| Well then... |
[May. 6th, 2009|01:54 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | The Mountain Goats, "Pink and Blue" | ] |
So obviously I'm not even pretending to update this anymore. Life has just become too busy since my last post of three months ago, and that's okay with me. For those of you who were following along before I got too swamped, I wanted to let you know that I successfully aced my second semester of skool as well... it was tough, but I hit my stride and began to believe in myself (shocking how useful that can be), and a lot of things fell into place. My apartment is still great, I'm neck-deep in bodywork stuff of all types, I found myself an amazing girlfriend (right around the time I stopped updating... interesting), and I'm figuring out a better studying/socializing balance so I can continue to have a life while I work my ass off for this license in January. So basically, being 30 is awesome, and I am alive and well, and I love all of you even though I haven't read anyone's journals in almost a year. And now back to work. Mwah! |
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| Weeks four and five: In which we are unleashed upon the public |
[Feb. 7th, 2009|05:31 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | Tom Waits, Rain Dogs | ] |
One feature of second semester is that we begin to work on people
outside of class -- both on-site (at a weekend school clinic that the
general public can attend) and off-site (at any number of places like
hospitals and hospices). My first on-site clinic session is scheduled
for next Saturday, and my off-site the following Wednesday. I would be
so much more intimidated by this had I not been practicing on friends
out of my apartment the last three weeks, but now I'm a lot more
comfortable with working on and communicating with a person who is not
a classmate. It will be a little nerve-wracking, sure, but I feel
pretty ready.
I'm doing pretty well in Swedish class, and feeling a lot more
confident with it -- every week we move on to learn different deeper
massage techniques on one more area that we've already learned the
general stuff on, and I'm really excited to get to the arms and neck
classes, because they were covered so briefly last semester, and I'm
never as convinced by my work on them as I am with my work on the back
and legs. One thing that is awesome is being able to combine the
Shiatsu points that we learned last term with the Swedish massage.
They are separate forms of massage, yes, but it's gratifying to be
able to toss in a brief accessing of these important pressure and
energy points with your thumbs or palm while you are doing a Swedish
session. It's all connected.
We're heading into the home stretch with Neurology -- one more test to
go, and then the final in two weeks, because it's only a half-semester
class. After that, once we understand how nerves work with muscles and
reflexes and the spine and the brain, and build that on top of our
previous knowledge of muscles and bones and basic anatomy, we start
Anatomy & Physiology II. I believe this class will go more into
details of the systems of the body -- digestive, cardiovascular,
respiratory, etc. And that will round out the science lecture classes!
In third and fourth term we'll have more clinics, sports massage
off-sites, advanced electives and the feared Assessment class, where
you use everything you've integrated so far to really figure out
what's wrong with people. I'm partially thankful for that, but I also
do really well in the lecture classes (I'm a visual/auditory learner
at heart), so that'll be an interesting change. But it's all very
exciting.
It's been two weeks since I last updated, and I'm so immersed in my
studies and my practicing that I find myself without many more words
at this point! So I will leave off here, and return to my Neurology
flashcards and Shiatsu stretches. All my love to everyone on this calm
indoors Saturday...
b. |
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| Weeks two and three: And we're off... |
[Jan. 24th, 2009|01:04 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | Stars of the Lid, "Articulate Silences (Part 2)" | ] |
Hey sports fans,
And there we go again, skipping a week already! It's been a busy fortnight since we last met. I've become much more acclimated to second term, and am actually really excited.
So where have we been... well, we've been some better places in Swedish class, after we bum-rushed our instructor and told her we needed a better format and time management... and she responded well, and the class makes much more sense now. We have begun to practice the technique called myofascial release (which I mentioned last time, wherein carefully-applied heat in the form of slow sustained pressure warms up knotted tissue and actually allows it to elongate) on different parts of the body... and also learned other techniques such as muscle stripping, which is basically a slower, more focused form of the sweeping strokes a massage therapist applies to the broader planes of the body (back, legs). This is all deeper tissue work, for which we had to have the basics of Swedish I to really start to work on. This past week was particularly gratifying, not in class but outside, when I practiced on a classmate and FINALLY began to understand what myofascial work feels like to the therapist. The difference between your hands gliding over a person's skin, and actually engaging the muscle and thus causing it to slowly move, is subtle, but essential to do this work. And I hadn't felt it, try as I might, even after totally understanding the theory of it and three class sessions' worth of attempts. It wasn't until Patrick and I went down to the practice room to really experiment with it and just muck around with constant feedback from one another and no time limits, that we both started to get it. It's so tricky. I'm glad they are throwing this at us now, because it will take awhile to master. But it felt like a bit of a milestone. Maybe because it had felt so elusive so far.
Neurology class has actually lightened up a bit too... we had our first test, which I rocked. He started us off on some of the harder conceptual stuff, how the neurons work and where they go and all of that, and now that we've gotten that figured out now all we have to do is understand which nerves make which muscles go and where they start in the spine and how they can become entrapped or impinged by muscle or bone, and what problems it can lead to. It's still a lot, but it feels so much less abstract, and more logically-fashioned now, so that's awesome. We only have three tests in it (it's a half-semester class also), and we don't get to drop any of them like we did last term, so we have to take more responsibility for our own studying. But it's good... I feel good. I didn't get to study nearly as much this week as I'd wanted to, as I got super-sick Thursday and was still recovering Friday. But today, after I finish this email, I plan to bust out the coloring book and the flashcards and make sure I'm all caught up on this week's material. Tuesday after our test, our instructor let us go early and we all crowded into the student lounge, which had mysteriously acquired a teevee on a wheely cart, to watch the inauguration. It was really lovely to experience that historic moment surrounded by a crowd of my fellow hippie bodyworkers. I wouldn't have wanted to be anywhere else, actually. It was perfect.
As for Tools for Assessment and Treatment (aka Tools) class, it's sort of tedious. Our instructor is spastic and hilarious, and I love her, but basically it's like learning a new language, just in case you have to pull it out sometime. We are learning stretch tests and assessment stuff for every single muscle, and how they relate to one another, which is incredibly useful in that we will be very thoroughly trained therapists, and will know how to not just work on what seems "tight" but understand why and from where as much as possible. But my god, there is so much to know, and a lot of it seems right now sort of like (in the words of our instructor) "So what?" I'm hanging with it and trying not to tune out. It helps that she's such a trip.
