#25 - Defend My Dissertation Proposal (Part One)

This may be the item that has taken the longest to prepare... though I hope it only holds that title for 10 more months.

2011 could have been the toughest year of my life to that point.  But it wasn't.  Because of this list, this idea, this blog.  On that initial list, I wrote "Apply to a PhD program."  And I did.  Several, actually.  On each application I wrote about campus mental health and the immense potential for positive change there is in that area, growth that could save a lot of people from a lot of suffering.  The only bad guy we have to fight is ignorance.  Because I know we all want our students to be well, our communities to be well, our world to be well.

Like most things in life, this interest came from a seemingly random intersections of experiences.  Now, I'd probably call it the emergence of a need from the right intersection of experiences.

I have been a Student Affairs professional since 2006, and I have been on 5 different campuses in various capacities since 1998.  When I wrote my applications, I had 5 solid years of full-time experience working with college students and 6 years of professional engagement at conferences.  Most of those conferences were for recreation professionals (NIRSA, IIRSA), but every now and then I went to a regional Student Affairs organization conference.  I'd rather not say which one because I haven't been to enough to know if the following story is characteristic of the organization nor this particular region.  At the conference, sessions were labeled with symbols, an artifact of their culture meant to tell you which sessions might be of interest.  There were also symbols of exclusion, as in, some sessions were only meant for people of a certain status, something that was very foreign to me and my comfort in the NIRSA world.

One of these sessions happened to be one of the few at the conference that seemed interesting to me.  It was meant for deans and up.  I wanted to go.  Not many people knew me.  Very few people in that room would know me.  I could play dumb if someone called me out.  And I wanted to go.  So I did.

The session, from my memory, explained a new practice of employing case workers in working with students demonstrating severe signs and symptoms of mental illness.  I can't remember the exact year, but I believe this was after 2007, a year that marked a change in the approach to mental illness in higher education.

In 2007, 32 members of the Virginia Tech community were killed in a mass shooting.  17 more were injured.  The university focused its attention on caring for its community.  The media split its attention between the victims and the shooter, whom we soon learned showed many signs of mental illness and distressing behavior, which was noticed by various members of the Virginia Tech community.  The media described his delusions, his violent writings, and the lack of any system for identifying students who could cause such terrifying, traumatic events.

A desire to create a system to identify such students emerged.  The campus practice "Behavioral Concerns Teams" emerged.  Though they are not required in most states, many campuses quickly created them, not wanting to be the next Virgnia Tech.

Then not wanting to be the next Northern Illinois.  The next Oikos University.  The next UC Santa Barbara.

The incidents are tragic, random, and few.  The media coverage was more predictable.  Fear spread quickly, and more and more campuses have incorporated at-risk student identification teams.

Administrators, like this one in that session, were concerned with students safety, but they were also concerned with liability and institutional accountability.  It's a tricky balance.  Unless you consider how unlikely mass shootings are and how inevitable suicides seem to be in campus settings.

This administrator was extremely concerned with liability and institutional accountability.  He told a story about a student who had attempted suicide and shortly after took a voluntary leave of absence.  He expressed relief that she was now off campus, a campus he described as having issues of easy access to lethal means.  He expressed concern about her return.  Since she took a voluntary leave of absence, he could not put any restrictions on when or how she returned, if she chose to do so.  He asked the speakers what he could do to keep her off campus so that she would not return and kill herself, leaving the institution liable.

From what I remember, the speakers did not answer the question but awkwardly further explained the case worker process and how case workers would support such a student in a personal way.

Shortly after this conference, I attended my first Depression on College Campuses conference.  The theme that year had to do with suicide prevention.  I remember sitting in various rooms in the beautiful Rackham Graduate College at the University of Michigan and feeling repeatedly inspired by the wonderful work that people were doing all over the country to improve mental health, and, that year, to prevent suicide on campuses.

I remember learning about the structural limitations counseling offices had -- limited staff and space, which limited session availability and caused long waiting lists.  I remember hearing about how counseling sessions were filled with students who already know how to seek help and how little time there was to reach out to students who were not seeking help.  I also remember hearing how many sessions were filled by students who could just as easily benefitted from participating in a number of other campus programs or services, students who were lonely and looking for connection.  The presenters talked about how they were so busy in their offices serving students that they didn't have time for outreach, and so much of that time was taken by students who likely did not need counseling, only connection.  They wanted to know, how could they reach the students when they didn't have any way to create relationships until the students showed up.

