Dear Birthmother

As previously mentioned, in an open adoption, the birthmother chooses the people or person with whom she is going to place her child. From an objective point of view, this is not only completely fair, but makes the most sense, especially considering that potentially, the birthmother-adoptive parent relationship in an open adoption can be a lifelong one. You want to feel some sort of connection with each other. Additionally, many studies have shown that in the long term, it's much healthier for the child to have some kind of relationship with (or at the very least, understanding of) where they came from.

When you're the adoptive parent, however, it's a little nerve wracking. Old fears of being the last one picked for the dodgeball team are quick to resurface, and to be honest, when I was first looking into the whole adoption/foster world, I was turned off by this aspect of open adoption. Rational thinking soon prevailed, however, and here we are.

So, in order to attract a birthmother, prospective adoptive parents such as I have to create something called a Dear Birthmother letter, which is a glossy brochure full of pictures of me in various scenarios (with kids, without kids, with friends, at work) all while being awesome at whatever I'm doing. These are accompanied by text describing my awesome life, awesome friends, awesome plans for my child... you get the picture. There is a very specific writing style and pattern to the text as laid out by my adoption agency, and while the writer part of me mentally rebelled at the constrictions, I had to ultimately cede to their far greater understanding of the Dear Birthmother genre. However, when they informed me that the writing and editing process can take up to 7-10 editing cycles back and forth with their writing specialist, I silently responded in my head, "not with me it won't." (Final text: 2 edits. Boo-yah.) A sample line: "I can’t wait to take my child to my weekly farmer’s market to sample fresh fruit and veggies, or walk over to LACMA (our big art museum) and check out the cool, interactive art." Offensive to literally no-one is the bottom line.

Equally, the photos chosen have to tread a very fine line of accurately representing you without potentially putting any human off. For example, I love this picture with my nephew:

But it's way too risque for the letter.

The Dear Birthmother letter, not to put too fine a point on it, is a sales pitch, yelling "PICK ME!" in a sea of other, equally deserving Dear Birthmother letters (a typical birthmom will get around 100 brochures). I heard a birthmom speak about how she automatically disqualified anyone she didn't think was good looking. While this is, of course, massively unfair, and obviously not all birthmoms would do the same, they still have to figure out some sort of criteria for narrowing down the selection when every single person or couple is equally worthy of becoming a parent. It may be something as simple as liking the idea of their kid growing up in California, or that a pet in a picture reminds them of their own dog. For the adoptive parent, it's the ultimate in having no control. I was recently emailing with a friend, who very perceptively wrote, "I won't ask how the adoption is going, because it's probably the same, until it's not, and then you have a baby." (That's exactly how it's going.)

The Dear Birthmother letter that I really want to write is very different than my sales pitch. It goes more like this:

Dear Birthmother,

First of all, this is totally weird. Can we agree on that? I'm trying to entice you away from the other people who want to be parents so that you ultimately pick me. And what you're picking me for is you're going to give me your baby to raise as my own. Bananas. Here's the thing: we're both in a completely strange and foreign situation here and neither one of us knows exactly how it's supposed to go down, so we're just going to have to work it out as we go. I think you're awesome for doing this, by the way, and I'm not sure if I was in your position I would have it in me to do the same. I promise I'm going to do my best, which means I'll probably screw some stuff up, but that's how life goes.

Lots of love,
Sarah

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Calm Before The Storm

There was a huge blur of activity when I started fundraising for my adoption, what with the paperwork and background checks I had to do for the agency, a successful home study during which my prone-to-weirdness dog did not act weird at all (extra treats and hugs for that), and a lot of facebook posts. Your generosity has helped me get incredibly close to my initial goal, and I'm so very, very grateful. (There's a link below if you still want to donate.)

Right now what's happening a lot is people are asking, "So - what's going on with the adoption?" which is a totally fair question, since most of them are donors, and have basically paid for the baby's left pinkie toe, or right lung. My dad asked it in the funniest way: "So, where are you in line?" (I picture an assembly line of babies coming down a conveyor belt and a waiting queue of adoptive parents.)

What's happening is this: the To Do list activity has died down to a low background hum. I have a few more things to complete before I go 'live,' which is when I become visible to potential birth mothers with both a glossy brochure and a webpage for them to peruse. I'm sort of guessing that's going to happen in the late May/early June time range, and that's when the real waiting begins. The average wait time for a single woman is 15 months, but really, it could be anywhere from 3 months to 3 years.

I retain my sanity by hanging out with my almost 3 year-old twin nephews, who are a constant source of amusement and fun. My brother and sister-in-law are already plying me with hand-me-down swings and baby monitors, which one of my nephews solemnly showed me last time I was over, explaining, "You can have this for the baby," and then asking, "When is the baby coming?" (get in line with that question, kiddo.) Not to be outdone, my other nephew began handing me random household items (cushion, broom), "For the baby."

Over the years I've knit many baby blankets for friends and family; now I am knitting for my own not-yet baby, blankets and hats and sweaters, all in gender neutral colors (and may I say, knitting books are rife with gendered language and color coding: "Congratulations! It's a girl! Break out the pink yarn to knit a layette as sweet as she is"). I permit myself moments of fantasizing about holding my not-yet baby, and then I pack that thought away with each knitted piece and refocus on my physics homework. I walk around with a tinge of fear that this whole thing isn't going to work out. I try to remember that just like earthquakes, it's not a matter of if, but when.