I've only had one Shiatsu class since I last wrote. I didn't make it in yesterday due to the aforementioned recovery from illness, which was a bummer because I really like the class so far. I'm going to have a classmate show me what we learned next week, just in time for our first test in that class. But last week's class was cool -- sort of like how Swedish I gave us the basics and Swedish II is teaching us deeper stuff within that, Eastern class taught us the theory and Shiatsu I is slowing it down and going in-depth with three of the elements we learned last semester (Water, Fire and Metal, which correspond respectively with Kidney/Bladder, Heart/Small Intestine, and Lung/Large Intestine). What am I talking about? To review: each organ has its own element, bodily associations, and channel of energy that runs around the body, pooling along the channel in many places called tsubos (which are the same points that acupuncturists use), which we are to work with our hands instead of needles. And also understand the diseases/dysfunctions that go along with each organ and element, and again, how they all relate and how to begin to structure a Shiatsu session. It's fascinating. And it's for real -- no matter how much you might doubt it, it totally works and has been practiced for centuries.
Also, outside of school, I've begun to break in my massage table and offer my services to friends in the city, because I need to be practicing on as many people as possible -- and also people who are not classmates. Later this term we will be working on the general public (in supervised scenarios, of course), but for now I am setting up a little practice in my bedroom, with candles and my own music and as much time as I want, and it is working out just fabulously.
And now, onto nerves of the lower extremity. Happy Saturday everyone, stay tuned for next week...
love,
b |
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| Term 2, Week 1: ... And we're back! |
[Jan. 13th, 2009|05:40 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | Bitter:Sweet, "Don't Forget to Breathe" | ] |
You thought we were done, didn't you? No, we're not even close. It's true that I dropped off writing these little nuggets of joy at the end of last term because life was sort of exploding all around me -- but it's also true that I successfully made it through first semester and have moved on to the next. And who am I to leave you hanging? Come on, you know my obsessiveness dies a lot harder than that.
I can now say that despite many odds, I rocked it, with As in all five classes and glowing reports from all sides. I moved into my new apartment after an incredibly long and stressful transition period, and am nothing but thrilled with the new setup. My roommate is a dear friend, there are a two other lovely cats here, I found a huge desk for a workstation, my room is big, and in general things are looking up. My three weeks off from school achieved a near-perfect ratio of revelry and relaxation, staying up till dawn and sleeping till noon, seeing a ton of people and hiding out by myself, doing stuff I'd been putting off and doing nothing whatsoever. Also featured were my fabulous 30th birthday and one of the best New Yearses to date -- not an especially tricky feat considering how horrid the night was last year, but still. I'm happy to say 2009's off to a mostly awesome start, thanks to some much-needed time off and so many lovely people.
And now, back to the grind. I've consolidated my work schedule so that I only work three afternoons a week, thus leaving two afternoons free for practicing on classmates and studying and session-report-writing. Which there will be even more of this term. As we speak, I'm staring down the barrel of Swedish II, Neurology, Anatomy/Physiology II, Tools for Assessment & Treatment, and Shiatsu I. (Unlike Swedish, we had to learn an entire semester of theory behind Shiatsu -- the class called Eastern Bodywork & Theory -- before we could begin learning how to structure sessions). And oh man, it's a lot. Neurology's the only lecture class, meeting two days a week and sharing a semester with AP II. The rest of them are hands-on, requiring uniforms and many hours of practice on one another.
Swedish II is the follow-up to, obviously, Swedish I. We learn more concentrated techniques, focusing on one area of the body each week and working deeper in smaller areas of tissue. Right now we're learning what's called myofascial release. Did you know that particular kinds of sustained pressure creates heat in the tissue that surrounds your muscles, which then (due to various chemical properties I won't go into) can temporarily change the shape of the tissue such that it can stretch and expand? Neither did I. It's pretty neat. It's, apparently, like Jell-O. They love their Jell-O metaphors in this school. Time management and demonstration/practice organization do not appear to be this instructor's strong suit, and we might have to call her on it if it continues. Most of us from last semester's Swedish I are in the same section of Swedish II, and we're all a little bit wtf?. Also I wish she would just cough up whatever she's got going on in her throat and stop doing that little "ahem" thing. It's really distracting. But at any rate, it's interesting stuff so far. I like that we already have the basics, and now we get to refine them so we have lots of tricks up our sleeves. So to speak.
Neurology's a little terrifying, because... well, it makes me feel like a med student or something, and it's all so microscopic and intricate and crazy. The good thing is that, unlike Anatomy "why should we give it one name when we can give it three?", whoever invented Neurology's pulled off a pretty straightforward naming structure. Things generally have one name, they're descriptive, they make sense, and they refer to properties of what they're talking about and not, like, somebody's name or something unhelpful. The other good news is that it's logical, it tells a story, and if you can just figure out a system for remembering the million bits of information as far as types of ways things connect to one another and what they're shaped like and where they go and what they do and how they make muscles move, you're pretty set. The hard part is just how much there IS. I could talk to you for ten full minutes about what happens when you pull your hand away from a hot stove. My instructor's sort of fascinating -- sort of totally cool and unflappable, looks like a really nerdy John Travolta who is also a modern dancer, doesn't take any crap from anybody but also never raises his voice no matter what happens. It's amazing how people can establish authority in group settings like that, with nary a traditional crowd-control device in sight. I've begun studying for this class in the bathtub. This is my new coping strategy. It's productive and calming at the same time.
Tools For Assessment is basically learning how to facilitate stretching and testing muscles for length and contractability on a client who's having trouble in any area. We learn chair massage in this class and will end with a little bit of sports massage, but the majority of it will be focused on gaining an in-depth practical understanding of what to ask and what to do when someone says "My [whatever] is tight/hurts/won't move." All this is to be able to put together any number of useful sessions depending on where people are at, utilizing all the ways we've been taught to help and heal. It's sort of amazingly overwhelming to think about the endless number of possibilities of things that can be wrong with people, but we will come out as prepared as we could possibly be without being, like, physical therapists. We've only had one class of Tools so far, twisting one another around on tables and learning how to instruct each other how to stretch what and where and for what purpose, and I like the instructor and think she will be fun and knowledgeable to work with.
Finally, we have Shiatsu. Like I said, this is building on Eastern Bodywork & Theory class from last term. Our instructor seems a little bit of a nervous speaker, which would seem like a bit of a contradiction, but after time she warms up and she really knows what she's talking about. A lot of my classmates (again, mostly the same folks from Eastern) don't like her much so far, or they'd rather be done with the Eastern stuff and focus on Swedish. But I really like the Shiatsu, and I'm into it. There are 5 elements of Chinese medicine, and the intersections and properties of them as they relate to the body and one another form the basis of this sort of work. In class last week we reviewed the Water element, which relates to the bladder and kidney, and all the dysfunctions and symptoms that are associated with it as well as its meridian and point locations. Then we practiced some Shiatsu on one another, focusing on those 2 meridians, and it felt really good. I like that we have this class on Fridays. I'm excited for it, and I think it will be a great way to start the weekend.