I sat there thinking, I can do that.  As a Student Affairs professional, I have continuous, direct relationships with students.  I know them personally.  They trust me.  They come to me with problems.  I do my best to help them.

I thought, if I had a better relationship with my campus counseling center, I could be that connection they needed.  So could any of my colleagues.  The counseling center didn't need to be doing this all alone.  We could help.

We could also help with the second problem: students seeking counseling when what they are really looking for is connection.  My job is to create community, to foster genuine connections.  If we had better relationships with the counseling center, we could connect students to them and they could connect students to us.

My work has come a long way from that place.  I still believe in the power of connections and in recognizing the importance of each other's work.  I still believe that the mental health of our communities should be a shared responsibility and that we should work with campus mental health professionals to guide our work with students.

Despite my passion and connection to this topic, I genuinely believed I would change topics multiple times while in my doctoral program.  I thought maybe I'd study generational differences, recreation, and I did, a little.  I even delved deeply in to Third Space theory.  But I always came back.  And each time I attended the Depression on College Campuses conference I reconnected with this idea of shared responsibility and the potential of and within healthy communities.  My fire was stoked each time I learned about the beautiful work my fellow conference attendees and the presenters.  There were so many people doing innovative, passionate work to reduce the amount of suffering and to increase the amount of joy in this world, starting with college campuses.

And so various iterations with various perspectives brought me back to my final topic: "Campus Mental Health Practices and the Stigma of Mental Illness."

I saw such inspiring work at the Depression on College Campuses conference, but no one seemed to have researched the effectiveness of the practices.  I was hopeful that they were working: that students were mentally healthier and that more students experiencing the signs and symptoms of mental illness were seeking help.  But no one seemed to know except anecdotally.

There is a major data set about student mental health, but I could only get access to the data in aggregate, which meant I couldn't link the practices to outcomes of health.  I also did not have a good way to measure help-seeking behaviors.  However, I learned through a review of the literature that help-seeking behaviors are negatively correlated with the stigma of mental illness.  In our survey research methods class, we were challenged to create a scale of measurement for a concept, and through that work, I thought that maybe I could measure stigma.

I chose Student Affairs professionals as my lens, due to my own experiences and belief about the accessability of the population.

I chose to examine the topic quantitatively, exploring for possible associations between campus mental health practices and the stigma of mental illness, to explore for hope.  Does anything appear to be working?  Is anything possibly contributing to lower levels of stigma?  Are there things we can do to make our campuses happier, healthier communities?

Depending on the results, there could be so many implications for practice and further research to really explore practices that might be working.

After a semester in Dissertation Seminar, I worked the topic, with the generous feedback of our instructor and department chair Dr. Afsaneh Nahavandi and my classmates, all of whom have been tagged here.

Then, with some thoughtful, energetic work from my dissertation chair, Dr. Christopher Newman, and my committee members, Dr. Lee Williams and Dr. Zachary Green, I was approved to defend my dissertation proposal.  I am really, honestly grateful that Christopher agreed to be my chair and that Lee and Zachary agreed to be on my committee.  I want to do good work, and I know they won't accept anything less.

Although I had to really work hard to solidify my argument, methods, and analyses, I won't bore you here with those details.

In Part Two, I'll talk about the actual defense, and all of the wonderful people who challenged and supported me during those hours.

#9 - Have a Bonfire on the Beach

In January, the Zanns and I had the best intentions, just not the time.  To knock another item off the list during their visit, we prepped ourselves for a bonfire.  Mariko Peshon gave us some brief text instruction, so we went and got wood, a lighter, and some newspaper.  We just didn't give ourselves enough time to stake out an actual pit.  I'd say we should have worked harder to go earlier, but then we would have cut some of the other really lovely parts of our day, like "hiking" Torrey Pines State Reserve or visiting the Whaley House.

Credit goes to them for a sincere, targeted effort!  Thanks, friends!

Instead of sitting by a fire, we watched Superbad, ate pizza, and saved the world (50% of the time)

A month or so later, we failed again.  Erin Gillespie and I tried to get another fire going, but somehow, during this drought, we got some of that much-needed rain, which kept us inside most of the night.  (It was still a really lovely, unexpected night!)

In May, I was finally able to officially check this one off the list.  Tara organized a nice group to head over to Crown Point.  We had a nice, warm fire, played an infuriating game, ate s'mores, and watched fish fly.

