Hong Kong Photos!

*Ngong ping 360 cable car on Lantau Island

*Tea and scones at the Peninsula


*View from the Star Ferry

*View from Victoria Peak











*Buddha in the clouds


*"Chinglish" exhibition at the art museum



*Statues on Hollywood Road antiques street

*Red-sailed junk that tours Hong Kong Harbor, shot from Art Museum

Duty-Freetini

Ingredients:
Absolut Pear Vodka bought in Duty-Free at Hong Kong International Airport
Random little bottle of pear juice given away free with purchase of OJ
Can of club soda hiding at the back of your teeny fridge

1.Get fed up. With everything.
2. Make ice in your nine-cube ice tray while sweltering in the microwave that is currently Beijing.
3. Put ice in large glass.
4. Pour in generous measure of vodka you are assured is not fake because it was bought outside mainland China and so does not freeze solid in your freezer like the Absolut and Absolut Peach you bought in Beijing.
5. Add juice and club soda.
6. Top up with more vodka.
7. Stir with random utensil selected from drying rack.
8. Blog, enjoy and make a second to use up the can of club soda.
9. Decide things aren't as annoying as you thought they were.

Eight Things

I've been tagged by Carl at Sweat and Fire, so here goes...

1) I'm enjoying learning how to rock climb, but I hate the way I freak out on the cliff because I'm afraid of falling.

2) I make a perfect roasted turkey and some deliciously lethal sangria. (Turkey tip: roast only to an internal temp of 150, take it out, tent it with foil, let it sit 20 minutes or until it reaches 160, serve IMMEDIATELY. Sangria tip: use frozen stone fruit and add a healthy dose of rum, brandy, or fruit schnapps.)

3) If I enjoyed it more, I would have played the viola professionally.

4) I love to sing, but I'm too embarrassed to sing in public even though my friends ask me to.

5) All the jewelry I wear which garners compliments was either made by my Mom or given to me by Il Divino.

6) Before the age of 30, I'll have my Ph.D. in hand, but I know I want a job more interesting and mobile than tenured professor.

7) My passport will need to have new pages added to it before it expires in 2010.

8) The hardest and most painful decision I ever had to make was to break off an engagement.

1) The basic principle is eight random/fun/interesting things about yourself.
2) Post your eight things.
3) Tag eight other people.
4) Write a comment to them telling them they've been tagged.

There are some technical (read: Great Firewall) issues today, so the number of tag-ees is less than it is supposed to be:

ISHTA System Blog
Jottings from the Granite Studio
Just Breathe
Ombites
Zazazu (Karen Beth, wordpress is one of my firewall problems, so this is the only way I can post a comment on your blog!)

Back in the capital

Whew...made it back, although I'm now exhausted. But I know it was a good trip because:
1) I had some marvelous meals.
2) I had to check my previously-carry-on luggage back to BJ.
3) My feet are totally blistered from walking around in new shoes.
4) Shanghai Tang was involved.

I didn't make it to Pure Yoga. But I ran into one of their branches in one of the (millions of) malls in Hong Kong, and it just totally turned me off from the outside. You had to go through their shop to get to the fitness space, and it was nothing but uber-expensive gear and zippy lighting. Plus, you had to sign up for their classes two days in advance. Not my kind of place. So I turned it into my off-the-mat practice of not freaking out when I get lost or things don't go right.

And I made an amazing find! The Life Cafe, which is an organic vegetarian cafe/deli/shop right smack in the middle of the Central district under the escalator that runs people up the steepsteep hill back to their apartments in the Mid-levels. From the outside it just looked like my kind of place: nice wood, big windows, fun little chalkboard sign, quiet. So I popped in for a fresh sparkly lemonade to cool down my overworked pitta dosha, and it was wonderful inside! So I made the trek back over there on Saturday morning for one of their organic vegetarian breakfasts: eggs benedict with spinach and grilled tomato on homemade bread and a chai. They had this spring's issues of Yoga Journal laying out to read, and the HK version of YJ for sale, so I just made myself comfortable for a couple hours while the temperature went up above 90 and the UV index to 10. Brilliant - exactly my kind of Saturday morning. Ahhhh....