So that's it for me for now... off to do a couple of mindless things and then take a bath and study more Neurology. I'm so not kidding. I armed myself with like eight different bottles and packets of bubble bath flavors today, and I aim to make this an ongoing practice this winter.
Thanks for following along so far, and there'll be more next week!
love,
b |
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| The final weeks: Thunk. |
[Dec. 17th, 2008|10:08 am] |
I kept waiting till I had energy for a writeup of the last few weeks of school that could hold some sort of candle to my previous installments, but you know, I don't think it's going to happen. It will suffice to say that I am finished for now, survived finals, pulled straight As despite some of the more stressful months of my life outside of school, successfully moved into a new apartment, and am about to turn 30. It was an insane few weeks, but I made it, and am not too much worse for the wear. I am on break for another 2 1/2 weeks, and return to school January 5th. Stay tuned for updates beginning then...
love
b |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 7th, 2008|10:14 am] |
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nurrrr moving finals buhhhh... update next weekend when it's all over... |
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| Weeks eleven and twelve: Is that your thoracolumbar aponeurosis... |
[Nov. 24th, 2008|10:50 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | Loyd Family Players, "Curtis Y Murga" | ] |
... or are you just happy to see me?
So hello, and I'm almost done! As you can likely tell from the second skipped week here in newsletter-land, I'm a little immersed. One exciting thing is that I've learned all of the meridians for Eastern bodywork & theory class, so now I can see the complete pathways that they all make, and the places they converge and figure out interesting patterns among them. Next time I see you, I'll amaze you by telling you what happens on your toes and fingers, elbows and knees, ankles and wrists. Not to mention torso and face, and all the millions of spots in between! I've been keeping busy with my flashcards, and I'm happy to report that I feel like I've got most of it down. Our final will consist of a written test, a random sampling of finding points and pathways on another person, and teaching our partner to do a few exercises that stretch the different meridians. It will be intense, but I'm feeling pretty good about it.
What I'm not feeling good about again is Swedish class. Holy hell, I had a total panic attack in the middle of class last week. Part of it came from my accidental exposing of a part of my partner's body that I should definitely have kept covered (better to mess up on a classmate than a client, but still), and part of it came from the leftover stress from the last month that I've been slowly letting out and learning how to deal with. It was a great lesson for me in how to handle anxiety during a massage, because -- being prone to such things -- this will come up again for me, and it's good to begin figuring out now how to stay with it and not lose the entire session. But it was really difficult. I emailed my instructor about it afterward, and he had some great thoughts and suggestions for me. I really love my teachers, they are very accessible and supportive. It's funny, every time I work on this one particular person in my class, I end up feeling terrible about the work that I do, and I struggle to keep up the confidence I've gained so far this semester through working on other folks. I have yet to understand what this is really about, but it's a useful challenge, so I'll keep you posted.
And on to muscles... by which I mean to say there's nothing new here except more of them. We've done legs and arms, and now we're onto trunk and spine... next is facial muscles! That should be fun. I have a thick stack of flashcards that I carry with me everywhere, and sometimes I even look at them. I find that subway-commuting is a useful time to brush up on my muscle locations and diagrams and actions... although I do look a little crazy as I'm poking and prodding myself on a crowded train. I'm still doing well on tests in Myology, but we'll see about this week, as I lost a few days of productivity this weekend due to various other circumstances. I should get back to catch-up studying, but thought I'd drop in and let everyone know I'm still alive and mostly doing well.
So back to the books, and lots of black coffee. Also four more days and I'll be (can it really be true?) done with my housing shenanigans forever, and can actually focus on finals. Oh, god.
love,
b |
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| Week ten: The countdown begins |
[Nov. 9th, 2008|10:39 am] |
Three weeks until I move. Four weeks until finals. Five weeks until my first semester is over. Six weeks until I turn 30.
Yes, things are creeping up on us, and we're all feeling the burn. Last night as I sat waiting for a Chinatown bus from Philly back to New York, I witnessed a guy and a girl hunched over a thick book, flipping pages and muttering to each other about "piraformis" and "ischial tuberosity" and "greater sciatic notch". Recognizing these terms, and wondering about the odds of encountering such fellow-minded folk at that moment, I made friends and found out they're first-year med students. Which explains why their book was fatter than all of mine. They were impressed that someone studying massage therapy knew about the things they were learning too, and actually asked me a question about something they were confused about (involving the greater sciatic notch, which happens to be on the pelvis) that I helped them with. Man, I felt so smart. (Also they looked seriously young -- like, 22, so that helped.)
But back to classes, where I am consistently reminded of all that I do not yet know. We've now learned 8 of the 12 meridians in Eastern class... we've learned all the components of a basic hour-long full-body massage in Swedish class and have almost finished the lessons focused on each body part specifically... we've mastered all the bones and joints in Anatomy and are 1/3 of the way through all the muscles in Myology (having finished those of the hip and leg, and currently working on trunk and arms). And this is just the beginning. Once we get these foundations down, the next step is to apply them. Next semester we will be facing Neurology as well as 2nd-level versions of Shiatsu and Swedish, and in following semesters we will take classes that teach us pathology and assessment, and how to diagnose and treat any number of problems and scenarios that clients will come to us with. As well as the continued professional development classes -- we even have a final exam on them, in fourth semester!
So it's a month till finals and now is the time when we are encouraged to really figure out what we aren't understanding so well, and dig in to get it down. There's still time, but it's a little crazy that Round One is sort of almost over. And on that note, I'm going to get back to my muscle flashcards so I can make it to Round Two. Until next time... which, if the last couple weeks are any indication, might be even shorter and sweeter than this one...
love,
b. |
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| Week nine: Not quite homonyms |
[Nov. 2nd, 2008|09:35 am] |
| [ | music |
| | Dar Williams, "February" | ] |
Peritoneum, periosteum, perichondrium... Synarthrosis, synchondrosis, syndesmosis... Trapezoid, trapezium, triquetrum... someday I'll write a song, really. I've been thinking about it since that party back in 2002, when Adrienne sang that hilarious song she wrote for her guitar inspired by her massage therapy school. I don't remember much about it, but I do remember that she managed to rhyme "mandible" with something, which impressed me. It was the first moment that I realized this training is something that actual people do, and thus that I could maybe do someday. I'd meant to pull it together for a house of nearby friends' sort of open-mic thing this weekend, but didn't make it. Next time.