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Giving And Giving

Asking people to give you money is a strange and somewhat uncomfortable thing to do. The only way I was going to feel ok about asking people to donate to my adoption process was if I could offer them something in return. As a yoga and movement teacher for the past ten years, I have developed a network of peers all over the world, so I turned to them and asked if any of them could donate a private session that I could then pass along to a financial donor. The response was overwhelming, and the match-ups that I have been able to foster as a result between donors and teachers has been incredibly cool. A pregnant college friend living in Italy had a skype session with a pregnancy specialist in Los Angeles. A woman dealing with a lot of different health issues was hooked up with a holistic health teacher in New York. A friend who wanted to train intelligently got a session with a CrossFit owner in Brooklyn. Here's some feedback from the donors and teachers alike:

"I had the absolute pleasure of meeting with Brooke Thomas this past weekend in New Haven. I'd never done rolfing before and she made it so easy and relaxed. She is masterful at what she does and uncovered some fascinating information about my body. Things I felt for so many years and had no words for, she was able to describe and explain in our quick meeting. Thank you, Sarah, for the opportunity to meet her. My donation was given in the spirit of helping you on the path toward motherhood and this was an unexpected and much appreciated bonus. Thank you." 

- Kate Krumsiek

"Walking away from my session with Trina Altman I feel as though I have a superhero postural suit on - love it. Thank you Sarah Court for your campaign." 

- Stephanie Fish

"I just finished a Thai Massage session with Kimberlee, and wanted to thank you. She is a beautiful, beautiful human, and I am so grateful for the matchup!"

- Taylor Dunham

"I loved loved loved my Thai massage. She was a super sweetie pie and so talented and when I have extra money I want to go back. Really special experience. Thank you!" 

- Kimberlee Auerbach

"I have connected with Dinneen Viggiano and she is great! She is very helpful for me at a time when I really didn't have any hope left. I thank you for finding her for me and hope to give you more details as I continue to work with her. All the best to you!!"

- Teresa Scotto

And here's a picture of my friend Dallas Dickinson in Texas, an avid runner, skyping with Ariel Kiley in New York, a specialist in movement for runners:

I still have lots of teachers who have donated their time to my cause - even writing that sentence blows my mind - so if this sounds interesting to you, please click through to my campaign page below.

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Upskirt

I'm at the beginning stages of the adoption process, which means I did a bunch of research into various adoption options (international, domestic, lawyer, foster/adopt) and I landed on a domestic adoption agency that I really like a whole lot called Independent Adoption Center. Contracts have been signed. Fees are being paid (thanks to you!). It's on.

So far, however, the child part of the adoption is still a faraway dream state that seems entirely unrelated. So far, I'm elbow deep in paperwork and errand-y things, because I am in the full upskirt part of the process, which means a very bright light is being shone on every single heretofore private part of my life. I have had to prove a lot of things, including:

I was born
I was married
I was divorced
I have fingerprints
I have a job
I have health insurance
I do not have tuberculosis
Or major mental health problems
Or anything else that would be problematic, health-wise
Or a criminal record
Or a driving record
Nor did I do anything bad or questionable while I lived in New York
Or really at any point since I have been alive
Additionally:
Several people think I'm parent material and willingly committed that belief to paper
I have recounted my entire life in prose, both long form and Q and A style
I bonded for two days in a conference room with other adoptive-parents-to-be
I will let someone approve the child-worthiness of my home (once I've scrubbed every surface twice)

Right now I am wrestling with the "dear birthparent" letter, which is essentially a brochure about me, and why I'm so terrific and therefore the right person for a birth mom to place her child with. It's one of the hardest things I've ever had to write, and feels like a ridiculously sincere online dating profile. I'm trying to give it a little jujsh, but there's very little room for the sharper edges of my personality. And to be fair, this is not the time to try and make a stranger laugh. This is an honest moment, and it deserves my unabashed, clear-eyed desire to parent to be front and center. Of everything I'm doing at the moment, this is the most obviously connected to becoming a parent, which may also be why it's so hard. But as I wrote in my letter, the things most worth doing in life are the ones that aren't easy. Now if you'll please excuse me, I need to go wash my ceilings.

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A New Kind of Deferred Gratification

So... hi there.

It's been a while since I've writted (so long that I actually did just write 'writted' and frankly, I think it should stay as evidence). A lot of things have happened, many of which have propelled me to a new, exciting event that, in keeping with the rest of my life, also involves deferred gratification.

School is still humming along in the background - I got accepted to Mount St. Mary's DPT program, which is awesome because it was my first choice school, and at the exact moment I found out I was accepted, I developed a severe case of senioritis and almost failed my physics class (who cares about pre-recs when you already know you got in?) which would have put a very big spanner in the works. (Do people say spanner here? It's English (people, not language, though obviously language as well) for wrench.)

[As an aside, I got an email from another school that shall remain nameless (C Sun Northridge) that I was #46 on their waiting list for a class of 32. Which I think means that an entire class and almost a half again would have to turn them down before I could attend. Had I not already been accepted to the school I want to go to, this would have been depressing, but the delicious irony is that I'm lecturing in their undergrad kinesiology department this spring. Will I be able to restrain myself from mentioning this detail? Unlikely.]

