Windows advertisements (Secret Cinema's sponsor) had ended. I can't say that I was particularly excited by the choice of movie, maybe they were trying to surf the wave of Black Swan. The Red Shoes felt quite slow & dated (no wonder, it's from 1948), I probably didn't fully appreciate the nostalgia & it being a controversial movie back then. The venue being rather chilly & the chairs pretty uncomfortable didn't help, so we ended up leaving before the end of the film to make sure we catch the last train back into civilization (i.e. to Canada Water & then to Green Park).

All in all it was a very enjoyable experience, having white chocolate popcorn for dinner was rather nice & Secret Cinema's ability to create a wonderful event around a not so interesting movie is impressive. It did feel a bit mass-produced, though, their events keep getting bigger & bigger while being quite expensive (£27.50) - they must make a killing from it & the underground feel some of the earlier events still had is completely gone now. I'll still go again because it's amazing & a good night out, but I also feel the time has come to hunt for the next big thing.

Not Long Now...

I've managed to pinch/inflame a nerve again. It's usually the sciatica nerve, which starts somewhere in the lower back and goes all the way down the legs. It hurts & it's starting to really annoy me now. I know that my lower spine is too wobbly, two of the vertebraes that should be joined by bone/cartillage instead of discs aren't, causing them to move & put pressure on the nerves in my back.

It's gotten a lot worse in recent years, probably due to me not exercising anymore. And then, when I do exercise, I make matters worse because I'm so unfit & stiff that stuff just goes wrong. A friend recently completed a 30 day Bikram yoga challenge & I think that's a wonderful idea for when I'm back from India. Things really can't get much worse.

Oh, and despite having the feeling that I lost some weight, the scales last night clearly showed I haven't. I'm almost at my highest weight ever, which means most of my clothes don't fit & I feel like a walrus. Not the best thing if you're going on holiday in a few days.

I'm not happy.

I've also had the sneaking suspicion that my thyroid might be the problem for a while now, I'm always feeling cold, don't sleep well/am tired, then there's the weight issue. To finally get things checked out, I've made an appointment with my new GP on the day before I go on holiday. I don't expect things to get sorted before I leave, he's probably going to order a blood test (if I'm lucky) which of course they can't do on the same day so I'm counting on having to go back when I'm back in the UK. But at least I've started the process. My thyroid has always been on the lower end of normal, which is bloody annoying as I'm pretty sure it's not quite right, so in a way I'm actually hoping it's now gone off the cliff & they need to do something about it.

Quite likely I'm also insanely stressed. The tiniest things piss me off no end & everything just seems to be so much work.

My holiday should be nice & relaxing, despite being on the go most of the days the trip I've booked features loads of sitting around on houseboats & traveling on busses. I've got everything sorted now, all that's left is some washing & the dreaded suitcase packing.

Tomorrow I'm off to Secret Cinema & then it's 2 more days at work & I'm out. Hooray!

Grains, Beans & Veggies

I've been investigating a macrobiotic diet recently. Just like becoming a dietary vegan (well, most of the time), the whole macrobiotic idea just snuck up on me. I never made a conscious choice to become vegan, it just seemed to happen rather naturally. At some point I obviously made the decision to just stop eating meat, dairy & eggs, but the process was gradual, involved dabbling with the idea for a while & then my body made the decision for me by loosing interest in the stuff.

Those who know me know that I'm not strict in being vegan, I took a break from the whole situation over Christmas while at my parents (and suffered for it afterwards, I felt really yucky for a week), I eat fish occasionally & seem to totally forget how bad milk chocolate is for my body every time I see it (selective chocolate memory). I now manage to stay away from creamy cakes because the gas I get from eating them is just not funny for anyone around me (it also hurts quite a lot).

All of this means that I never struggled with my dietary choices. I'm getting more strict with being vegan now because of the way it makes me feel, I never want to feel like when I was eating loads of meat & dairy ever again. Summer will probably see another raw vegan phase, but it's too cold for that now.

And now macrobiotics are happening to me.

I've become more & more interested in rather simple food, loads of Japanese things, mainly. I love how good things taste if you just leave them as they are & not smother them in sauces. Cold soba noodles with pan-cooked pak choi (or spinach or rocket salad) have become one of my favourite dinners. This weekend I discovered mochi, sweet rice filled with peanut butter or coconut (or bean paste, but I'm not a big fan of this). Leading on from there I searched the web for more things Japanese & somehow stumbled upon the word "macrobiotic". I was fascinated.

I've bought the book "The Kind Diet" (by Alicia Silverstone) a few weeks ago, it's nice & a great introduction to veganism & macrobiotics. The whole vegan stuff I already knew, but it was still good to read that I'm doing the right thing. She calls macrobiotic foods "Superhero foods", which in a way they are because they do so much for you. Despite all of that, I doubt that I'll become a full macrobiotic devotee anytime soon - it's much more complicated than just being vegan. But I'm intending to incorporate some of it into my current diet & started with having miso soup for my at-home-breakfast (I have a proper breakfast at work) instead of my smoothie which was giving me a bit of an unwanted sugar kick in the morning. It took a bit of experimenting, finding the right type of miso (shiromiso is great as it's not too offensively strong) & dosage (about 1 teaspoon per cup seems to work quite well). I don't use dashi stock as a base just yet because I don't have it, but just the paste is alright so far.

Unfortunately my period started yesterday & since then my stomach has turned into a bottomless pit. It does that sometimes & not matter how much I eat, it isn't enough. This really annoys me as I've been quite good recently & think I actually lost a bit of weight - I don't want to gain it all again just because my hormones are going a bit mental. So after 2 days of pigging out I've promised myself to be good again tomorrow (I'm not going to eat any more tonight, no way).

After all, there is a holiday to go to in a week & I want to wear my summer clothes without feeling like a sausage...