kalidurga

It’s outdoorsy, yet bookish… what could be more perfect for me?!

... I don’t want a 40 hour 9-5 go-to-the-office work week.

... I want some proportion of my work to be able to be done from home. It doesn’t have to be all of it. In fact, it’s probably best if I am forced to leave the house a few days per week.

... I want a flexible schedule, when I can work at the times of day where I’m most productive, and be able to take breaks as needed.

... I want my work to respect the rhythms of my life/energy, and for Life to come first. I don’t want to have to fit myself around externally imposed structure.

... I have way too many interests for me to end up spending all my time just doing career-related stuff. I want enough free time to indulge my other interests.

- Decide what to do with other wedding/marriage-related paraphernalia.
- Sell my wedding dress.
- Finish changing back to my maiden name.
- Assess psychological damage, heal. Repeat as necessary.

... I’ll be working on this for the next two years of my life. Start small:

- Make a little progress each week. Just 2 hours a week is enough to get a substantial amount of work done in a month or two.

- Lit Review! Start collecting everything I can get my hands on, organizing and cataloguing it.

- Contact other authors writing about the topic.

- Fine tune research methods as I’m reading other studies and noting their shortcomings.

I’ve made tracks all across the USA, but I was always in a hurry going somewhere. I want to take a leisurely trip where there’s nowhere I have to be, and enough funding to be able to really wander and explore to my heart’s content.

I could see myself getting into RVing… perhaps a preliminary goal would be to rent an RV for a weeklong adventure somewhere in the region.

This might be a doable goal after I finish grad school but before I officially start my career. It would also probably be a great time to do it, before I have too many work obligations tying me down…

I haven’t decided if doing it alone or with a partner is better.

... I’m talking LONG.

This will require some serious planning and may take years to really be able to achieve. I will have to save up enough extra money to pay all my bills while away, as well as any expenses for my trip.

I’m not against doing a structured retreat, like at a zendo or something, as part of a community… but I also like the idea of just renting a cabin and doing it totally on my own. The important parts will be seriously limited contact with other people (like, no email, phone only for emergency, etc.), lots of silence and alone time, and of course, lengthy daily meditation (and yoga) sessions.

Rama Berch, founder of Svaroopa yoga and one of my favorite yoga teachers, only half-jokingly teaches that “do more yoga” is the answer to pretty much every question that her students ask her. I have found this to be true, and not only for questions directly related to physical health. It seems that whenever I’m struggling, with pretty much anything, “do more yoga” is somehow a relevant answer.

Pieces of this goal:
- Develop an individual practice more. I pretty much practice alone now, but often use yoga videos to give more structure. I’d like to start listening to music and just going with my own flow more.
- Take select local classes. I’d like to be a little choosy, and maybe find one great weekly class, or just occasional weekend workshops, to give me a boost and connect me with other practicioners.
- I’d like to start going to Kirtans more. There are a few in the area and I’d love to make it a monthly event for myself.

This is an ongoing goal; I suppose I’ll consider it officially Done when my yoga practice has become like breathing. Right now, it’s more like showering.

As with lots of creative pursuits, I’ve practiced painting enough to become reasonably competent (that should be my superhero power—“reasonably competent”), but not as good as I’d like. I’d like to actually learn the craft of painting more, and become better with shadows and light and more realistic stuff. I also like the idea of painting self-portraits (a la Frida Kahlo, one of my favorites).

I guess this goal is really tied in with another goal I have to draw more, and in general just do more visual art and get better at it. Maybe I’ll change it to reflect that.

I’ve dabbled in various instruments over the years, and actually become reasonably competent at a few of them. I started playing the flute in fourth grade, switched to piano in 9th grade and took lessons throughout high school. At the same time, I started playing bass guitar, and took bass lessons in college. In college I pretty much stopped piano for some reason, but did start playing acoustic guitar and singing towards the end. I also have an electric guitar now, and I don’t know which I prefer.

Lately, I’ve been playing my keyboard more, and ignoring my guitar, but I tend to bounce between them. I feel like I can get further on my own playing piano- I can buy sheet music and sight read and do pretty well. If I want to play better guitar, I think I’m going to have to invest in lessons. I think I’ve gotten about as good as I’m going to get on my own.

I miss playing music with other people. I never loved playing the flute, but I loved being part of an orchestra. What a wonderful feeling, to be sitting in the middle of an orchestra and hearing all the different instruments come and go in beautiful patterned waves around me. I’m bummed out that none of the instruments I currently play would really put me in the middle of that again.

Playing in a band was nice, too… I’d like to do that again, or at least have a couple friends to play with, or even just accompany someone on the piano.