I'll blog more about this when I've recovered a little. There is one more meal which deserves its own post, and pictures of the Big Buddha on Lantau island on the day of his birthday (May 24) yet to come!

Hong Kong Holiday!

Off to Hong Kong for a whirlwind trip! I hope to pop in to Pure Yoga while I'm there, will let you know how that goes!

In the meantime, a question to ponder: what color is your yoga mat, and why did you choose that color?

There's no place like home

One of the things I've been working on this week is my YogaStory Meme, a project which fit it quite nicely with Yoga Spark's posts, part one and part two, on why she practices. But not only did I not manage to post as a comment, I also haven't finished editing my YogaStory. Totally dropped the ball this week, folks. And then the weekend was eaten up with a work dinner Friday night, then guests in town Saturday, and an alumni lunch on Sunday...and there goes the whole weekend. Haven't even had a chance to read either the travel section or Modern Love yet!

And yet, the question that has been on my mind all this week is why I practice.

For the last six years, I haven't lived in one city for more than two years at a time, and during the course of that time I've always lived in at least two different apartments. When I was a kid, we moved around every four years, so nowhere ever felt like home. Now, my parents are retired and have moved down to the beach. Before I moved to China, I sold the old car I'd had since the age of 16 and got rid of my last apartment. My passport is getting close to needing more pages. I'm becoming better and better at packing my whole life into bags which don't exceed the weight limits of international flights. And even though I love to travel, this whole time I've been struggling to find out where "home" is in the middle of all the globe-trotting required for my career.

Since it couldn't be a constant physical place, I knew it had to be somewhere inside. Still, that didn't quite work for me, since the physical space of "home" is a key part of the concept. Then this week it hit me when I was constantly pondering the question of why I practice: my home is on the mat. No matter where in the world it gets unrolled, it's always the same mat and it always feels good, and safe, and comfortable. On the mat, there is no culture shock, no currency conversions, no incomprehensible languages, no visa requirements. There are no expectations, no criticisms, no one saying anything but "be what you want and need to be right now, and that will be exactly right." On the mat, there's nothing foreign. It was such a powerful feeling that I had to sit down.

This realization has completely changed my practice. Like today, I went to the Relax and Restore class, which I don't usually get to attend. My head was pounding, my TMJ-ridden jaw was spasming, and thoughts were doing body slams as they moshed around in the brain-pit. Halfway through the class, all that pain and tension was gone. It wasn't just because of the extra blocks or the bolsters, but rather the fact that as soon as I stepped onto the mat I felt like I could just relax and be me at home rather than a stranger in a strange land. For ninety minutes, I was home. As soon as my foot hit the mat, the feeling just went through me like a wave: welcome home.

Why do I practice? I practice because my home, no matter where I live, is on the mat.

Attainable Ideals, Part I

We all have a vision of the ideal life, but the biggest problem with ideals is often just that - their idealism. Idealism has come to connote naivete, pollyanna tendencies, unrealistic expectations. To say someone is an idealist has traces of negativity and criticism, but also a touch of envy because we think, "Why can't I have ideals too? Are ideals really that unrealistic?"

I used to think so, but then Il Divino introduced me to his concept of "attainable ideals." We all have dreams, goals, and a vision of our perfect life, and what having attainable ideals does is to just clarify those in a way that you can actually achieve them and live that ideal life. This means, finding ideals that will still require some solid work, a good bit of stretching, consistent growth, and plenty of support, but which are still possible if you're dedicated to attaining them and they're not completely out there.

Ultimately, these ideals can be divded three categories: "personal," "professional" and "both." The ideals that overlap are the most important, but its up to you to decide if they should be worked on first or later because they can also be the most complex. These are also the ones which require the most hard work, perseverance and attention.

In five steps, here's how to do it:

1. Categorize. Divide all your plans among "personal," "professional" or "both" categories. Note which ones fall into "both" - these are key.