And speaking of next time, this week I learned that we begin working on people in clinics outside classes during second semester, not third. As in next semester. As in, holy hell, seriously? This week I also gained an actual massage table, as my forward-thinking soon-to-be-roommate was at a clearance sale in Westchester and saw a table for super-inexpensive. I would have felt doubtful had she not been accompanied by an LMT who said it was a good table and a great deal. So she scored it for me, and I'll either pay for part of it or just owe her a bunch of sessions. People are looking out for me, and that feels great.
And speaking of feeling great, I so did not this week in all my classes. I could just not focus. We learned the Bladder meridian in Eastern class, which is all these points on either side of the vertebrae, and I was having a hard time understanding that there weren't exactly specific points to worry about finding, as much as there were general areas that all get worked at the same time. And I'm realizing how much I need to be studying my meridians every day, because after we learn them, they slip out of my brain. I need to build this into my nightly routine.
And speaking of nightly routines, the other thing that desperately needs to be worked into them is studying my muscles! Oh god, they are insane. There are SO many muscles, and what's important for us to know is where they attach at the beginning and ending of the muscle (so to speak, or if you want to be clinical, where they originate and insert), as well as which direction they go in, and what actions they perform (as in flexing, rotating, extending) and what role they play in those actions. The muscles have funnier names than the bones, so they're more fun to learn, but damn there are a lot of them, and there's more to know about them. Or, maybe not, but there's more of the same information to know about them, just in varying orders. With bones, all the features generally had different names, and everything felt distinct. With muscles, there are only like 8 different actions that can be performed at any given joint, so we have to know the million and three different ways that each muscle contributes to them. Don't worry if you're not following, I barely am either. We've only covered like half the leg and there are already like 25 muscles to know. Palpation class is fun though, cause we get to get all up in each other's business and dig around in the butt tissue to find different muscles' origins. Our spirits are high, even if our grades have descended slightly since the conclusion of Anatomy class :)
So I need to step it up a bit. This week's going to be crazy too, what with the coinciding of extra work and exterminators and my co-op shift and a lot of things to take care of over the weekend... But I'm going to do my best. Now I'm signing off, leaving this a bit short so I can finish doing laundry and get to work and start it all over again...
love,
b |
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| Week eight: Gluteus Maximus and the Three Hamstrings |
[Oct. 26th, 2008|12:00 am] |
| [ | music |
| | The Assasination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford | ] |
... which is how our Myology instructor tells us to remember the muscles of the back of the thigh -- like introducing a band. It works, people, it really does.
Myology/Kinesiology would be the study of muscles, a second-half-of-semester class starting where Anatomy/Physiology (and the study of bones) left off. Speaking of Anatomy, I also aced my final for that class, even though I didn't study nearly as much as I'd originally planned to. But back to Myology. There are way many more muscles than bones, and the report from above is that they can be really overwhelming. But I found myself locating them much more easily than the bones... which may be due to the fact that we're halfway through the semester and I'm more comfortable palpating people and know more about what to look for, and also may be due to the fact that the muscles we learned this week are broad and pretty easy to find. Whatever; I'll take it. Also, our instructor (the same one as Anatomy) was so proud of how we did on the final exam on Wednesday that she baked us cookies. Flourless, peanut butter oatmeal cookies with goji berries! I mean, come on! Who does that? (She had reason to be proud, because we have worked hard, but a lot of it had to do with her -- the other class included some folks who had done so badly on the weekly quizzes that they weren't even eligible to take the final, and others who failed the final itself... whereas our entire class was allowed to take it, and passed. There are 40something students in each class, and a range of grades, but she is obviously a much better teacher than the other guy. Plus she shows us funny BBC video clips of birds doing silly things like moonwalking every time we have a really hard day learning chemistry or something. It helps).
So that felt really good. Also what felt amazing was Tuesday, in Swedish class. As I said last week, I'd finally become comfortable with the positioning and body mechanics that we have been striving for, as well as the strokes itself. But this week, I felt as if I really hit my stride. I have been watching my instructor and the several students who are martial artists carefully, and beginning to incorporate the way they move their body in conjunction with the person they're working on as a sort of dance into my own work. It helps SO much to keep your movements fluid and your body bouncing around, which is key to avoiding long-term burnout and injury. My partner in class fell asleep so hard when I was working on him, and while to a certain extent we are all doing so the later it gets in the semester, I took it as a big compliment because he was SO out that he didn't even feel the range of motion stretches I was performing on his leg (stretching various muscles in the thigh). He woke up at the end totally blissed-out, and had nothing to say but "Wow, that was just so great. Wow. Really? You did my other leg? Wow." And my instructor said he thought I was doing so much better with body mechanics, and it looked like I was finally getting it and doing really nice work. That felt awesome, because that class -- although always enjoyable -- was a bit of a struggle for me at first. I still get nervous, but it is changing.
Eastern class was more of the same -- learning two more meridians (adding Heart and Small Intestine to Lung and Large Intestine, and Spleen and Stomach) and I really need to start studying these every day and going over them, finding the points on myself over and over, because there are so many by now I constantly lose track of them and have to look them up. I want to buy one of those little men that have the meridians and points all over them for easy reference, but that (and any other acquiring of anything else I need to buy) can't really happen until I move. To my friend Mariah's apartment. Which is happening in December, which is like the most welcome thing in the world right now, because as some of you know my apartment had become really stressful and fallen apart since the summer. So anyway.
TRIVIA QUESTION OF THE WEEK:
With various classmates, I have business schemes to:
a) open a feminist, women-run drum shop
b) open a coffeeshop serving anatomically-themed drinks (such as the Fascia Latte, which in sound is identical to the thigh muscle it's named for)
c) market lamps out of the disembodied plastic numbered-muscle study legs, a la A Christmas Story
d) all of the above
And the answer would be D. We entertain ourselves.
love,
b. |
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| Weeks 6 and 7: special double issue! |
[Oct. 19th, 2008|11:14 am] |
| [ | music |
| | Dixie Chicks, "Voice Inside My Head" | ] |
So welcome back. As various unforeseen circumstances of my life, in addition to the planned weekend away with my band, have conspired against me having the sort of week where I have more than five seconds to myself at any given moment, this update has had to be shelved for a bit. But here we are, mostly recuperated and back in action.
