what a week so far

sunday night the earth shook. yup, experienced my first earthquake. it wasn't a big one, a 4.2 on the richter scale, nothing too spectacular (or terrifying!) for someone who regularly feels them, but for me - and danielle - who do not come from fault zones, we were definitely a little freaked out. it was around 1:30-2:00am, we'd gone to bed early, probably 3 hours earlier. i was still having a hell of a time sleeping so when i "woke up" to what i thought was danielle picking up the end of my bed i was like "what the hell?!". then i must have gone back to sleep - haha, the quake lulled me to sleep - and in the morning i had completely forgotten about it. it wasn't until we were in am yoga that someone mentioned it to danielle and she asked if i had felt it. i was like, "omg! i did! i remember now - i thought i had dreamt that". wierd. we had another little one - more of a tremor - yesterday during the evening yoga class - halfway through triangle, the ceiling tiles start rumbling around. i heard it but didn't feel it - i guess that can attest to my level of concentration during triangle.

so classes so far this week have been pretty phenomenal. monday was the first time i've been able to complete the entire class without interruption, no laying down, no sitting out entire postures or even sets. i've finally conquered triangle! its still not my best, but its getting better daily. i feel stronger. every day i can push it a little harder. i finally got to the point where i stopped stressing over the sequence... i literally take it one step at at time. i dont anticipate the next posture, or even the next set. i dont tell myself, "you can do this" or "you can't do this". i just do. to the best of my ability at that point. 

allison peed her mat yesterday in class... and then laid in her pee and cried. i know a lot of people have peed, shit, puked themselves in that room. luckily i'm not one of those poor souls. but i did pee a little in my bed monday night - i totally couldn't help it, i drank so much water trying to stay hydrated... but i realized it and make it to the bathroom... but definitely had to change my shorts! and i'm sure glad the maid changed my sheets yesterday...lol.

i've been having really strange dreams lately, things coming back up that i haven't thought about in years. repressed emotions, probably. i haven't had any major emotional break-throughs yet... but i'm sure that's to come. i did have a nightmare last night that i missed like 4 sign-ins and i was like "OMG DOES THAT MEAN I HAVE TO DO 4 MAKE-UPS?!?!?" lol. i guess that means i'll never miss a sign-in. at least thats what dale says. 

so this morning we had our first real "freak out". bikrams senior-most teacher, emmy cleaves, is here from L.A. and apparently being taught by her is a real honor. bikram says he can pretty much live without anyone, but he can't live without emmy. she's been teaching his yoga for 35 years. well, she has been teaching our morning class for the past three days now, and, honestly... she seems like a nice woman, definitely very intelligent, and full of good information. but to tell you the truth, she's a bit of a leach when it comes to sucking the life-force out of the class. not only does she pull the energy out of the class, she constantly is telling us how much we suck. come on, just a little positive reinforcement goes a long way... and her class has never run shorter than 2 hours. well this morning when we were coming towards the end (i believe we were in the second set of cobra, so we still had three more postures and final breathing) we hear someone up front yell, "one more minute" - because we were, indeed, at 89 minutes of what is supposed to be a 90 minute class. i don't think anyone really paid much attention, and quite frankly i'm pretty sure i said, "shut the hell up" - because i get really irritated when anyone talks during class. well, sure enough, one minute later, this older gentleman, stan, got up with his mat and towel and started storming out of the room yelling "fuck you! fuck this! this is breach of contract! this is supposed to be 90 minutes, you keep us here for 2 hours!! we signed contracts stating we would take two 90 minute classes per day - fuck you!! fuck you!!" and we're all like, "stan! wait! come back!" (even though he WAS vocalizing what we've all been thinking for the past 3 days. but sure enough he stormed out, and didn't come back. apparently he went and spoke with bikram, who really tried to encourage him to stay, but to no avail. i guess he was pretty sexist toward women, and felt that emmy had nothing to teach him, or us for that matter. i totally disagree with that part... (but i do agree that she could save her long ongoing stories for lecture and not yoga class...)

we had another movie night last night, and, luckily, i brought my pillow, blanket and sweatshirt, so when my eye-lids got heavy i was able to sleep. not comfortably, but any shut-eye at this point is welcomed. we got to bed around 1am (back to the room) and slept until 6. i woke up feeling like i had actually gotten an adequate amount of sleep. then i went to emmy's class and came out feeling like i'd pulled an all-nighter. its amazing how the energy in the room can really affect you in one way or the other. 

but all in all i feel a lot stronger, happier, and more content than i ever have, probably (the strongest, definitely). its weird to think i've been here for 11 days, but at the same time its weird to think that i've only been here for 11 days. i'm already anticipating how strange it will be to go back to a normal life, with a regular schedule. how odd to not being doing 11 classes per week... (well, taking 11 classes, i hope i will be in 11 classes total per week!) 

JUST HAD BIKRAMS FIRST LECTURE... NO WORDS CAN DESCRIBE IT. MORE LATER. WHEN MY EYES AREN'T CHAFFING MY EYELIDS FROM BEING SO TIRED.