But I did somehow pass physics, and I have one more semester of pre-rec classes, and my teaching/traveling work schedule has exponentially exploded in multiple directions, which is how I like it, so all is right with the world.

Or - almost all. One of the things that happened over the past year involved having to make a horrifically painful choice about a relationship that involved the question of becoming a mom (stay and don't, go and retain the option, but no guarantees, was the reality I wrestled with for months). I realized eventually that the slow suffocation of my deep desire to be a mom was already building, and that I couldn't let that be the room tone of my life, as much as leaving the relationship felt like harakiri.

After many months of trying to figure out what the heck happens now, I am embarking on the long process of adoption, which thrills me to the bone, not only for the parenting part that I will get to do, but also for the 'it takes a village' aspect of open adoption. When I describe open adoption, a lot of people think it sounds like a scary bad idea in which the birthmother will inevitably try to take her baby back, but in reality it works out to be a massive extended family of people who understand their roles and are just that many more people who love a child. I'll be using this blog to chronicle the long, crazy road ahead.

This endeavor requires a lot of funds, however, and so I am fundraising for it like this: If you donate $75 or more, you get a private session with me or one of my fitness professional colleagues (yoga, pilates, massage, training, etc). It's been so much fun to 'match' donors and trainers, and so far we've had some great matches take place. I have teachers and trainers all over the world who have generously donated their time, so if this is something you'd like to take part in, check it out, and thank you in advance!

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Normal/Not Normal

Today is 3 weeks post-surgery, and I vacillate between wanting everything to be back the way it was pre-surgery (minus the pain, of course) and wanting to continue to do mostly nothing interspersed with bouts of inertia and moments of fugue. I started teaching a little last week, and it was both exhilarating and exhausting: I loved feeling that teaching groove of expressing exactly what I mean in clear and concise terms, and immediately afterward I wanted a quiet dark room and a cool compress, because apparently life is more tiring now that I am INTEGRATING A PROSTHESIS INTO MY MARROW HELLO.

I behave the same way around other people: when offered assistance, I counter with "I can totally do this, thank you but I'm fine," but when no hand is held out, my mental dialogue vibrates with a self-righteous "oh my god I'm exhausted why on earth would you think that I could carry a plate of food by myself."

In school last semester I learned about cognitive dissonance (or rather, I was finally given a name for it): the act of holding two opposing concepts in our minds at the same time. Our human dislike for this jarring, discomforting sensation often leads us to validate one idea over the other for the pure mental relief, regardless of actual value. "I am a regular person just like you/ My needs are special and must be acknowledged" is my dissonant song lyric du jour. I can go to the store and carry a shopping basket,  but when someone holds the parking elevator to squeeze in an extra couple and their cart, I exude irritation from my pores and shift to make sure everyone can see my cane.


F. Scott Fitzgerald said "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function." I'll keep working on the function part.

How To Be A Teacher

This past semester, I had class with perhaps the most terrible teacher I have ever experienced.

I've talked about this privately to a few friends, but felt I had to keep it basically under wraps until the semester ended, in the very, very slim chance that the teacher in question would somehow find his way to this blog and my grade would be affected.

And even now, I'm going to attempt to maintain a certain amount of anonymity in terms of who I'm talking about, though it wouldn't be hard to figure it out if you really cared to. But my point in writing is less about one person's behavior and more about what I think is an essential quality for any kind of teacher. I teach yoga, and I teach anatomy. Both shove my faults in my face constantly:  my know-it-all tendencies, my impatience, and my desire to be liked by everyone. I know a teacher who at the end of yoga class often says "Thank you for teaching me." I used to think it was corny, but he makes my point for me:

As a  teacher, you have to listen to and learn from your students.

I have to - have to - pay attention to the room and what they need, and adjust myself accordingly. If I'm not doing a good enough job explaining a concept or a pose, it's not their fault. In addition, if I am coming up against resistance (in any form - frustration, boredom, attitude), again, it's not their problem, it's mine.

Here's what happened in school, with the terrible teacher (let's call him TT for short):

About halfway through the semester I was approached by another student in the class who wanted to bring a list of very specific complaints about TT to the Dean of the department. I readily agreed, because I had been privately harboring many of the same grievances, but up until then had taken a more passive, put-your-head-down-and-do-the-work-on-your-own approach. So a few of us wrote emails to the Dean listing our complaints - and lest you think these were frivolous, the list included things like "refuses to answer questions" "does not explain lab procedures" "makes one class rule then changes it the next session" "is not present in his office during office hours" "makes rude comments when confronted with these issues."

The next time we had class, TT set up his power point as usual, and the first slide began with the words, "THE FOLLOWING EMAILS WERE SENT ANONYMOUSLY."

It was followed by a cut and paste slide of the emails that we had sent to the Dean, who had forwarded them to TT without our names on them (perhaps not the wisest move, the Dean later agreed). TT clearly had decided that an aggressive offense was his best defense. He spent the next 15 minutes going through the points made in our emails (take a second to imagine - an email of complaint you sent in confidence about a teacher is now being read aloud, word for word, by said teacher, to the entire class) and then flashed a second slide, in which he had created a point-by-point rebuttal to each complaint. These rebuttals were variations on "This is an unfair statement" and "This is not true" (though my favorite, in response to the complaint about his rudeness, read "Gas station attendants are rude. Grocery store workers are rude. I am not rude.")

