Going "public" = holding myself accountable

Somewhere along the way in India, I decided that upon my arrival back home I was going to finally finish the Insanity workout. It was something that had been on my lifetime to do list for a long time. I'd started it several times, but never did it for more than a week or a random workout here and there. By the time I got home, I'd kind of forgotten/didn't care much about the "I'M GOING TO DO IT!" thoughts I'd had a few weeks earlier while laying in a naan induced coma in an uncomfortably hot A/C-less hotel room.

A couple weeks later at work, I overheard some female customers talking about Insanity. Two of the ladies had just started it, and they were talking about another one of their friends who had just completed it, who'd lost something like 20 lbs. "Ok, if these ladies can do it, I can do it!" I told myself.

So the next day, I printed off my Insanity calendar and started the workout. Like I knew it would, it sucked. I was quickly reminded of why my previous attempts at Insanity never lasted more than a few days. But after a week or two, it got easier. Sort of. I was able to do real push ups during the level 1 drills instead of  modified (girl, though I hate calling them that) push ups. Other moves, like spider push ups, I still can't do. The first month ended, and following the recovery week, I started the second month and WHOOOOOAAAAAA NELLY! It was the exact opposite of fun. But 4 short weeks later, month 2 ended, and I was done.

I was stronger and definitely gained muscle. I lost 6-7 lbs doing Insanity. I've lost another 5 or so since I finished it. I ran the Bix at the end of July. My time was 1:06:22, which I was really happy with considering I had only started running a few weeks earlier. Thanks Shaun T!

Now, it's time to start round 2 of Insanity. Chilly nights = hot chocolate cravings. It's apple dessert season. Holiday deliciousness is just around the corner.  I no longer have the "This is on my lifetime to do list. If those ladies can do it, I can do it!" motivation. So I need some new motivation. I'm going with my pride mixed with some embarrassment.

I hate having my picture taken. I don't do selfies, ever, aside from that one I took on my solo trip to Thailand to prove I was actually there. But in the name of fitness, I took some selfies. And I have a whole new respect for people whose Facebook and Instagram pages are nothing but pictures of themselves. It's hard to take your own picture! The light, the angle, the shadows, where do you look, how do you hold your arm, etc. Clearly this is something I need more practice at.

 My "before" pictures, I guess they could be called. 

I don't know what I'm looking at here. 

And a post workout shot, though this picture doesn't really show how gross and sweaty I was.

 Now, after having gone public with my plans to complete this workout again, as well as posting my before pics, I have no choice but to do round 2. Pride can be a good motivator, yes?


Changing to a serious topic
Small favor-As many of you know, my Aunt Sara, who's the raddest aunt a girl could have, has been fighting cancer since early 2010. That's a long time and cancer treatment's expensive, yo! So, I know everyone is strapped for cash (if you're not, PM me because I've got some sweet business ideas that need funding), but please consider skipping a few trips to Starbucks this month and donating. Every little bit helps, as they say. I'll love you forever. And good karma will come your way. Thanks! Merci! 감사합니다!

Melting frozen hearts

There are very very few things in the world I love more than this. I'm sure you've all seen it. If you're like me, you've watched it at least 50 times. And it never gets old. Ever.

The City of Lakes, part 1

Our stay in Udaipur began with a bit of confusion and panic. Anyone who has ever planned a longer, multiple destination trip such as this, knows it can be a bit of a cluster. Deciding where to go, for how long, and when + coordinating with flights, trains, and hotels = there's bound to be a stumble or two. On our last night in Jaipur, we had our first little stumble. And compared to so many of the horror stories I've heard from other people who'd traveled in India, ours was nothing. Many of the hotels required a confirmation a day or two in advance. So Anya emailed the hotel in Udaipur to confirm our stay. A short while later, the hotel owner emailed back and said "Yes, we have your reservation, but we have you confirmed for two days from now, not tomorrow" Well, shoot. Thankfully, after a bit of emailing back and forth, the hotel owner was able to book us a one night stay at an adjacent hotel. Mini problem solved!

