When I tell you that there has been nothing new going on in my life. I mean it; there’s nothing new going on in my life.

I’m still consistently job searching, I’m still consistently exercising and I’m still consistently cooking. See? Nothing new.

I did get a small part time job at a bookstore though. I want to get out of retail desperately, but the thing that sold me is even though I’m part-time, they still offer me benefits, and I need vision insurance like you wouldn’t believe.

So yeah, I start that on Thursday and get to work with books all day. In reality, it would be the perfect job for me, since my degree is in literature, but I hate retail.

Let’s hope something non-retail comes up soon eh?

{Credit: Eric Lon}

Before this week I thought, yoga is yoga, right? Wrong. Well, partly at least. There are so many different forms of yoga, and before this week I never really knew the difference. There was a Bikram studio in the office building where I used to work, and all I knew of it was that they did yoga in a room that was at least 100 degrees. Wasn’t for me.

I downloaded a bunch of podcasts from iTunes on yoga, just to see if there were really any differences and whatnot. I watched a little 10 minute routine from a woman named Tara Stiles and liked her routine, so I’ve started trying to repeat it the best I can. I didn’t realize that it was such hard work. I know that it will get easier as my stamina and balance gets better, but holy crap. All of my preconceived notions about yoga flew out the window with this routine. But I can’t tell you great I felt afterward. My body felt good, stretched and my attitude towards the day was even better.

I’ve never been a go-getter. I’ve always been a follower, watching from the sidelines as everyone else has all the fun. I’ve always wanted to be a go-getter. I wanted to do something instead of just watch. These past few weeks have been just that. I’m doing something instead of just watching. I’m thinking better, I’m feeling better. I’m basically just being better. And I like doing something about it.

I’m not saying that yoga has everything to do with it. But it certainly weighs heavily. But I’m exercising consistently, and am a much more conscious eater, and those two combined can give your body and mind complete control.

Since I moved back to Boston, I swore that it was going to be all about me for a little while. I was going to focus on myself and focus on what I needed to accomplish in order to make myself happy.

The first and foremost thing I need to do is to get myself back in shape. I let it slip, majorly. So last week I started running. Now, I sort of suck at running because I have short legs. I have to take twice as many steps as the average person does, but I can run 1.7 miles without stopping. That’s pretty good right? For me it is. I’m starting out at only five days a week, and it’s just a loop around my neighborhood (but my neighborhood is the highest point in my town, so there are a lot of hills.

I’m tracking my progress at LiveStrong.Com because it’s easier, and it helps me keep track instead of installing plugins here for me to do that. But like with most things, I lose motivation quickly, especially since I’m doing it alone. I’ve found it works better when you’re doing it with a partner, but since I don’t have that, I need to find other ways to stay motivated. Looking at the future and how much it will benefit me is not a motivator for me even though it should be.

So, what do you do to stay motivated?

I got back from my trip on Friday night but this weekend was a busy one!

I drove down there from work, and normally it’s only an hour and a half drive from where I live, but for some reason it took me four hours to get down there. There was no reprieve in the traffic until I was way south of the city. So instead of getting there at 6:30 like I was supposed to, I got there at 9pm. I was expecting a little bit of traffic but holy crap, not two hours worth.

But I did get there in peace and after I settled into my friend’s spare bedroom we hit the town. Now I had never been to Newport before. My mom had growing up but not me. She took me to dinner where we listened to this great band perform and after that we barhopped her favorite joints around town. It was good to hang out in the local bars, not the tourist bars. The most I paid for a glass of Guinness was $4. It was fantastic.

I got blisters on the balls of my feet like you wouldn’t believe. It still sort of hurts to walk around, but not as bad as Friday. I had worn flats and my friend lives blocks from downtown so we just walked everywhere. Friday morning we were going to breakfast and my flip flops were soaked and I wasn’t stepping in puddles, it took me a minute to realize that my blisters were popping. But breakfast was great. Everyone in Newport is so damn nice, it was a little bit off putting. Strangers hold doors for you, offer their coffee cream to you when your waitress forgets yours, and make random conversations when you’re walking down the street! I loved it.