Success!

 Um... it was a nice time.

#92 - Touch the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean on the Same Day / within 24 Hours

I altered the title of this post because I decided to alter the list item a bit.

In my head, I had to touch both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans within a 24-hour period.  However, I wrote it "on the same day."  Then, the original plan would have satisfied both qualifications.  Then Southwest Airlines screwed that up.

When I planned my trip to Boston, my current list champion Angela Mioglionico made a list of probably 20 things we could cross off my list.  However, my lacksidasical San Diego attitude and first-night-back-in-Boston-induced hangover made executing them all impossible.  This item, however, was a now-or-never sort of thing as I was on the east coast and currently live on the west coast but may move before I make it back to the east coast again.  

Angela originally planned to somehow dip me in the Boston Harbor like I was some sort of olden times tea.  1) For some reason I don't count the Boston Harbor as the Atlantic Ocean -- though I would have counted it as swimming in a new body of water if I had somehow gone swimming in the harbor.  2)  I still don't quite understand how she was going to get me close enough to the surface to touch it.  Like, was she going to dangle me from a pier?  I don't get it.

Instead, she took me to Nahant, which I now know is an island and is also the location of some of the filming of Shutter Island.  My first thought was, "Dang, this is going to be cold."  My second thought was, "DANG, look at all those kite surfers!  They must be cold."  Not surprisingly, the water was cold.  Surprisingly, the sand was really soft and there were seashells everywhere.  It made me want to research why there are so many seashells in some areas (like Nahant) and not others (like San Diego beaches).  As we were leaving, a surfer arrived, dressed in a full, hooded wetsuit.  You go, Boston surfer.

Coincidentally, as I was about to enter the water in Nahant, Tara Edberg texted me confirming she could pick me up from the airport in San Diego.  She told me we could stop by the Harbor on the way home.  So I had to tell her that, unfortunately, the Harbor didn't count.  She texted back that I'd probably be touching the Boston Harbor as the Atlantic.  Sorry, friends.  Harbors are not oceans.

As we left Nahant, I got a text from Southwest Airlines saying my flight was delayed 2.75 hours.  I checked my connection, and there was no way I was going to make that.  So Angela tagged along with me as I called Southwest.  The woman I spoke to said there was no way I was getting to San Diego that night and then kept listing the options for me to get to Baltimore so I could fly out from there in the morning.  I still can't figure out why she wanted me to spend the night in Baltimore so badly.  Baltimore is not on the way to San Diego.  Instead, we went to the airport and after a very long wait, I was scheduled for a 5:40am flight the next day, landing me in San Diego at 11:05am.  That left me 1 hour and 10 minutes to get to the ocean to keep it inside my 24 hour window.  Any delays was going to kill that list item.


























By the way, this was one of my very, very few bad experiences with Southwest.  They did give me a voucher for the inconvenience, but it's only enough for a one-way flight, so I feel like they're just guarenteeing I'll buy another flight in a year.  Then, because they changed my flight, I lost my boarding position, and for my Chicago to San Diego leg, I had C57.  If you have ever flown Southwest, you know that means I would be in the least desirable middle seat on the plane.  They wouldn't upgrade me even though they had upgrades available nor would they let me use my voucher to pay for it.  I just sucked it up and paid the $40 because I was just too exhausted to bear a 4+ hour middle seat ride after getting up at 4am.  That delay cost me around $70 I would not have otherwise spent.  I did write them a message, and I hope they get back to me with some sort of consilation.


My flight landed 5 minutes early.  Tara swooped me up, and we went off to Ocean Beach on a time crunch.  I ran into the ocean.  She took my picture.  We parted ways for the day.

Thank you to Angela and Tara for your help in fitting this in!

#90 - Celebrate Patriot's Day in Boston

I only took video of the women, but here are the elite men.

As you may know from some of my other blog posts, I'm a runner (2011, 2014, 2014) .  I've been a runner for as long as I can remember, I guess.  I mean, I wasn't running races at 8 years old or anything, but I know I joined the cross country team in sixth grade and ran track through high school.  In high school, I became aware of the Boston Marathon, and ever since then, it's been a dream of mine... to watch it.  For some reason, running it was never the dream.  I have one full marathon under my belt and no desire to a full marathon ever again.