Where have we been since last we met? So many places. The last two weeks have featured more meridians in Eastern class -- that of Stomach and Spleen -- and my first time arriving to class totally exhausted and doing fine anyway. My instructor loves my new blue hair, and regularly chats with me in the elevator about biking. He is a friendly guy; although not all of the students love him, I am happy with the class, and continuing to get a lot from it. Also my confidence in Swedish class has grown by leaps and bounds. The amazing part is that I spent all weekend (last week) being generally ridiculous and exhausting my body drumming and dancing for days on end at an annual festival for activist street bands in Boston (honkfest.org), and then continued my irresponsible streak on Monday with a 4-hour drinking lunch with classmates and more debauchery throughout the night, and when it came time for class on Tuesday, and I hadn't slept for more than 2 hours for the second night in a row, it was -- surprise! -- my turn to work on the instructor (of COURSE) but I did really well! And then when I worked on another classmate, she totally fell asleep and I heard her snoring. That's always a good sign. Also the further in the semester we all get and the more sleep we lose, the more likely we are to fall asleep under one another's hands. I think all of that partying helped get me out of my brain a little bit, and into my body, which I'd been desperately needing. This is not to say that such activities should be allowed to continue for me in anything but occasional short bursts -- I'd collapse in on myself in less than a month -- but it felt so damn good to misbehave and break my own rules for a minute.
So now we are back to the books. And heavily so, as I aced my Palpation midterm with a righteous 98. I was really worried about this one, as it was taking me longer than some other classmates to be able to find the bony features of one another's bodies with as much speed and confidence. But I am getting there, and after several nights of "palpimatating" my roommates (to many giggles) and then a friend who graduated from this program as she attempted to make dinner, I felt great. Next up is another midterm on Wednesday -- technically a final, as the Anatomy/Physiology portion of first semester science classes are over, and the Myology/Kinesiology portion will begin on Thursday -- for which I am mostly studying properly. I can tell you the functional classification and the structure and location of every single joint in your body, for example. Thrilling stuff. Also to study this week are the subjects that have followed all the bones and joints: being chemistry, cytology (study of cells), histology (properties of tissues), and a little bit of intro myology (properties of muscles). I do a lot of poking and prodding myself and rotating my joints in public to study in a physical way, and I probably look a little crazy.
So now it is off to work, and another really busy week what with the final and an extra job or two so I can save up in case I have to move in a couple of months. More on that later.
love,
b |
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| "I am gonna make it through this year if it kills me..." |
[Oct. 13th, 2008|09:20 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | The Mountain Goats, "This Year" | ] |
As most of you know, for the last almost four months my formerly-beloved apartment has been battling the most righteous case of bedbugs I've ever seen. We've done absolutely everything you are supposed to do, for months, over and over... been living out of trash bags, done fifty thousand loads of laundry, coated our space with every kind of poison you can imagine, called in a special exterminator six different times and the fuckers still won't leave. As it was already standing, 2008 had been a major challenge year for me, and while most of the time I do my best to recognize it as such/grit my teeth through it/know I'll be the better for it, this extended home-wrecking mindfuck threatens to break me, and has definitely trashed my desire to stay here. Remember all those times I was like 'OMG I LOVE MY APARTMENT SO MUCH NOTHING WILL EVER MAKE ME LEAVE EVER'? Welcome to it, folks. I've had so many breaking points since we first discovered the fuckers it's like almost laughable. I'm like clockwork, falling apart every three to four days at a different person. God bless my amazing friends for helping me get this far (most recently Mariah on Sunday, who hugged me as I sobbed into her shoulder) and my wonderfully-supportive classmates who are already turning into fabulous friends. But Phoenix is already moving out, and Meg and I are likely not far behind. I decided this weekend on the bus up to Boston for Honk! (which, by the way, beat the hell out of my body but was so desperately needed by my little drummer-girl spirit) that my next step was to get rid of everything I own -- save the bookshelf my dad made me, a couple of books, my clothes, my laptop, my guitar and my drum. The rest of my furniture was dumpstered anyway, and I can do without most of my stuff. It remains to be seen whether I'll risk breaking my lease (which ends January 31st) or not, but at the latest, by that point, I'm out of here. Which makes me so sad and bummed out I can't even process it, I just have to go.
SO. I'm posting to ask if anyone has
a) possession of a hatchet, for getting out some serious aggression on my wooden furniture
b) knowledge of a STUDIO apartment for under $650 where I can live and bring my cat
I honestly don't care if I end up in Queens or whatever. Proximity isn't a priority right now; of utmost importance is the preservation of my badly-eroding sanity. I so plaintively want to live by myself, with some plastic and steel furniture and the kitty, and not have to deal with anybody else. It probably sounds dramatic, and I know I have a penchant for such things, but honestly, it is that bad. Not to mention dealing with family funeral business in the middle of midterms.
Anyone feel free to let me know if you have leads/thoughts/whatever. My 30th birthday is only two months away, and I feel that I'll have earned every goddamn second of that sucker. I may end up crawling across the floor to get there, but for fuck's sake, I'll make it. |
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| Week five: all your bone are belong to us |
[Oct. 5th, 2008|06:55 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | The Nightmare Before Christmas soundtrack | ] |
also known as, I have now learned the name, classification, and joints associated with all 206 bones in the human body. And mostly, how to find them on a live person. (Dead people come later -- apparently there are cadavers in future semesters.) But back to the present. The awesome thing is that this has happened in just one month. It sounds surprising, but given the amount of paper handouts we've amassed and notes we've taken and information we've absorbed, it also makes sense. My classmates and I have been trying to top one another with anecdotal evidence of our individual geeking out, which is always fun. For my part, the other day on 7th Avenue I saw a skeleton attached to the back of an October-themed pedicab (which is a little cart attached to a bicycle -- and a rider -- that tourists can climb into and be propelled around for a fee), and I immediately began naming the bones in my head, starting with the sacrum and coccyx and making my way north.
Halloween will never be the same.
This week in Eastern we learned about two meridians on the body -- that of Lung and Large Intestine. To review, the theory of Shiatsu massage is that each bodily malfunction is the property of a particular organ. And each organ is the starting point of a corresponding meridian (invisible channels of energy) that run along various planes of the body. This is important for us to understand, as we will structure sessions with clients based on their various complaints, as well as our assessment of what's going on with their body. We are learning two meridians at a time; there are twelve total. So we practiced finding the various "tsubos" -- little pools of energy that run along the meridians, accessible on everyone, and great points of power when pressure is applied to them to effect change -- of Lung and Large Intestine on each other. It's really fascinating, when your fingers begin to get used to the sorts of touch and the sorts of differences in what lies underneath the skin that you are looking for, and you can say "Oh, there it is, wow," and then press on it and see your partner's face illustrate the fact that you have, indeed, found what you are looking for.