2. Simplify. Our dreams and plans are definitely ranked inside our heads. Some are crucial, some would be really great to have, some would be okay, and some are fun but a little unnecessary. By picking out the ones that are really key to living our ideals, we can not only focus our intentions but maybe even realize that we don't actually need a whole lot. But what is left on the list should make you feel incredible and excited. The ones that are in the "both" category are usually automatically included, but if you feel they shouldn't be then that's probably a sign they need a little more thought.

3. Create. No matter what, all of these attainable ideals need action plans. This includes ways to practice that ideal in the here and now, ways to bring your current situation closer to the ideal, and what specifically to do you when you fall off the wagon. Finding supporters are also a key part of method, especially if you're working on something that involves another specific person.

4. Live. No matter how long it might take you to attain these ideals - and we're probably talking years here - there are little ways to live your ideals now. Living them now allows you to prove to yourself not only that you are dedicated to attaining these ideals, but also that they are, in fact, attainable because they only take tiny, daily steps.

5. Relax. You will fall off the wagon, guaranteed. The fact that these are all ideals means that you need to really work and grow and maybe even change to attain them. It won't be easy, and can't be achieved in a short period of time, but it is still possible. Beating yourself up about it isn't any way to reach them either, so just relax if it all goes pear-shaped at times because you can always just start again from where you left off.

This is just the first post of many to come on attainable ideals, and my own personal ideals. But I hope you'll add yours in, as well - if you blog it or want to write a long one instead of a quick comment, just let me know and I'll link to it as a meme!

Celebratory coffee with a shot of irony

In Yogademia milestones, today I finished reading and discussing the first 80 chapters of Dream of the Red Chamber in the original Chinese! (But Kiki, why should we care?) Dream of the Red Chamber is the 120-chapter monster of a classic Chinese novel written by Cao Xueqin (the last forty chapters most likely written by a younger relative of his) in the 18th century which tells the story of a wealthy, high-ranking family's gradual fall from imperial favor. Although there are a million characters and umpteen different layers of symbolism, and the plot can politely be described as "tangled," it is considered a portrait of the era. In other words, required reading for an 18th-century specialist such as yours truly. It's written mostly in 18th-century vernacular, which is halfway between Classical and Modern Chinese. Classical Chinese has a different grammar structure than Modern Chinese and requires special training to read - even Chinese people can't read Classical without some sort of training. The book is usually divided into the first eighty chapters and the last forty, in which the style is markedly different and the storyline is a little muddled. All in all, achieving this is a huge deal, because I started reading the darn thing last June.

In honor of this event and the nice weather, I decided to treat myself to a Starbucks. Here's the thing: I'm a tea drinker, and really not a huge fan of coffee. But sometimes a frozen-coffee-slushy-thing tastes pretty good. Plus, Starbucks is one of the few places in the city guaranteed to be smoke-free (thank goodness). (Incidentally, while in the States Starbucks brews their coffee to the strength of battery acid, here it is markedly weaker - decidedly underbrewed, even for a confirmed chai drinker like me.) So I'm sitting outside at my local S'bucks playing with all the good stuff on Google, and I come across this post by Bread Coffee Chocolate Yoga about Yunnan coffee, based on this article in the Boston Globe. Starbucks and Illy are looking to get into Yunnan coffee? What? Two problems with that here: one, the whole caché of Starbucks here for the Chinese would be completely lost; two, no coffee-drinking foreigner would willingly exchange their precious imported Illy for Yunnan. I love the irony.

Beijing tidbit: you'll notice in the Globe article that the photo is taken from the Starbucks in the Forbidden City. Yes, there is a Starbucks in the Forbidden City, but it's very discreet and completely necessary. The rest of the food and drink available in the FC is overpriced garbage, nowhere near worthy of this most important of Chinese museums. Some Chinese are kicking up a fuss about having a foreign coffee company there, but I can't emphasize enough how necessary it is. When I give tours of the Forbidden City - which usually take about three hours, it's that big - people really need a break halfway through. Starbucks is located at the perfect point in the FC for a break, right near the "Four Star Tourist Bathroom." Besides, in the winter, when the winds blow south from Siberia directly into your face, you clutch that coffee like a lifeline while trudging through the courtyards. If you come to Beijing, I'll tour you through the FC - and you'll see just how important that coffee can be.