His final slide stated, "THOSE WHO COMPLAIN ABOUT THE TEACHER ARE USUALLY THE ONES THAT ARE FAILING THE CLASS AND WANT TO BLAME SOMEONE ELSE."

[Not to brag, but I got an A, and I'm pretty sure the other students who complained did well also.]

Then we had to pretend like nothing had happened and take a quiz.

This is obviously an extreme example of how not to deal with criticism of your teaching. However, it reinforced my desire to stay vigilant in my own teaching and not allow myself to become complacent, lazy or indifferent to my students' needs. It means adjusting my teaching plan to match their level of ability or comprehension of the material (no one learns anything when it's going completely over their heads). It means picking up good teaching techniques from other teachers (I have had several exemplary teachers at this same school whose clever tricks I steal and use constantly). And it means not taking it personally if a student looks bored, or doesn't engage with the material the way I want them to  (including in yoga class. Students doing asana with a 'bored' body is my personal bugaboo and I have to do everything in my power not to hover over them and try to perk them up in every pose).

Being a teacher has to be a constant learning experience, otherwise you have nothing to teach. So thank you for teaching me.

I Got My Hip Replaced

So that, as they say, happened. On Tuesday.

What I do now is I lie around a lot, and when that gets too tiring, I sleep. I'm also enjoying eating constantly and never really feeling full (apparently I'm eating for two), and repeatedly asking people I love to do the same menial tasks over and over ("Can I get the ice pack?" "Can you put this ice pack in the freezer and get the other ice pack?" "Can I have some water?" "Can you get up from being totally asleep next to me and go make me some breakfast and some coffee?" "Can I have the other ice pack again and can you put this one back in the freezer?").

I have the same supine PT exercises they gave me after the last surgery, but what is very, very different is how astonishingly little pain I am feeling. This is day four post-surgery, and I am taking Aleve. Only. No Vicodin, no Percoset, not even any Tramadol. And I am full weight-bearing, with one crutch. I can't quite explain how mind blowing this is to me, after my last experience, but I am enormously grateful, and let's be honest, also enormously lopsided in the one hip (and by the way - if you ever have a shit ton of time and want to read about the minutiae of a much more difficult, much more painful surgery that took a lot longer to recover from, read my heart-wrenching, fascinating blog about it, brilliantly entitled "Paper Or Dysplastic?").

Part of my PT is to also walk as much as I can handle, which is not yet much, but I'm hoping my energy will come back soon (it's not for a lack of eating, I can tell you that much). I think the hip might be eating my energy, as it is, for the third time now, swole up to twice the size of the other. I don't know how many times it can take this swoled business. Anyway, can you get me the ice pack (and a coffee)?

Best Laid Plans

When I embarked on this mid-life crisis madcap comedy movie return to school adventure last fall, I had a general idea that I would finish in five years. I had 11 pre-requisite classes to take before the three-year graduate degree, and it seemed… possible to do them in two years? Hard, but manageable, especially if I didn’t plan to have a life outside of community college, and didn’t mind being in summer school all the way through (the DPT includes summer school), and possibly a winter session or two.

And then, of course, life started happening, and more specifically, arthritic hip raised its ugly head (of the femur! Yuk yuk. Nerd joke). Hip replacement surgery was no longer a far-off possibility, but a right now necessity. Still, I persisted. I sat down with my pre-req list and worked out a whole strategy that would allow me to get everything done and enroll in the fall of 2013. Lest you think the schedule I created was a leisurely educational stroll, I present it to you in haiku form:

Summer session – hip replaced –

Labor Day? Who the

Fuck are you kidding?

(Maybe not the best haiku, and maybe doesn’t even convey the reality of what I was planning on doing to myself, so instead I present to you my leisurely educational stroll in calendar form:)

Summer 2012 – Human Biology / test into Pre-calculus

August 2012 – Hip replacement class*

Fall 2012 – Pre-calculus / Anatomy / take GRE

Winter 2012 – Statistics / apply to grad schools

Spring 2013 – Physics/ Physiology

Summer 2013 – Physics

Fall 2013 DPT begins

*not a class

Looking at this list gives me hives. Unnecessary Hives, which is also the name of my autobiography. Some time last week, between interviewing hip surgeons and studying for my organic chemistry exam, I realized that there was no actual reason why I HAD to finish in five. My stubborn attachment to the five-year plan was a) Not Very Yogic, though I feel like often lately I’m Not Very Yogic (and while we’re on the topic, that seems a more likely autobiography title) and b) a by-product of a trick I constantly play on myself to get things done, called “Tell Everybody You Are Doing Something And Then You Have To Do It.”

At my brother’s wedding in Palm Springs four years ago, when I was still living in New York but feeling more and more like I could leave, I went around the entire reception telling people that I was moving to LA (though apparently I did not tell my mom, who was surprised to learn it from a cousin later that night). The desire not to go back on my words propelled me more rapidly towards a destination I would have reached eventually – but as I left the reception, casually flinging the words “See you next year!” to the Angelinos present (my future friends!) my fate was writ in cement.