Goals:
- Piano and Harmonium
- Guitar
- Voice (gulp)
- Play with others
- Blues/Jazz Style
- Consider lessons to jumpstart this goal
- Commit to practicing something each week

Incidentally, my early dabblings towards this goal involved using the Rosetta Stone software for learning Hindi (www.rosettastone.com). Rosetta Stone is generally pretty expensive, but I have to say, it really worked. I definitely recommend it to others pursuing this goal. It’s been a few years, and I still remember how to say “the little boy is under the airplane” (don’t worry, they teach more practical stuff too).

Step one of this goal is to research which language to focus on to begin with…

I took Spanish for four years in high school and it sunk in pretty well, so I have a head start there… it’s also probably the language with the most practical value… but I haven’t been able to motivate myself to get back into it. Maybe I need an immersion experience.

I’m also really interested in learning a language with an entirely different alphabet. I was thinking of Hindi, and even started taking some tutorials on that for awhile, because I’d like to travel more in India… but it also seems like more and more people are speaking English there, so it may not be the best use of my time. Sanskrit would be fun, and I could start reading some yoga texts in their original script… but beyond that, it has virtually no practical utility.

Japanese and Chinese would be obvious choices in the whole ‘new alphabet’ category, but they don’t interest me as much for some reason. Maybe if I got more into Zen scriptures, or traveled to Japan or something, I could get into it…

I also find sign language to be very interesting, and I know there’s a real need for people who do my kind of work who also know sign language. But… is it a dying language? More and more people are getting those cochlear implants…

I guess I’m torn between languages to learn for practical utility vs. the-hell-of-it. Isn’t there one that could be both?!

I have lived close to downtown Boston for awhile (and in the suburbs of Boston even longer), but mostly got around in my car and never really felt like a true city dweller.

I’d like to have the experience of living in a major city like New York, San Francisco, London, or someplace on an equal scale, just for a little while. I’m not sure I’m really a city mouse at heart, but it would be a fun adventure to get around solely on the subway, and get to take advantage of all the cultural opportunities, and live in some weird neighborhood with even weirder roommates. For awhile.

Really, I just want to keep practicing and getting better with my inversions and arm-balancing poses.

I first learned to do a headstand about 7 years ago, and it was such a great feeling! I started off using the wall, and still always do them near the wall, but almost never fall now and rarely use the wall at all.

I started being able to do some arm-balancing poses over the summer—VERY brief holds, but it still felt like a MASSIVE victory. I’ve never had a shred of upper body strength, and always felt like my wrists were kind of weak, which made it harder. Being able to do these arm-balancing poses felt, viscerally, like some core part of Me had changed for the better. I want to keep growing this, getting and feeling stronger and more capable by the day. I can now hold the arm-balancing poses a little longer; Yay!

I’m also starting to practice doing forearm stands, and just a few weeks ago had a major breakthrough being able to lift myself out of a headstand and into the forearm stand. Felt SO good!!!

Handstand, here I come!!!

I seriously need to get back into cooking. For awhile in college, and right after, I was a good little vegetarian health nut and did a lot of cooking. I totally lost the habit, though… now I’m eating meat again and never really learned to cook it well… and the rest of my cooking skills are pretty rusty, too- where they aren’t nonexistent completely!

Thankfully, I’ve been learning some basics the last few weeks…

I’ve started keeping a list of ideas for book topics… I haven’t actually starting writing any of the books… but I feel good that I’m at least beginning to harness my ideas and organize them into themes and topic areas.

For the most part, my book ideas are all nonfiction. A few are ‘how to’ types, others are memoir based, some are strictly educational, cultural studies or psychology-related, and some are profiles of other people up to interesting things. I could also get into publishing a small book of my poetry. Sometimes I fantasize about writing a novel… but I don’t even read novels, so by and large I’ve kept that off the table. We’ll see, though…

... and I’m not getting any younger. I need to start hanging onto the friends I’ve got, being more attentive, and creating a “chosen” family of peers.

I’m totally at a loss on how to do this. I know I’m not the best friend in the world, but I also feel like I’ve mostly befriended people who are even worse than I am. I’ve worked really hard to maintain some of my friendships, and never felt my efforts really reciprocated. Where do people find those lifelong, got-your-back, always-there-for-you kind of pals? Or, what’s more, a whole GROUP of them?! It seems like the Holy Grail, and yet so many people seem to have them. What do you have to do to find and keep these kinds of relationships? Is it just luck of the draw? Do you talk to your friends about this, or does it just sort of happen over time? It’s a mystery to me…