Swedish class is getting better, in that I am becoming slightly less nervous each time, and also that I am not alone in my fears. Our instructor is SO patient and encouraging, and is a very knowledgeable gifted teacher. He is wonderful to learn from, and I am thankful for how supported he makes us feel while he goes about correcting our positioning and redirecting our mistakes. He also knows a lot about the various repetitive-motion injurires that can occur in massage therapists, and has already given me very helpful, detailed advice on various stretches to do to avoid the occasional wrist pain I was beginning to notice. In a practice session outside of class, my friend who I have been practicing on several times said that I improved a lot since I last worked with her, and she could tell I had gotten more confident. And every time I explain that my biggest obstacle so far has been trusting myself and being in my body enough to do the work well, friends nod and say they understand. And as of now, we have learned all the strokes that are components of a basic one-hour massage. We will spend the rest of the semester perfecting them, and the following semesters learning variations on and complements to them (as well as correlating deeper muscle and tissue work), but one month in and we've already got the tools to do a halfway-decent session. This information amazes me. I have learned so much in the last month; it's incredible.
There isn't much to say about Anatomy class at the moment -- the tests and the book knowledge continues to come easily for me, and my Anatomy instructor continues to be adorably dorky, and only gets better with time. She has us eating out of the palm of her hand, and it's really cute to see how much we all look up to her. (She also loves my new indigo hair.) After we finish up being quizzed on the bones, we begin chemistry. We started learning this on Friday, and I have to say, it wasn't nearly as bad as I remembered it... from back in, oh, 1993. Yes, I haven't had chemistry in 15 years, since freshman year of high school. But now that I'm interested in the context, and I am a lot more invested in understanding it, I'm finding it not so horrible as I expected. Although I do sort of prefer the bones, I won't lie.
So that's it for me now... off to do some homework, study for an Eastern quiz, and brush up on my lower extremity bones in preparation for an Anatomy quiz. Did you know there are 28 bones in just your toes?
Yours in ever-increasing nerdery,
b |
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| Week four: in which we learn of the Metatarsalphalangeal joints |
[Sep. 28th, 2008|12:01 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | Regina Spektor, "That Time" | ] |
... otherwise known as your toes.
Having covered the skull, the spine, the thorax and the various systems in the body in Anatomy class, we've now moved onto the lower extremity -- namely the pelvis (did you know the plural of pelvis is pelves? I think that's hilarious) and the bones in the leg, ankle, and foot. The names are getting easier to understand as we go. The running joke in the anatomist world of "Why name something once when you can name it three times?" is a running joke for a reason, but other than that, there is a logic and a language of this class. I'm still having a great time coloring in my Anatomy Coloring Book -- this week I took the advice of several classmates and sprung the four dollars for the full 24-pack of colored pencils. Let me tell you, it's definitely worth it. There are four blues! Two yellows! Three browns! No more running out of colors and trying to make the measly 12-pack stretch to 15 or maybe 20 slightly different shades depending on the page! Many of us have upgraded, and are much happier for it. In case you can't tell, these things are important, and communicating on the minutiae of our various school supplies has brought us so much closer already.
We are also beginning to get a sense of one another's massage styles -- it's been a month of class now, and we have practiced on one another several times (once a week in class, and sometimes in out-of-class practice sessions too). It's been interesting to see the emerging differences in the ways we give massage -- the development of each person's individual style. We didn't have a Swedish hands-on class this week, we had another Professional Development instead. This one was much better than the first, and it focused on bodywork and emotions -- namely the emotions that can come up when you are working with people, and good ways to respond to them and handle all sorts of circumstances in a professional manner. My last Swedish practice session on Wednesday with a classmate named Tonya went so well. She fell asleep toward the end! That's always a good sign. And then when she worked on me, I was surprised to see that she went so much faster than me. It wasn't bad, it was just different -- and had some very different effects than some of the other massages I've gotten from classmates, in a really invigorating way. It's really cool to see everyone taking in the same basics, and then making them their own. There is so much camaraderie among my class as we do this, and we learn new things and we get excited together. Also my Anatomy instructor was supervising the room as we practiced, and complimented us both on what she saw.
I continue to do well on my Anatomy quizzes, and also aced my first quiz in Eastern. Compared to Anatomy, that quiz was SO easy. Almost the entire class got an A. I'm also continuing to love that class -- last week we worked on palpating one another's Hara (the region between the sternum and groin, wherein lie the various organs that you evaluate at the beginning of each session, to see which areas have too much energy that needs to be released, and which areas are lacking in energy, and need more to be directed to them). It was fascinating to see how different various people's Haras felt -- some people were really soft and giving in areas, others were much harder and resistant in the same areas. And while there are certainly differences between people due to things like muscle tone and scar tissue, still, there are other palpable distinctions.
I am feeling much better in my Palpation class, too -- I am beginning to let go of obsessively worrying I won't get everything right, and just trust myself. Trust that I will be fine, in fact probably great, and that even if I won't be great, I won't get anywhere if I don't first trust that I can do it. So I stopped stressing about the fact that it's sometimes hard for me to find all the bones on my classmates, and just let it happen. And sure enough, I did so much better this week. This week's exercises involved, as usual, the bones we'd just learned in Anatomy class -- the bones of the pelvis, knee, and leg. And I found that when I just didn't think too much and let myself feel with my eyes closed and trusted that I am smart and intuitive and talented and I could do it just fine, I found things so much easier. So this is telling, and I need to bring this to all my hands-on work. In the words of my classmate Leah, "You just need to chill out."
So that's me, chilling out. Also me going to work in a minute -- tired and sick though I am. Saturday's my one day entirely off from everything, and it's never really enough. Until next time...
love,
b |
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| Week three: the External Occipital Protuberance |
[Sep. 21st, 2008|11:41 am] |
| [ | music |
| | Rilo Kiley, Under the Blacklight | ] |
... otherwise known as the bump on the back of your skull. Mine is quite pronounced -- maybe this means I have a huge brain, or that my skull is just shaped funny. Perhaps yours is not. More than anything, what we have been learning this week is that everyone's body is different. There's one girl in my class who's missing a piece of her sternum that the rest of the population tends to have, and the Palpation instructor was momentarily stunned. That was fun :)
This, and other bony features of the skull, sternum and ribcage are what we have been working on this week -- both in our Anatomy class and our Palpation class. Also featured this week has been our first Professional Development class -- these are occasional classes interspersed throughout the curriculum that take the place of our regular classes, which are focused on any number of situations that come up in your professional environment. This week's PD dealt with both setting and respecting boundaries with clients, and the various roles of the Licensed Massage Therapist. It was useful, if a bit dry... though the instructor tried to spice it up with a few roleplays.