The trouble has been threefold
1.  The Boston Marathon is on a Monday, specifically Patriot's Day.
2.  Flights that weekend are always expensive.
3.  I keep moving further and further away.

This year, however, I did not get a real winter break.  My qualifying paper for my dissertation was due January 5, so I spent my entire "break" writing.  Because I am not a workaholic, that did not sit well with me, so in addition to conferences in Ann Arbor and Dallas, I booked leisure trips to Chicago and Boston.  I was finally going to make it to the Boston Marathon courtesy of my dear friends and list champions Alan Fortunate and Angela Mioglionico.

I spent a lovely weekend doing typical Bostonian things (e.g. watching Good Will Hunting) with My Favorite Al.  Then then Monday morning, we woke up bright and early -- okay, bright and early Pacific time -- and walked from Brighton to Cleveland Circle for a very delightful marathon viewing party hosted by Jessie Cox and roommates.  There were all of my favorite morning activities: mimosas, running, bagels, and friendship.

We were easily able to catch the lead wheelchair competitors, women's elite, and men's elite.  That was pretty damn sweet for a running nerd like me.

Instagrams "Highest Quality Aid Station"

We then shortly became what instagram calls "the highest quality aid station" as we stood between miles 22 and 23 under a bright orange Harpoon tent and handed out beers to anyone who requested one.  We had a lot of takers.  They were fantastic.

The weather was miserable.  It was rainy, windy, and cold.  Terrible running and viewing conditions.  Having been on the other side of the barrier, it made me feel like we had an even more valuable role as spectators.


Despite the weather, it was a really fun day, and I hope to do it again under better conditions someday!

#91 - Go to a Boxing Class

This opportunity fell into my lap, as opportunities are wont do at the NIRSA annual conference.

List legend Norris Narsa dropping dimes.

See, I'm a collegiate recreation professional.  It's quite a niche career, and it can be weirdly tough to explain.  On the most basic level, we're the ones who run all of those sport and fitness facilities and programs on college campuses.  What we really do is worth it's own conversation, but, trust me, it's the best.  We learn, teach, laugh, play, workout, and create spaces for others to do the same.  I love it.

Our professional organization is NIRSA, which used to stand for the National Intramural - Recreational Sports Association, but as we are no longer just national and we encompass much more than intramurals and sports, we are now officially NIRSA: Leaders in Collegiate Recreation.  Each year, we have an annual conference.  At our annual conference, we have an expo hall.  Yes, many conference have an expo hall, but ours is likely quite different from many conferences as it is generally full of fun and games.  See, all that playing we do on campus needs equipment, and the vendors show up in full force to convince us that their products are the most fun or provide the best workout.  This year, I shot hoops for the NIRSA Foundation, rode a mechanical bull thanks to MTVU, learned to play one of my new favorite sports: Spikeball, and took my first boxing class with Pink Gloves boxing.

Wamp wamp...

Since we're the type of people generally inclined to want to participate, some organizations or individuals run group fitness classes in the expo hall.  While I generally dislike group fitness (except for yoga at Mosaic, of course), this year's program included a boxing course from Pink Gloves, and, hey, that was on my list, so I went.

It was a quick workout, just 45 minutes, but it was a ton of fun.  Garrett and the other staff led us in some basic moves and then 5 stations.  Hitting things was fun, but I also love their slogan: "It's not exercise, it's empowerment."  I could definitely see how regular participation with that group would build strength in all sorts of capacities.  The community vibe was really inspiring.  Thank you Pink Gloves!

I'm hoping my next campus has boxing because I should have taken advantage of working out with the boxing club at my last university.  I do hope to find an affordable class in the San Diego area, so if you have any favorites, send them my way!

#3 - Go To a Haunted House

SPOILER ALERT:
We survived.

I've had several people ask me, "You've seriously never been to a haunted house?"  So... yes, but not many.  This is the only one I remember.  But that was just a over a year ago.  So I suppose maybe not a haunted house but a "haunted" thing, for sure.  But with this list item, I didn't mean scary.  I meant haunted.

A few years back I was pretty obsessed with ghost shows.  I watched them all the time.  All of them.

Do I believe in ghosts?

No.

However, I do believe in things that can't be easily explained, like quantum mechanics and memetics.  There are all kinds of things that science can't explain that still exist and happen at macro, meso, micro, nano levels.

Does that mean I'm "spiritual?"

No.

The courtroom.
Because obviously every haunted house has a court room.