Mishmash

**Burt's Bees has a new program called The Greater Good aimed at standardizing the meaning of "natural" in personal care products . This company keeps on getting better and better. Their Repair Serum (99.94& natural) and Lip Shimmers (100% natural) have prevented any Beijing-pollution-induced scaly facial nastiness from scaring off Il Divino, so I can't tout them often enough - especially given this new program.

**Both Pink Martini and Susheela Raman have new albums out!

**Project Pose of the Month is developing somewhat haphazardly. Two problems: lifting sideways out of the core and balancing the weight more evenly on both arms. Any suggestions?

**One of my flatmates made the decision to leave her political science Ph.D. program - holy toledo, Batman! Thoughts on this are forthcoming, but I'm waiting until my initial raw reaction to the event smooths out into a more articulate response before posting about it. Still, it's on the table - FYI.

**New blog added to the links at right: Jottings from the Granite Studio. Something a little less yogic than usual...take a look! But apparently, the blogger's wife practices yoga, so it does actually fit in quite nicely with Yogademia. Be sure to check out this post, which describes life here so accurately, it's painful.

Becoming and Being a Teacher

(Note: this post is part sequel to, part comment on the previous post. Access to my own blog - or any blog whatsoever now - to post comments is a little unstable. Oh, the Great Firewall...)

All of these comments on teaching and becoming a certified teacher are great - because teaching is a huge part of academia although we really don't get a whole lot of actual pedagogical training. That old chestnut about "those who can't, teach" applies in many academic situations, especially at research universities like mine, and yet these professors are responsible both for educating impressionable young undergrads and for training graduate students to take up the flag in the future. Ironic, but understandable considering that most of the actual teaching going on at my university is being done by the Ph.D. candidates and if we want teacher training, we usually have to seek it out on our own initiative.

I was lucky enough to do my B.A. at one of those idealistic colleges where the emphasis was on teaching undergrads. Just about all my classes were taught by professors interested in the students: people willing to put in extra time explaining concepts, directing an independent study, supervising a thesis. It feels like my karmic privilege to keep passing this on, therefore being an effective teacher is extremely important to me as an academic. This is my tiny little contribution to the world, and the way I can demonstrate gratitude for what I've received. In other words, if I can help give my students a little more clarity and tolerance for other cultures vis-a-vis art, then maybe I too can make the world just a little better. This is yogademia at its purest: mindful, responsive contribution based on improving the world at hand with whatever gifts you have based on the principles of yoga. (However, I don't think my students think I'm practicing ahimsa - nonviolence - when I disagree that they deserve an "A" instead of the "B" they actually earned.)

"Ph.D." (or at least a "Masters") in Yoga

This article from the Style** section of the New York Times on yoga therapy touched on the issue of training:

"It was only after her first yoga therapy session with Emily Large, who runs Living Large Therapeutics, that she realized why group yoga left her cold. “When you go to a yoga class, everybody is doing the same thing,” Mrs. Adams said. “If you have a neck or back injury, the instructor doesn’t know”...People often turn to yoga when they are injured because they want gentle exercise that’s easy on the joints. But, most yoga teachers don’t have time to address individual problems, nor do they regularly deal with special needs...[E]xperts inside and outside the industry say yoga therapy should be approached with caution. In general, a person can practice as a yoga therapist after 200 hours of yoga teacher training, which might include basic training in anatomy, breathing, meditation and giving adjustments."

First, you don't have to be a teacher to know that your injuries and physical sensivities are going to affect your practice, but if you are a teacher, then you do know you need to ask your students about their bodies before a practice. It worries me when, in articles published in a paper like the NYT, someone says that yoga teachers aren't checking for injuries before the start of class. But it worries me even more when students don't tell their teachers they have these sensitivities. Tell your teacher!

In my opinion, not asking for injuries speaks to a deficiency in training. 200 hours of training is just a beginning: if you count it within the confines of an eight-hour workday, that comes out to only 25 days. A 500-hour training comes out to more than 60 days. This is fascinating to me, someone whose degree will ultimately take seven years, on top of the prep time spent in undergrad.