I aced my second Anatomy quiz as well -- got all the questions right, and even scored the extra credit. My roommates are very proud of me, and have begun to tell me to put my quizzes on the fridge :) Anatomy class has a TON of information, as I have mentioned, but what's wonderful about this program is that they break everything down incredibly far, so you have a solid understanding of exactly everything there is and how it all works together. So I could amaze you with millions of vocabulary words and then actually tell you what they do. It's fascinating learning all the tiny bits and pieces that make the human body go.
I loved my Eastern class this week as well. In my previous email I called it my Shiatsu class -- apparently this is not quite correct. This class is "Introduction to Eastern Bodywork and Theory", and next semester I will begin taking Shiatsu 1. So this is like, an introduction to the first-level class. But anyway, in Eastern this week we learned a technique called kambiki, in which you position your body in a relaxed all-fours position and compress the muscles of your prone (meaning lying facedown) partner, with mats beneath you both. The methods in which we warmed up and transitioned into that position, and then performed it with a rocking back and forth motion, were very meditative, and I could feel myself understanding it in my body, not just my brain -- which is something I'm struggling with in Swedish. I'm really getting into this class. At one point my partner was the instructor, which was nothing short of terrifying. But he complimented me and said I did well, and gave me good suggestions as I worked too, so that felt great. After class, I felt amazing -- bodywork really can be beneficial for the practitioner too. Also in Eastern we learned more about the so-called "five element" theory that we use in Shiatsu, in which various elemental ideas (like fire, water, metal, water, wood) correspond to different organs and stages of life and times of the day and personality attributes and seasons, and how they relate to one another and can, with lots of understanding and analysis of each person's body, form the basis of how one structures such a session with a client. It sounds a little foofy, but I'm into it.
This week in Swedish class was initially positive, as I had a wonderful session with one classmate (who sort of reminds me of [family member's name omitted]), and I felt much more confident than I had the last time I practiced. But then it got harder -- my practice session with another classmate on Saturday was rushed because she was late and the practice room was closing, and then I set my table too high, and the result was a session that made me feel pretty bad. It seemed that I was doing everything wrong, and suddenly a lot of my fears caught up to me. This program is wonderful, and I feel incredibly supported by the staff and classmates and structure of it all; everyone is very accessible and helpful and the program goes out of its way to make sure the students are keeping up with the program... but this is a major act of faith I am placing in myself, and it can feel a little scary. I am recognizing this for the good it will do me, as I will be forced to barrel through some of my insecurities and anxieties that I have had my whole life so I can move forward with this... but it is challenging. But that's what great things come out of, right? Challenge. I am up to it, and I am committed, though I know it will be incredibly difficult.
So that's it for this week... stay tuned for further adventures, featuring my first test in Eastern and the next PD class involving bodywork and emotions... I can tell you are on the edge of your seat.
love
b |
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| An update... |
[Sep. 18th, 2008|04:37 pm] |
So between morning classes, very little down time at work, and no internet at home lately, I am a scarce email-checker, and this LJ had fallen into disuse since June anyway. I am still not going to be reading friends' journals on a consistent basis, not because I don't love you anymore, but because things are just too busy. However, because people keep asking how school is going and I don't really have time or energy to say more than "awesome, thanks for asking!", I plan to post the weekly emails I send my parents. They have generously agreed to send me a pinch of cash every month to nudge me toward general survival as I take classes full-time and work part-time... so I like to think of these emails as not just interesting information about what I'm doing, but a gesture toward illuminating what their contribution is going to.
So here we are. If you want to know what's happening, read them. If not, skip ahead to others' entries. I backdated the first two -- they are living in the internet world on September 5th and September 14th, and from now on I will post them here immediately after mailing them off as well. |
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| Week two: Pleural, Pericardial, Peritoneum |
[Sep. 14th, 2008|04:35 pm] |
Q: What in the hell are those?
A: Subcavities within larger bodily cavities (being thoracic and abdominopelvic), containing the lungs, heart, and stomach/liver/pancreas/small intestines/gall bladder, respectively.
Yes. Welcome to my life :) It's been a blur of anatomical terms and processes -- from basic chemistry to the various systems of the body, what they contain and what they do, the different directional terms used when looking at cross-sections of the body, the components and functions of basic systems, the bones (and all their respective features) of the skull and the spine and the ribs, as well as an occasional ligament and nerve reference... the details of which we'll cover more later, when we move into muscles. For now, we're sticking with bones. And holy hell, there are a lot of crazy-looking bones in our bodies. 29 in the skull alone, and I now know how to pull apart a model skull and name every feature of every bone. Mostly :) I have embraced the advice of a Swedish Institute graduate and employed the use of flash cards to study for anatomy class, in which we have a weekly quiz. And I aced my first one! I got only two wrong, and they were questions I'd inadvertently not studied the material for, so the moral of the story is that everything I actually studied, I retained and applied. So apparently I'm doing something right, and my study skills from ten years ago have held up! Lord help me, I might make it through this program.
But there is a long way to go; it's only been two weeks. It sort of feels like two months -- there is so much information packed into these two weeks, it's amazing. I have already befriended several classmates, and I can tell the oft-repeated sentiment of "You'll get real close with your classmates real quick" is so true. We spend four hours a day together, not just processing endless anatomical information but practicing on each other on massage tables in our hands-on classes and trading the occasional "OH MY GOD WHAT ARE WE DOING, HERE WE GO" look. My second Swedish hands-on class involved not just trying the strokes of the week on one another under our towels and sheets that we bring to each class, which was the feature of the first week, but actually oiling one another up (underwear optional) and taking turns practicing the longer strokes called effleurage that are what you probably think of when you think of massage. Down the back, up the legs and arms, across the shoulders. We are required, for this class, to submit several "practice session reports" -- writeups of our thoughts and experiences after participating in a practice session with a classmate in the basement practice room. My new friend Leah and I did our practice session together last night, and whoa, how nerve-wracking! It's all so new -- the way to drape your partner with the towel and sheet, the way to move the draping to access different parts of the body, the million different movements required to keep in mind so your posture and what they call "body mechanics" are healthy as you practice the strokes and the sequences. But afterward, we went for pizza and had a long debriefing, and I think we might do this every Saturday. I need to practice on all the others too, to get used to different body types, but it feels good to have a partner for a longer plan, so we can see how we improve and give really good feedback.