I just believe that we'll never understand everything.  So I also believe that it's possible that there's something about spaces.  Some may carry a good energy and give way to love and happiness.  Others may carry the opposite.  And, more likely, every space carries both.

So when a place has seen a lot of bad things, I wonder what that energy does to that place.  Or if it's the place that already holds the bad energy and then bad things happen there.

I don't know.

Regardless, a little over a year ago I was walking through Old Town to meet some friends for Taco Tuesday, and I passed a dark, quiet house on an otherwise touristy, gimmicky street.  And I recognized it.  Then I read the sign, which said, "The Whaley House."  I thought to myself, I think I know that name and this house.  So I later looked it up on my phone, and I did.  Several articles and shows have listed the Whaley House as the most haunted house in the United States.

Very scientific.

The next year, 2014, I put it on my list to go.  But then I didn't.  Even though it was super simple and really close to my school.

This year, I had the fortune of having two of my very favorite people, Chris and Holly Zann visit me in January.  They are Top Ten'ers on the list, and they were determined to scratch a few more off with me during their visit.  Most of the items required a little more planning, but the Whaley House did not.

After a lovely hike of Torrey Pines on a beautiful day, we battled the crowds of tourists in Old Town on a Saturday, bought some tickets, did some brief reading, and toured the house.

The downstairs was full of old stuff.  I'm not that into old stuff.  But there was a courtroom.  That was random.

Then we went upstairs.  Again, I don't believe in ghosts or paranormal activity, at all, but standing on the landing at the top of the stairs felt heavy or gross or off-balance or something.  I just felt out of it and lost the hunger that had been sitting in my stomach in anticipation of our lunch at In and Out.  Then in one of the bedrooms, another tourist had an EMF detector  that was kinda going a little wacky.  However, EMF detectors weren't created to detect ghosts, so I still believe that maybe it's the electro-magnetic fields that are weird in a place that can make people then report the symptoms associated with the presence of the paranormal.  Also, he was using a cell phone.  Not an actual EMF detector.

Zann listened.

Then we listened to one of the staff's stories.  She told us of her own experiences, experiences of visitors, experiences of investigators.  She told us to be aware in case the child ghost held our hands or another ghost played with our hair.

Holly judged.

The other rooms upstairs weren't as heavy as the stairwell, but I felt uncomfortable upstairs.  And that feeling left when I went downstairs.  Everything felt incredibly light when we walked out.  But we also walked out to a 74 degree, sunny San Diego afternoon.  I'm pretty sure I feel that same lightness when I walk out of my own house into that weather.

I didn't "like" it in there.  I probably won't pursue visiting other haunted spaces.  I do hope the energy of spaces means something and can be carried with a person, but in hoping that, I'd rather pursue visiting happy, healthy, light places and hope the good energy there is contagious than to risk the heaviness of sad, tragic places.  I do believe in recognizing both the light and the dark, but I just don't want to dwell in the dark.  I want to dwell in the light.

I assume this door under the stairs hides the bedroom of their secret wizard nephew.

#33 - Do Yoga Every Day for 7 Days

This year had a pretty rough start.

I flew home to San Diego from Michigan on 12/30/14.  I had picked up a nasty cold and the air pressure during the flight was extremely painful, particularly during take off and landing, and I wasn't so lucky this trip to have a nonstop flight.  My ears hurt so badly that it gave me a headache.  Plus I was snotty and coughing and gross.  I was thankful that my Dad paid for me to upgrade my boarding position on Southwest, so I did have a good seat to pass out, but I kept waking myself up coughing.

On top of the sickness, I recently developed a slight flying anxiety that really flares during turbulence.  The flight to Michigan was probably the bumpiest I had ever been on, just constant shaking and large jumps for the first hour or two.  I was so anxious I couldn't do anything.  Then, for the flight back, I was remembering the flight there and having even more anxiety just worrying that every bump was signalling a series of turbulence, which was sometimes the case and sometimes not.  Then I overheard the flight attendant say that because of the extreme winds out of San Diego, our landing was going to be "fun."

Here's Kyle a few months ago playing by himself.

I was happy to land and my roommate kindly picked me up.  Once I got home, he mentioned how one of my cats (Kyle) hadn't left his favorite cardboard box all day.  Then I saw him get up, limp a few steps, and lie down again.  So I called the vet and B Street Vet, right around the corner, let me walk in.  The vet did some x-rays and told me he has arthritis in both hips.  I spent close to $400 on the x-rays and medication and was told we'd have to figure out a long-term solution with medication and I should buy him a heating pad.  They had also given him a sedative because he was so squirmy during the x-ray.  When I got him home, he was so drugged out and kept trying to walk but just looked drunk.