In the same way, starting this blog with the pronouncement that I would be in school for five years made it, in my mind, an unchangeable truth. In addition, and you can add this to the Not Very Yogic column: I am terrifically impatient when I want something. I had wrapped my head around five years’ worth of school: how old I would be when I got out (don’t ask), what year it would be, what great career shifts would finally come to fruition. An additional year seemed truly unbearable, and sacrificing my free time and sanity seemed the best solution. I know that sounds ridiculous, and yet it felt violently true.

But letting go of that self-induced stressor (because that’s all it was) and giving myself room to breathe (what a concept, Not Very Yogic lady) and actually enjoy my life for the next few years (again, who knew that was an option) has created space for all kinds of things I was going to give up in the name of my set in stone plans. Like travel! And writing more! And hanging out with other people! And cadaver dissection! (It’s a form of hanging out with other people.) And how about this concept: giving myself adequate time to recover from having a freaking hip replaced.

So there it is. I’m taking the slightly longer road not yet traveled. More importantly: I’m not freaking out about it. Maybe I’m a Little More Yogic than I thought.

Back To School

10 tips for my fellow back-to-schoolers:

1. School is, once again, a total madhouse the first two weeks.  Be prepared to park far away and walk, which is entirely preferable to slowly tailing someone to their car in the student lot like a predatory shark, only to find yourself battling for their space with a slick-haired dude in a muscle car blasting rap at 8am.

2. There is nothing within a 3 mile radius that you will want to eat. Bring your own snacks unless you can subsist on lattes and a yogurt parfait for 12 hours.

3. Teachers, even the good ones, are totally weird people. Aren't they? Your organic chemistry teacher has a strange accent (truly, impossible to place. North African? Sub-Himalayan?) and even stranger speech patterning ("The electron is not cerTAINly at any location, it is only proBABly there."). You are oddly grateful, as class is in the evening, and straining to understand him helps keep you awake. You can pretend for those three hours that you're going to school in India.

4. Psychology classes always, always feel like you are in fact a participant in a psych experiment without your prior consent or knowledge.

5. Generally, the large groups of male students that congregate over by the science buildings are less intimidating than those that congregate on the main part of campus. If you need somewhere to sit outside and eat your parfait, aim yourself in that direction.

6. Do not wait on that 1/2 mile long line to get into the bookstore. Come back in a few days when it's diminished. You don't need your books the first week anyway.

7. With that said: Highlighters. Pens. #2 Pencils. Erasers. Scantrons. Get them all. They will sell out.

8. "Mature" students: when you walk in on the first day of class, several students will assume you are the teacher until you sit down. I will also assume you are the teacher, even though it has happened to me mere moments before. It's an innocent mistake on all our parts.

9. It's a little overwhelming. Don't worry about that. You'll get back in the swing of things.

10. Snacks. I cannot stress this enough.

Down(ward Facing) Time

It's been several weeks since school ended, and I've been swimming in free time (but before you get jealous, this doesn't feel like swimming in the ocean; this feels like trying to swim in marshmallows). I kind of don't know what to do with myself, and it also begs the question, what the hell was I doing with myself before I went back to school?

A large part of me can't wait for school to start again (although I am still teaching, just not that much), while a second large part wishes I was better at enjoying marshmallows, and another, also quite large part feels like I proved whatever it was that I needed to prove by going back to school for a semester, like I was on a reality show about moms and kids and swapping, and now it's time to return to our regularly scheduled programming.

The problem with that third large part is that I am nowhere near done. The other problem, having just registered for the spring, is that I can't realistically take more than 2 classes per semester while still having a job and trying not to go crazy. So, the five year plan may actually be six. Did I mention somewhere in there I have to fit in a hip replacement? Ha. Yes.

The good part: I've been fortunate enough to be observing a double amputee learning to walk with his prostheses the past few weeks, which is humbling, and fascinating, and emotional, and helps my brain to stop swimming in marshmallows and focus. It's as if the universe knew that I was feeling weary, and threw me a little view of my future to keep me on track. "You'll get to this place, working with clients like these," says the universe. "Slow down. Don't worry about how long the pre-recs are going to take. You'll get here."

Finals. Finally.

Semester has been rattling along at a nice clip, with a steady rhythm of tests every few weeks, and I've grown accustomed to my new, hermetically sealed/hermitic life. [As an aside, when I say hermitic, I am referring to my mostly shut-in status, not the spiced cookie of the same name that I did not know existed until I googled hermitic to check my spelling. The learning train stops for no one.]

However, the best.thing.ever is about to happen. Finals. A week from Tuesday and I am a free woman until February 2012, whereupon the wild rumpus starts anew.

However, part 2: as with all highly anticipated things, in lieu of my looming date with freedom, time has slowed to a crawl, and with it has gone all my motivation. I have become an apathetic, whiny (mostly in my own head, hopefully) college student who has exerted for 12 weeks and who frankly is more than a little out of steam. Hopefully there is some tiny reserve of steam left in me somewhere, though I've yet to locate it. I'm sure my driving need to get perfect scores will push me across the finish line in something like style, and I am extremely appreciative of September, October and November Sarah who worked really hard so that December Sarah can get a few things wrong and still get a good grade.