We've only had one hands-on Shiatsu class -- a bit of the woo-woo energy stuff, which I'm totally into, but about which others sometimes roll their eyes. (Mostly none of my classmates, which is good, because really, why would they be there?) We practiced some basic exercises involving feeling the electricity of our bodies between our hands, and watched a demonstration of a Shiatsu massage by the instructor, and talked a lot about the different kinds of Qi (pronounced "chi", meaning energy) and what it does and where it goes and why... and how different things deplete and/or replenish it, and why that kind of massage is useful toward returning people's bodies to a better and more healthier balance. Shiatsu and Swedish are two very different kinds of massages, hard to compare. Swedish involves tables and oil and the things I described above, Shiatsu involves twisting one another around on mats with clothes on and no shoes and different manipulations of muscles between the practitioner and the client. They're formed on very different foundations, and are basically just two different means to the same end -- people feeling better in their bodies! I'm excited for the second Shiatsu class tomorrow.
Also we had our first Palpation class, which involves feeling the different bones and muscles on each other's bodies -- separate from practicing strokes and movements, this is just understanding where things are and how to find them on a clothed partner so as to later use them as landmarks on clients. I learned how to palpate different bones and spots on the skull and all down the spine -- some of them are a lot harder to find than others, and I have been assured by upperclassmen and graduates that your fingers really do learn different kinds of sensitivity as you go through the program, and it gets a lot easier. Which is good news, because I was having a hell of a time. But it was a fun class anyway, and I really love all my instructors and the majority of my classmates.
I am so far maintaining my schedule of class in the morning, work in the afternoon, coming home and making dinner and studying/reviewing/reading for class, having a little bit of self decompression time (reading, watching a movie, making a phone call, staring at the wall) and then going to bed early. I'm secretly loving the solitariness of my life these days, and though I'm sure it will evolve over time, this is where I'm quite happy to be at right now.
So thanks for tuning in to the second chapter -- it's now time for me to run upstairs and work my afternoon shift at my coffeeshop. Until next time...
love
b |
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| This week in Swedish Institute news |
[Sep. 5th, 2008|04:37 pm] |
As of today, I have had three days of classes. I am in class four hours a day (well, technically 3.5 hours with a 3-minute break), from 8:30-12:30. Afterward on 4 weekdays, I will be working my various bookkeeping jobs for 3 to 4 hours each day. And I am going to keep my Sunday shift at Think Coffee. This will mean I have Saturdays and evenings off for studying and the occasional socializing study break. But I am very serious about this, as I'm sure is obvious, so I have cleared my schedule to the extent that I can and am planning lots of reviewing and studying and early-to-bedtimes. Look ma, I'm all growed up.
So Tuesday was my first day, and it featured a hands-on class called Swedish 1. In this class, we learn the different kinds of basic strokes and how to apply them, practicing on each other in pairs in class with our own towels and sheets, which we use The first half of class involves talking about the strokes and how to do them, and the second half of class entails setting up massage tables and practicing them, after the professor does a demo on some lucky student. I love my teacher for this class -- he is super friendly and easy to understand, very accessible (even gave us his cell phone number in case we have problems) and encouraging of questions. The class is very small too -- 16 of us. This week we learned the terms "compression" and "jostling", which are very basic intro terms, which are done at or toward the beginning of a session with a client. I was really tentative when it was my turn with my partner (I worked on her first, she received), but then when she went, she had a better idea of what we were doing and she did it more confidently, which was good to feel and understand. Also the teacher requires us to give feedback immediately afterward, which is helpful.
Wednesday was supposed to be Anatomy/Physiology, which is the knowledge that will form the intellectual basis for the hands-on stuff we are learning, but instead of the class we mostly just had a re-orientation given by the dean of massage therapy. Which was sort of boring, because a lot of the stuff had been gone over already. But I guess they just want to make super-sure we know everything. Also involved was a discussion about the emerging field of massage therapy, why it's been getting so much more popular and recognized and supported and sought out the last decade or so.
Thursday, today, we finally got to Anatomy. Which is just SO much information. There will be a lot of memorizing, but I have to make sure that I retain it, because like I said it will form the backbone of my understanding of the body and why it does what it does and how to understand what's happening with people I work on and then make things change for them... in 3 hours we learned pages and pages of stuff... which I am going to promptly rewrite and review after I finish this email, because it was so much. But the teacher there is good too... she's super-dorky and also encouraging of questions, has a cute little lisp and you can tell she's just thrilled and fascinated with the subject, which can't help but translate itself onto the students. So, my first day of that was a bit overwhelming, but I'm feeling determined and I also have a couple friends who graduated who can help me strategize if I need... also I am in class with the same people all week long, and we are going through the same overwhelming things together, so we will become allies quickly, or so everyone says. We will be having a quiz every week in this class, so I am planning on studying every night so that I don't fall behind. Because we all know how apt I am in science... but I think that with actual concrete goals to attach it to, it won't be so bad.
Tomorrow I'll have Palpation, in which you learn to find the actual muscles and bones you're learning about in Anatomy, and Monday will be my first Shiatsu hands-on class. (The two types of massage this school offers are Swedish and Shiatsu, and you start out right away practicing them, while learning the science behind them at the same time).
So. I have to go return a phone call and then review today's millions of terms, so this will end here, but stay tuned for a full report next week :)
Thanks again for your help.
love
b |
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| well then |
[Jul. 28th, 2008|12:06 am] |
| [ | music |
| | Regina Spektor, "Lady" | ] |
so i haven't updated in over a month. and i don't quite have it in me to catch up on all the weeks of everyone's entries i've missed. but this is a quick writing post to say that 1) there are a couple of new pieces on my poem site, and 2) you know better issue number three is nearing completion, so if you want a copy when it's hot off the press, holler and it's yours. likely within the next month but i make no promises. |
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| It's true. |
[Jun. 20th, 2008|02:34 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  sick | ] |
"Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life? Friends, meet Jon Arbuckle. Let’s laugh and learn with him on a journey deep into the tortured mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness in a quiet American suburb."
http://garfieldminusgarfield.net |
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