The next day was NYE.  Kyle spent the whole day looking miserable and exhausted.  He wouldn't move.  He wouldn't eat.  He wouldn't sleep.  I checked the medication and it also contains a sedative.  So I went out to dinner with some friends.  The next day I got up and he still wouldn't move and looked worse.  I took him back in and the vet's assistant looked panicked.  She had him see the vet right away and they soon told me he was in heart failure.  The poor thing spent the next 24 hours at the vet, spending the night in the emergency room, and I was out several hundred more dollars without any way of knowing what his chances really were.  He responded positively to everything they did for him, but he was recovering very, very slowly.

Finally the night of the 2nd, I took him home, and he popped out of his carrier, started purring, walked around, rubbed against my roommate, ate some food, drank some water, used the litter... like all within 15 minutes.  He was clearly not back to his normal self, but I was so relieved that a lot of his apathetic behavior at the vet was due to being at the vet for so long and being miserable.

Here's Kyle with his Get Well Soon flowers.
He really loves flowers.

So now I've taken him to a cardiologist and he has a genetic heart condition that requires me to give him pills twice a day, but he acts more like himself every day.  His prognosis isn't good, but besides the seconds it takes to give him the pills each day, he seems happy and painfree.

With all of the the tears and snot and sickness sweat in those few days, I couldn't believe I had any liquids left in my body.

So obviously, I went to a heated yoga class.

Last January, I took a trip to Sri Lanka for a course.  The focus on mindfulness was such a beautiful way to start my year that I decided that this year, I would put a mindfulness practice on my to do list every day, and that I would start my year with this list item specifically (do yoga every day for 7 days).  I decided to alternate between studio yoga and shorter sessions at home with a youtube channel called "DoYouYoga.com."  I'd been using the "30 Day Challenge" videos to guide my home practice for a couple months, so I decided to keep using those during this week because they tend to be 10-20 minutes of gentle yoga that would nicely complement the tougher days in the studio.

I knew lots of studios in San Diego, so I Googled yoga Groupons, and the universe was kind and there was a current deal for Mosaic.  (There is still a deal as of this moment here.)  I've been wanting to try Mosaic for awhile.  It's literally 2 blocks from my house, I've heard great things, and a few of the staff are graduates of or connected to the USD leadership program, where I am working on my PhD.  Even better, Jessica Williams and Kari Szakal also bought the Groupon, so we all got a $16 refund from the already low $45 we paid for 10 classes.

I started my week with a Tuesday night Yoga 2 class led by Kevin with, and at the recommendation of, my friend Kassi Grunder.  I struggled to start because my cold was still very present and a running, stuffy, sticky nose really makes it tough to have fluid, mindful breathing.  I decided to dedicate that week's practice to my breath and the meaning of having my breath feel out of control, stuck, or stopped.  The theme resonated with me because of poor Kyle at home, working so hard, with doctor's help, to get the fluid out of his lungs that had accumulated during his heart failure.  I adjusted my breath as needed and simultaneously fell in love with Kevin's class.

Kevin had a nearly perfect pace.  There were moments when I felt like I couldn't do any more and I would need to take a break, and as soon as I had made that decision, he would transition to something else.  That with 20 or so of us in the room, all at different levels.  There were students less experienced than me, concentrating on the words as well as the poses.  Then there were students light years ahead of me, seemingly easily moving to each pose, including graceful balances and inversions.   By the end of class, sweat was pouring from my pores, and I was thankful to have such a wonderful holding environment for cleansing myself and building my strength.

In the next 7 days I also attended 2 classes led by Sophie, a Yoga 1 and a Yoga 2.  I loved the Yoga 1 because I am always so inspired when I see people trying yoga for the first time, because I love when an instructor includes time to assist in bettering my poses, and because Sophie included a crystal singing bowl at the end.  I loved Yoga 2 because it fits my level a little better.

While I have now given myself a nearly 7 day break from yoga, I really loved developing my practice.  I hope that between Mosaic and the ARC I'll find myself doing yoga at least once a week.  I love the sweat that pours in heated yoga and I felt a lot more coordinated and strong during volleyball.

Namaste.