However, part 3: it appears that unless I give up teaching altogether (not happening), due to the hours-heavy nature of science classes, I may not be able to take more than 2 classes per semester, which puts me squarely in the crosshairs of summer school, and potentially in a land where the next five years will actually turn into 6. Although the difference isn't that great, the length of the sentence (and the length of that last sentence) starts to make my head spin.

Pade, pade, as my teacher Manorama would say. One step at a time. If only I could get time to speed up for the next week and then slow to molasses for winter break.

In Which I Am A Little, And Then A Lot, Bothered By Your Posture

This bothers me, a little:

But I get it. I took this picture at an area coffee shop that I frequent during my lunch break from classes - and I do mean frequent, because they now know me by name. That's a little scary.

My point is, the 'stand on one leg and stick out the other one with both legs turned out' look that's so popular for line-waiting, as demonstrated so beautifully for us by these three anonymous models (although the dude in the middle I know as 'the other guy they know by name in this area coffee shop') is not an isolated incident. Next time you're standing in line at the store, or your own area coffee shop, after you finish reading about this year's sexiest person, check out the way you're standing. Odds are it will look something like the above.

We've become somehow allergic to a) standing on both legs evenly and b) pointing said legs straight forward. We think we look like robots when we do that. No really, we do. People tell me that when I make them do it. But I do it myself, on purpose, all the time, because it helps with my scoliosis/crazy hip, and it's cleared a lot of one sided lower back pain. You know what I hear, constantly? (I'll give you a clue - it's not "Are you a robot?")

I hear: "Your posture is amazing!" "Are you a dancer?" "I've been admiring the way you walk for the past hour!" (That last one was a little creepy, but still a compliment). I can talk about it until I'm blue in the face (and if you've ever taken class with me, odds are I've mentioned it at least once that you can remember) but until you start doing it, you won't believe me that it can make such a big difference in your mood, your 'tude, and your dude (I needed a third thing. If you are a dude or know a dude, either way it will make a difference).

This bothers me, a lot:

This is from the latest Urban Outfitters catalog. I'm not sure how well you can see what is going on for this poor deformed lady, but she's basically making a huge kyphotic (backwards) C curve with her spine, while throwing her shoulders anteriorly (forward), jamming her pelvis anteriorly (forward), and borderline overextending her neck (backward). Apparently, if you close your eyes and do that, the bubbles come.

Monkey see, monkey do - I'm no longer in the demographic that UO is aiming for (and yet they haven't dumped me from their mailing list, which I sort of appreciate in a "what are those crazy kids up to these days?" way), but it makes me so very, very annoyed to see this, because back in MY day, when I WAS being aggressively marketed to, at least the women got to stand like this:

I mean, bananas outfit notwithstanding, and setting aside whatever you may know or think about this particular person, this is the stance of a strong woman inhabiting her body. [Side note: she also gets to have muscles.]

This is not supposed to be a post about the vagaries of modeling, although I could so very easily go there - but that's another story.

This is me, pleading with you to stand up straight, and point both feet forward, and stand on both of them. That's it. It's really, really simple, and I would bet you money that it will make your lower back happier. Plus, you'll get compliments. Oh, one last thing: you have to do it for the rest of your life. But honestly, it's not as hard as having to go to rehab for your screwed up L4/L5 or knee issues. I promise.

The Proof Is In The Reading

The biggest difference, work-wise, between the arty classes I used to take in college and the all-science, all-the-time roller coaster I ride lately is the method of testing. Back then, I would sit in lectures and take long, rambling notes, debate topics in long, rambling arguments, write papers in long, rambling run-on sentences, without ever having to answer a single yes-or-no question.

Not so for science classes. I have at least one, if not more, quiz or test or exam every other week. It's kind of like having someone's thumb permanently pressed into the side of my head, reminding me not to relax too much because I need to memorize some terms, or answer sample questions, or write out balanced equations.

I've discovered, however, that proofreading is not only a useful tool for writing, but invaluable for these kinds of tests. My science class test-taking method is to answer all the questions with at least something first, and then to pause, breathe, and read through all of them again. Every single time, I find I've marked 'A' when I meant to mark 'D,' or left out an important detail in a description that would have cost me a few points or more.

Your body does the same thing. Did you know that? During DNA replication, the enzymes doing the replicating make an error roughly one in every ten thousand nucleotides (like DNA building blocks). So your body has repair enzymes that pause, breathe, and read through all of the replicated nucleotides again, catching and fixing so many mistakes that the error rate drops to one in a billion. Not bad.

There are always students that jump up 20 minutes after the test has started, hand in their paper, and walk out. I wonder if they are so brilliant they've made no errors, or if they're not following the example set by their DNA. I feel urged on by their departure to also make a quick exit (jeez, I really can't quit this need to come in top of EVERYTHING, even leaving the room) but I force myself to stay longer and make corrections.

It's not as dramatic. Proofreading isn't sexy. No-one makes a dramatic statement and then pauses to proofread it before storming out and slamming the door.

But if it's good enough for my DNA, it's good enough for me.

Week 8

aka, The Halfway Point of the semester.