A line from "Will and Grace" resonates here: Harry Connick Jr.'s father on the show is a Ph.D. in art history, and when his Dad says, "I'm a doctor," Harry says, "Dad, it's art history - it's not like you're helping people." Now granted - I don't go about my days giving paintings adjustments on the walls or tell a sculpture to stand up straighter. But neither am I actively working with people's bodies. If it takes seven years to get a Ph.D. in art history, how can it only take one or two months to become a certified yoga instructor?

If it were me, I would advocate for at least a year: something to demonstrate to people that you can't just become certified overnight, and to take it a little more seriously in terms of anatomy and injury modifications. It will be a little while before I can start doing my own yoga teacher training, but I'm personally planning on the 500-hour training. By my own suggestion, it should take six 500-hour training sessions to have a year's worth of yoga teacher training, and that probably doesn't happen for many people, even over the course of a lifetime. And thankfully, the Yoga Alliance offers some sort of national standardization in training. But we still have a long way to go towards requiring a teacher to have a "Ph.D." (or at least a "Masters") in Yoga before beginning to teach , as is done in academia.

**Why do the yoga articles always end up in the Style section of the Times rather than in the Health section?

This I Believe

Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who has posted a comment and linked to me over the past week! The outpouring of support has been so wonderful during this craziest of weeks.

I am a podcast junkie, and am constantly on the lookout for new, quality podcasts. NPR is one of my favorites, and this little gem is a real find: This I Believe is a revival of a radio show from the 1950's based on essays written and read by all sorts of people about their core beliefs. NPR has revived it, and everyone is welcome to submit their writings on their own core beliefs. Each episode is only about five minutes long, and includes mostly regular people as well as the occasional famous figure - from high school students to the craigslist founder to an archived essay by Albert Einstein. It really makes you marvel about all the wonderful people there are in the world, and think about what your own core beliefs are. Learn more about the whole project here, at thisibelieve.org.

Blissful Satisfaction

It's exam week here at Yogademia, which means writing several thousand (Chinese) characters' worth of essays analyzing 1)early period Chinese oil painting and 2)the massive 18th-century classic novel "Dream of the Red Chamber." All of that means lots of anxious time spent in front of the computer typing Chinese, and some very, very tight hips. Add to this one of my "I hate China" days for all the peculiarities of life as a round-eye here, and rallying to get out the door and across town took some serious effort.

But it all resulted in a literally perfect class. The teacher, Leah, led three of us through the most yogic set of core work I've ever had the privilege to enjoy, and then through a lovely, graceful flow and balance series. We were doing our vinyasas v-e-r-y slowly, and for the first time ever felt that my vinyasa was smooth rather than ragged. Upward Dog never felt so kinesthetically miraculous before - no strain, no tension; just pure, curved, joyful extension in both directions. We finished off with an incredible, Yin-style pigeon series and a long, luxurious, supported Savasana.

One of the things that helped the whole class flow so smoothly was the fact that all three of us students spoke Chinese, so Leah could teach in just one language rather than giving bilingual instruction in Chinese and English. Most classes at Yoga Yard are bilingual, which is wonderful and so good for your Chinese, but can really disrupt the flow of the class. It made such a difference - and so satisfying to be able to take an entire yoga class in Chinese without feeling anxious I might miss something. It's the little unexpected experiences like that which demonstrate to me - better than any exam ever could - just how far my language skills have come...and why I love China, too.

Ahhhh...complete blissful satisfaction all around.

Great Firewall of China

Yoga is all about creating community, and learning from each other. But in order to create a community, you first have to do a little bit of publicity. Here's my problem: because I'm currently blogging from the P.R.C., I can't access sites that are behind the Great Firewall of China. On the political level this includes anything having to do with those sticky issues of 1989, "renegade" island provinces, religious freedom, etc. Randomly, this means sites like lipglossandlaptops.com, "the thinking woman's health, cosmetics, and beauty podcast." But this also includes blogging sites like Technorati, Wordpress and other places to connect with like-minded people who share similar interests and passions. I would offer direct links to these sites, but...[see above].