After breakfast we took a harbor tour of Newport Harbor. My friend has lived there since January but hadn’t done one yet. I told her she needed to do it to say she’s done it. She didn’t really know the history of her town either so we both learned a lot on the tour. I loved being on the boat anyways, as I always do. She didn’t have to try very hard to convince me to try and move down there.

After the cruise she took me on the Cliff Walk and showed me where she worked. At one point I leaned over the railing to take a picture of the waves crashing against the rock and got drenched in sea spray. After I made sure my camera was efficiently cleaned and still worked, it was pretty hilarious.

I was going to stay until Saturday and go to the opening night of the Jazz Festival but a last minute work engagement came up on Saturday morning so I left Friday night. I still had an amazing time and would love to go back!

There hasn’t been much going on here aside from teaching these past few weeks. The workshops are over so now I’m going back to being unemployed for the time being. Sort of. I had a retail job that I worked before I moved to Phoenix and I’m back at that as a manager while the other one is on maternity leave. She’s not coming back from maternity leave but I don’t want to stay in that position.

This last week of classes were my favorite. I had a ton of repeat students from last year, including my favorite. Am I allowed to play favorites? Because I totally do. He’s my little rockstar. He’s creative, he’s hilarious and he’s not afraid to be the leader when no one else wants to try it. This last workshop was taking lyrics from their favorite songs and turning them into monologues. He was never afraid to go first, never afraid to suggest something. He was the perfect student And he gave me chocolate on the last day.

Friday I’m going down to Newport, RI for a few days. The Jazz Festival opens and I got invited to the opening night after party. I’m super excited. I’ll definitely write about it when I get back.

Before I moved back to Boston I made plans to teach for a few weeks in July. I’ve done it every July for the past two years so I figured it would be easy enough, I know how to create the lesson plans and I know how to teach the technique.

I didn’t teach this particular class last year; I was the assistant, but I was still familiar with the lesson plan and what I needed to do. (I should probably mention that these classes are acting classes eh?) The first day of class goes great, we play a lot of game that focus on concentration and improvisation. The second day goes just as well. The third day I get pulled aside by a mother who then starts asking me if I know how to teach. Apparently her child didn’t like one of our cool down exercises and called his mother in tears. He said it didn’t have anything to do with acting. Which, if it’s an acting class, it did. Anyways, this mother accused me “winging it” each day and not using a set agenda. Another mother wasn’t bringing her two other kids back to the class either after she talked with her about how this isn’t a real acting class because we’re not performing a play. She then proceeded to tell me that I didn’t know what the word “DRAMA” meant.

And it’s true, at the end of the week we weren’t putting on a play. I told her very calmly that this class focused on teaching the techniques and skills the kids need in order to act. I’m not just going to hand them a piece of paper with dialogue on it and tell them to act. And right before she walked out, she told me that it should have been in the description otherwise she’d never would have signed her kid up for the class. After she pulled her kid out of the class, it was gossip amongst the other kids. And with active listening on our parts, my assistant and I found out that this mother called other kids in the class and asked if they liked it even though we weren’t putting on a play.

I was pretty disgusted by this woman. I went home that day to get the description of the class and this is what it says:

…turn narrative into play scripts that students write, act and direct.

So no, we didn’t give them dialogue that they would act out. We made the kids write their own dialogue, act out their own dialogue and direct said dialogue. I’m sad for the kid because he was enjoying the class, he participated often, gave some great ideas and I could tell that it was totally the mom pulling him out, not him wanting to be pulled out.

However, the rest of the kids had a blast and Friday they performed their skits for the friends and family. I got a lot of hugs and ‘I miss you’s’ that made me a little teary eyed. Next week starts a new class full of fairy tales (no, seriously) and 26 rambunctious little six-year-olds.

Bring it on.