Marked by a noticeable increase in general Honey Badger-ness towards being in school. I started out the semester giving my all, studying for hours and hours, overloading and overwhelming myself. Although I try to let go of needing to not only get an A, but a 100% A, the perfectionism is near-primal in me, and as such, hard to shake. In addition, I've been putting more pressure on myself as these grades will play a part in getting accepted to the grad school I want.

However, something happened Monday morning, aka First Day Of Week 8. I slid into my usual Chemistry class seat behind Girl Who Talks Too Loudly And Doesn't Know The Answer, next to Quieter Girl Who Is Really Funny But Hardly Ever Shows It, and I could feel something in the air. The class has thinned to what is, I assume, its fighting weight: after our first test, a small exodus has us down to about 45 students. We have the air of survivors, and while we spent the first half of the semester putting up with our Chem teacher's preference for replacing actual teaching with dated sexist jokes, now we're done tiptoeing around him.

(sample conversation - Me: "I'm sorry I'm a bit late on Wednesdays, I get here as fast as I can from work." Him: "Oh, I thought you were sipping cappuccinos with your sweetie and lost track of time." Me: "No. I'm a grown up with a job.")

I'm realizing that while I am halfway through this semester, I'm only 1/8th through all my post bac requirements, so the only way to survive this is to chill, a little. I had a Biology test and scored a 100 out of 104. My Bio teacher - who I adore - gently chastised me for missing 4 points (he knows my story, and has high expectations of me, which I appreciate). I, in return, laughed. Honey Badger don't care.

Front Bit

I ran into a fellow yoga teacher last Sunday at the store. We don't know each other particularly well, although I've always had a sense that I would like her a whole lot if we did, but our circles overlap enough that we're aware of what each other is up to, generally. One of the first things she said to me was "man, I'm so impressed with what you're doing."

I don't know if it was because I was feeling particularly worn out at that moment, or if I decided that the people closest to me are tired of hearing me complain so I haven't wanted to burden them with this, or if energetically she just seemed to understand, but I replied the truth in my soul to her, which is: every day I think about quitting. Every day.

It's not the school part. I like class, and as we've established, I'm a dork and I enjoy studying. It's not teaching my group classes, or teaching privately, or teaching anatomy weekends, or writing. I enjoy all of those things, individually; but at the moment, theyareallmashedupagainsteachothersoclosethatthereisbarelyamomenttobreathe.

Case in point: I forgot the word for foot yesterday. Really. I followed up by calling my client's core "your front bit."

The wave of momentum behind all this activity both holds me upright when I feel most likely to collapse, and pushes me forward to the next class, test, client, workshop, deadline. It seems out of my hands, like something happening to me, not because of me, and the vague outline of a goal I held a few months ago feels unrelated to this onslaught.

My free time has diminished to the point that people I used to see on a regular basis have become once-a-month catch-up friends. I miss them. I decided that the lion's share of my attention has to go to my growing nephews, and their even-more-worn-out parents, which means I see them once a week for a few hours. Several times a day, my dog gazes at me balefully, toy in mouth, a slow wag in her tail, hoping I might be convinced to come out from behind the computer, but more often than not she ends up discontentedly lying back down with a heavy sigh.

Am I complaining? I did this to myself, voluntarily, and I can undo it with the click of a mouse. (Quite literally - you can withdraw from classes online now. Ah, technology.) There are moments each day when I wonder what the hell I used to do with my time - if you can cram this much thisness into a day, was I just sitting around eating bon bons and watching reality tv dance competitions? But in the moments when I accept that this is just how things are for now, and that like everything else, this too shall pass, I lift my chin and pick up the next task.

The Brain Behind The Curtain

When I went to college the first time around, I was a bona fide arts student. I took Art History classes (my major) and English and Photography and Theater and Film, and spent hours sitting around tables discussing Kurosawa and the Italian Renaissance. I had a science requirement that I fulfilled by taking those arts major standbys, Rocks For Jocks and Shake and Bake. I didn't do particularly well in either of them, either.

Flash forward to now, and not only am I taking much more challenging science classes, I'm doing pretty well. I'm not talking about grades - it's too early to call, and I still have a non-scientific fear-of-jinx reflex - but I actually understand what's going on when my Bio teacher is discussing the parts of a cell and their functions. I totally get how to figure out formulas for double replacement reactions in Chem lab. Not only that, but in my 'spare' time now, I'm writing articles about anatomy or reading books with titles like "Fascia: Clinical Applications for Health and Human Performance" (thank you Jill Miller - it's a cracking good read).

It feels like there was some part of my brain lying dormant for all these years, and suddenly a curtain has been drawn back to reveal a laboratory with bleeping blooping lights and whizzing dials and reams of paper coming out of machines (the lab is from the seventies) and a white-coated person with a clipboard who looks up at me and says, "Ah yes. Here you are. We've been waiting for you. Right this way, please."

How did this happen? Is it because I'm older, and I'm less distracted than my youthful peers? Or because this isn't my first time at the rodeo, and I have a handle on how to take good notes and what to learn for the quiz? I don't know - it feels like I've got some new person's brain. Hey - did I have a brain transplant and I can't remember because it was a brain transplant? Someone help me out here.