So I need your help! If you like what you read, please help to expand the yoga community by linking to Yogademia on your own blogs and websites, and by spreading the word to people you think might be interested in reading. I personally gain so much from reading other people's blogs and websites, so I would be so appreciative of more comments, questions and ideas from people who read mine. Above all, thanks for becoming a part of the Yogademia community!

May Project Pose: Side Crane

Arm balances are something I've only gotten into during the last six months, and the credit for this goes entirely to my Yoga Yard teachers Jodi and Robyn. It was in their classes that I first started working on Crane and eventually made it up off the ground for five whole breaths. This is something I honestly never thought I could do, and I found myself using any of a number of excuses to mask the fact that I was just scared of falling and failing.

Fear of failure is nothing new. But the fear of falling and failing is an intrinsic part of academia, no matter how hard people try to hide or deny it. It's no joke that if you drop out of a Ph.D. program without finishing you are then considered a Failure-With-A-Capital-F of that program (the slightly-kinder euphemism is ABD - "all but dissertation" or "all but done"). And if, for example, you fail to get a grant, then you literally fall down, because most of the time, that's your salary. The people around you in academia aren't necessarily the most supportive, either. My advisor told me flat out before I started that accepting me to the program was a gamble because I was fresh out of undergrad and younger than all the others accepted that year, so the faculty thought I'd bail halfway through the program. Super. Way to give a girl a little confidence.

That comment stuck with me, and was probably intended to light a fire under my backside. I've realized in the several years since then that the motivation it gave me was based on negative emotions like fear of failure and the dread of proving these disbelievers right. But as "Il Divino" likes to say, fear is pointless because it doesn't make your life better. Therefore, my Project Pose for this month is Side Crane, to be practiced specifically with the intention of playing within the twin fears of falling and failing. The "Project Pose" is a new feature here on Yogademia, a pose that will be worked on every day for a few minutes. Every month there will be a new project with a new intention that can be explored both on and off the mat. This doesn't mean that the previous month's pose won't continue to get work, but keeping things fresh and creative is just one of the many ways yoga is so much fun. If anyone has tips, suggestions or comments on their experience with arm balances and fear, or on Side Crane in particular, I would love to hear them!

Patenting Yoga

The issue of patenting yoga poses has been around for a couple years now. But this new op-ed in the New York Times makes it even worse. People are trying to stake their claim on "om"?!?! But the bigger ramifications of this are that if people continue to succeed in patenting series of yoga postures, soon all we'll be left with is major chain studios.

Now granted, living in the heart of Intellectual Property Theft and Copyright Infringement Land (aka China), one might make an argument for patenting/trademarking/copyrighting such things. But when the issue in question has been part of the public domain for millenia, then we have to think about our intentions. Nowhere in yogic intention and thought is there any sort of support that I can think of for being possessive and greedy - and that is exactly what patenting yoga, ayurveda and the like is.

In light of all this, I would encourage you to keep supporting your local independent studio. These are the places which will feel the pinch if people keep attempting to bind yoga up into their own possessions. And chant your "om" boldly and rebelliously.

World Laughter Day

Today is World Laughter Day, a day established by Dr. Madan Kataria, the founder of Laughter Yoga. According to the website, "Laughter is a universal language, which has the potential to unite humanity without religion. Laughter can establish a common link between various religions and create a new world order. The idea may sound over-ambitious, and maybe it is. But maybe it is not. It is our deep belief that laughter and only laughter can unite the world, building up a global consciousness of brotherhood and friendship."

In the spirit of laughter being the best medicine, and possibly even a way to change the world, let's all take some time out today to really laugh. Unscripted laughing with friends is the best way, of course. But the 1970's britcom Fawlty Towers is another terrific way to get a straight 25 minutes of belly laughs. Fawty Towers is smart, tight comedy starring John Cleese, and although there are only twelve episodes, I guarantee that you can watch them a million times over and still find them hilarious.

So take some time and laugh your head off today! It's good for you and everyone else - as Gandhi said, by becoming the change we want to see in the world.

Micromovements and Workpile Paralysis

In yoga, micromovements are itsy-bitsy-teeny-weeny movements which keep our bodies from hyperextending, allow us to alleviate the fatigue or tension we might feel in a pose, or simply to allow us to relax a little more deeply into the pose. All forms of yoga incorporate micromovements into postures to some degree – like keeping a microbend in your knee to prevent hyperextension during something like Triangle Pose.