Uncle

Ok... so, in true overachiever form, I overreached. Stress-induced malady in the form of a hacking cough and snotty cold, coupled with a sudden complete inability to sleep past 6am as I *boing* awake with crazy brain has convinced me that perhaps I don't need to be taking so many classes at once while also teaching a full schedule, leading weekend long anatomy modules, guest writing articles, writing this blog, etc.

As a reformed overachiever however, I don't feel badly about dropping a class. Old me would have seen this as a failure, especially since the teacher of said class threw down a pretty serious gauntlet about who would pass and who would drop out, and I find that kind of challenge nigh irresistible (and I've never dropped out of anything in my life - are we sensing a pattern here?). New me sees it as a chance to still have a life while I'm going back to school, rather than a) feel guilty if I'm getting a pedicure or hanging out with my amazing twin nephews instead of studying in every possible free moment or b) actually be studying in every possible free moment, have no life whatsoever, and be miserable.

So yay! Let's count this as a win. A win for my toenails, if nothing else.

We Interrupt This Broadcast

To bring some slightly unrelated (school-wise), yet on a macro level, somewhat related (anatomy-wise) news. Please know that this topic has been duly covered from every single possible angle that you could ever single want to read about (and many you don't) over here, and this will not be another blog about my hip.

However. There has been a lot of pain in my hip recently, and more worryingly, now in my knee as well (sharp shooting pain out of apparently nowhere). I made an appointment to see Dr. Snibbe in Beverly Hills (only the best for Hip) as recommended by PT extraordinaire Sean Hampton, and as it turns out Dr. Snibbe knows surgeon extraordinaire Dr. Robert Buly at HSS in NYC who did my surgery. (And yes, that entire paragraph was about linking to the people I know and love who have performed miracles on Hip, in case you ever need them.)

As you can probably imagine, a waiting room in Beverly Hills is a pretty funny and entitled place, and yes, there was a celebrity there discussing crudites and lunch meat on the phone (I'm not making this up) but my favorite moment occurred as I was walking in to the back area to get X rays, when a woman with a walker yelled "DOOR!" at the closing door behind the nurse and me. These are always the moments when I wish I had the ability to raise one eyebrow at a time. In fairness, she had a walker and was going to have a hard time getting the door open, and she also retracted slightly and mumbled "I mean could you open the door for me please," and while we're at it let's be generous and assume she would have done that anyway, regardless of my unsuccessful eyebrow raise and meaningful stare.

Back on topic!

Ugly gym shorts, freezing exam room, same old same old. And then I got to see my hip in X ray for the first time in four years. Let's just say, time has not been kind.

Anatomy lesson (to keep this on topic)

A happy, healthy hip joint (femur bone and acetabulum) is two smooth, sliding surfaces with no jagged edges or rough points. The head of the femur, in particular, should look like this:

And yes, by 'this' I mean 'John Travolta.'

My femur looks like this:

Which is pretty in the night sky, but not ideal for pain-free movement, as the lumps and bumps grate over the acetabulum, and also get 'caught' on the side, also known as impingement.

The bottom line is that hip replacement surgery is basically guaranteed in my distant-ish future, and in the meantime, an MRI will show if Synvisc injections would be a good idea. Hey, science dorks: Synvisc is a synthetic synovial fluid made from rooster combs. Crazy.

Also: I will be a fascinating cadaver for dissection. They'll be able to trace the spinal scoliosis right down to the hip wear and tear! It's just like CSI!

Everyone is so kind to me about this, and says such nice things, and I truly, madly, deeply appreciate it. The real point of this is to tell you that Dr. Snibbe specifically attributed my relative lack of pain (relative) and real solid range of motion to yoga. I attribute it more specifically to Yoga Tune Up®, which is also what I used to rehab a client back from his hip replacement surgery. Come take class with me.

Enough detour: I have to go study for Psych 103, which as it turns out IS going to be a really hard class, because quizzes are only 5 questions, so if you miss one you're already down to a B. Jeez. Was it this hard the first time around?

Everything Settles Over Time

And that includes my brain. Second week down and I'm getting into the swing of things with school, and discovering (don't tell anyone) that I actually really like it. I like sitting in class, opening my notebook, writing copious notes, feeling faint wisps of recollection of hydrocarbons, amino acids and the like. I like that my Physiopsychology teacher folded her arms and threw down a challenge the first day. (To paraphrase, she told us it was going to be hard to get an A in her class. Since I am something of a smartass, I mentally replied that she just didn't know me yet.) I like how my Chemistry teacher looks like John Goodman and says things like "How much ecstasy can a 150lb person consume without overdosing?" to teach measurements. And I completely adore my wacky Biology teacher who did a running demo of a Jesus Christ lizard to show how the properties of water permit life. (He loves Biology so much, and it shows.)

[My hat is off to all of these teachers, and I am deeply impressed across the board with how good they are and how hard they work at their jobs. I really hope that for the most part, we've all gotten over the idea that teaching is for people who can't do anything else. It's an offensive idea.]

But most of all, I like using my brain this way again. It's easy to fall off the wagon and start filling your noggin with all kinds of useless junk (hello YoufaceJezeGoFugYourbookTube), and the same way that not using your muscles makes working out seem like hard work, not using my brain to learn like this has made re-entry a bit uncomfortable, but as with all stretching experiences, I'm growing accustomed to the new space. And less willing to fill it with videos of cats.