Micromovements are actually great to use in academia, too. The number of papers, projects, grant proposals, and other things we have to prepare can easily pile up to the point at which we can’t even move - Workpile Paralysis. The writer and artist SARK has a great free worksheet to download on micromovements and how you can incorporate them into making progress on your plans, goals and dreams. The beauty about micromovements is that you can start so tiny – like putting all your grant applications in one place, or thinking about your paper topic for five minutes. If five minutes is too long, and you can’t do it, she recommends you just keep making the movement smaller – two minutes or one minute or whatever you can manage. And write it down, with a date and time, which she suggests both as a way to guide you but also to get it out of your head. The important thing about writing it down, is to be gentle with yourself if you can’t manage it at that time – if you need to reassign a time, that’s fine. But only you can decide if you really need to reassign the time for this micromovement, or if you are just suffering from Workpile Paralysis.

These micromovements take courage. Workpile Paralysis can be so debilitating that some days you just don’t even want to get out of bed, no matter how much you love your research, your subject, your dissertation topic. This is why micromovements are so great, because you can do the easy bits first and you can feel proud of the fact that you are bravely making progress towards your goal. Just writing down the micromovement takes guts. But no matter what, don’t beat yourself up about how tiny your micromovements are. You are still making courageous forward progress, and while in the middle of your two minutes you might just be inspired to do a little more or go a little further!

Support System

As important as it is to have friends who study what you study, or who can relate to your academic work in an intellectual way, it is also important to have a support system outside of academia to keep you from being stuck too deep inside the battlements of your ivory tower. These sorts of people can include just about anyone: your partner, your college friends, your best friend from way back in fifth grade, your yoga teacher, your parents - you get the picture. But the important thing is that you have at least one trusted person in your life who is outside academia to keep you grounded. One of the people who does that for me is my guy, who sweetly requests that he be called "Il Divino" - and because he humored me with an attempt at Tree Pose here, I think we can indulge him. He's into rock climbing rather than yoga, and holds down what we might refer to as a "normal job."

Your support system is a key part of your life, but adding friends outside your academic circle makes a huge difference in maintaining your perspective on both your work and the outside world. It's so easy to get caught up in research to the exclusion of what is going on outside. Throw in a department function - even a night out with your colleagues - and you are bound to end up talking shop. Having people outside academia to spend time with not only makes conversations more interesting, but also stretches your brain in different directions - which can only be good for your work.

Gross National Happiness

The idea for this post was sparked by an article in Yoga Journal about Bhutan:

"In April 1987, Jigme Singye Wangchuck—the young monarch of Bhutan, a tiny Himalayan nation sandwiched between the muscular shoulders of India and China—was being interviewed by the Financial Times. Asked about Bhutan's development, which was moving at a snail's pace compared with Nepal's and Thailand's, Wangchuck offered a reply that instantly entered the annals of Bhutanese legend. "Gross National Happiness," he declared, "is more important than Gross National Product."

King Wangchuck's remark galvanized his people, who were already seeking a way to reconcile their deeply held Tibetan Buddhist beliefs with the obsessive materialism of the postindustrial world. And it sparked a debate about an issue that Americans, despite the promises made by the Declaration of Independence, have never quite understood. What is happiness, and how does a government cultivate this elusive state in the hearts and minds of its citizens?"

What this article goes on to discuss is the positive and negative effects of this sort of active promotion of "happiness," which in this case is defined by the King. And frankly, it doesn't make some people happy at all; instead, they find it repressive, especially if they are non-Bhutanese living in the country, because they are excluded. And it got me to thinking: is what we each ourselves think of as "happiness" really actually it? Or is it a state we force ourselves into because we think it is what happiness should be? Who or what does it exclude or force into an inferior position? Does it force our own desires and interests to the side because they don't fit some narrowly defined or ill-conceived notion of what happiness generally should be rather than what happiness should be for each of us personally? Is our personal conception of "Gross National Happiness" actually making us happy?