Bright and early the next morning, we arrived at the train station for our 7 hour train ride to Udaipur. The hellish ride from Agra-Jaipur was still too fresh in my memory, but thankfully this train arrived right on time. Not thankfully and unbeknownst to us, sometimes Indian trains change their car/seat numbers. The train pulled into the station. Despite being 6:30 in the morning, it was already sticky and hot. Like everywhere else in India, it was crowded. And like travelers tend to do, we were schlepping our bags around the train station. And our assigned car was not to be found. Well, shoot again.
We had 15 minutes or so before the train was supposed to leave. But Anya and I are not last minute kind of ladies. We had a bit of panic. My instinct was to buy a cup of coffee and find a corner to cry in while rocking back and forth. Thankfully Anya kept a cooler head and tracked down a porter, who I'd no doubt told to f off shortly before we realized that we did in fact need his services. Don't judge me. The porters at train stations were like vultures. From the moment they see a rickshaw with non-Indians approaching the station, hoards of them are all over the foreigners and impossible to get rid of. "Excuse me! Porter." "You need porter." (not a question). "Ma'am, porter" "Porter porter you need porter!" The bolder ones would just reach out for foreigners' bags, so I always made sure to keep a firm grip on my belongings. Porters sound like a nice idea, except for two things-I'm perfectly capable of carrying my own luggage, and like everything else in India, there are two prices- the Indian price and the foreigner price. So this porter told Anya one price, something like 100 rupees. He found our seats (turns out the class we booked wasn't available on this train, though we still paid that price for it, hmm). Then he demanded we pay him something along the lines of 400 rupees. While I was waiting for my visa at the Indian Consulate in Chicago, I saw posters boasting about "Magical India." Finally, I was getting to experience it firsthand. The "100 rupees for everything" price he'd promised two minutes ago magically turned into 100 rupees per bag. I tried so hard to remind myself it was less than $5 he'd "scammed" us out of, and I spend more money filling my car with gas than many Indian families make in a month. But but but, I don't like people thinking they outsmarted me.
Thankfully, we did not have to share our compartment with anyone else. So I spent the 7 hour train ride sleeping, reading, and staring out the window. It passed quickly and before I knew it the train was pulling into Udaipur. We hopped in a rickshaw and headed towards our hotel. Right away, Udaipur seemed different. It was cleaner. It was calmer. It felt like a gentle hug. I was happy to be staying here for a few nights.
Our one night only hotel was oozing with character...if character is a bathroom with no working light and a squat toilet, as well as a few lizards running around the room. I don't very often get up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, but it would figure that during our one night at Hotel Monalisa, I'd get a 4 am call from nature. I was again big time cursing the guards at the Taj Mahal for confiscating my flashlight. I was in India, peeing in the dark while balancing over a hole in the floor, praying I didn't have a misstep and end up with my foot in the toilet. It was definitely one of those "Wow, I've really made it!" moments.
As soon as possible we checked into our real hotel the next morning. After some breakfast and downtime, we set out. Despite freely roaming livestock, narrow streets with no sidewalks, and vehicles zooming every which way, Udaipur was definitely more walkable than the other places we'd been. And after a week of relying on rickshaws and hired cars to take us anywhere we needed to go, being able to walk was heaven.
A short ways up the road was a sign for palm readings. It was on Anya's to do list, so we timidly entered the run down looking building. It reminded me of a basement, dark, dingy, and full of weird smells. We went up a flight or two of stairs and were greeted by a sari clad lady. We were clearly inside a home, as there was an older woman and two school age children staring at us from the kitchen. We took off our shoes as the woman ushered us into a small bedroom, where the palm reader was resting in a dilapidated twin bed. We sat down as he got up from the bed and he immediately went to work on Anya. He wrote down some numbers, looked at her palm, and talked a lot. Between dating a few non-native English speakers, living abroad for three years, and traveling a lot, I speak heavily accented English fairly well. But this guy was hard to understand. Therefore, I don't remember much of what he said. What I do remember though, is that I spent most of the hour watching a mouse run around the bedroom, and the guy didn't notice/care. And at the end of Anya's palm reading, he said he was too tired to do mine, but if we came back later, he'd read my palm. Much like the gem seller/guru in Jaipur, I was thankful he was not a mind reader.
We continued on our walk, and came to Jagdish Temple. It was closed for prayer, so we couldn't go inside. Zut alors. The outside was nice though. I had a few more pictures, that better show how intricate the decor is. But they are on my external hard drive, which is currently on loan chez mon amie. So this will have to do. For the truly curious, google image it, and you'll see some lovely shots. Unlike some other posts, I'm too lazy to steal other people's pictures today.

That evening, we arranged for a car to drive us to the Monsoon Palace. After nerve wracking drive up a steep hill full of hairpin turns, we arrived at the palace. It was beautiful and of course there were lots of monkeys.

There was also a pretty spectacular view of Udaipur below us. 

But in my opinion, the truly special part came as we passed through the "palace" (quotes because there wasn't much left of this palace, it smelled like a porta potty and there were some pictures educating visitors on the local wildlife, but otherwise it was empty) and saw the view from the other side. It was shortly before sunset and people were staking out the best spots to see it go down. 

I took some pictures, but my cheapy camera could never do this place justice. It was so spectacularly beautiful. For the second time since arriving in Udaipur, I had an "I've made it!" moment, which was followed by a "How did I get here? My life is so cool!" moment. 

 As I looked at the houses below the palace, I tried to imagine that being home. Whenever I've been away, I always get a warm fuzzy feeling as soon as the car pulls into the driveway at home. Do these people get that same feeling when they arrive at these houses? Do they ever get used to this amazing view? Were families sitting down to dinner in those houses right now? Were they eating delicious bread? Probably. Then I had a "Whoa, I'm 8000 miles from home!" moment. 

Cliche but must take shot

There's no reason why that was highlighted, other than the fact I was messing with the highlight feature, then realized I didn't know how to delete it, only change the color. So I figured I'd pick colors I liked and go with it. 

The sunset looked different every second. The colors changed. The shadows changed. I eventually stopped taking pictures. But that doesn't matter because this was something I will never forget, and in all likelihood I'll never experience again. I wanted to see it firsthand, not through the lens of a camera. Sitting next to us was a couple in their mid-sixties. They both had very expensive cameras, and spent the entire sunset messing with different settings on their cameras, taking a pictures or two, immediately looking at it, and repeating.  It makes me sad when people focus more on getting the perfect shot, rather than the event itself.  But, to each their own. And if that's how this couple wanted to spend their Indian vacation/holiday (they were either American or British, I can't remember), more power to them. 

After the sun was below the horizon, we took one last look, and returned to the car. We went back down the hairpin curvy road and into Udaipur. 

In addition to an ample supply of hot water and a resident dog the size of a pony...

...the hotel we stayed at also had a lovely rooftop restaurant. Immediately behind the hotel was a bluff and on top of the bluff was Udaipur City Palace. That night at the palace, there was a concert. So while we were eating dinner, we could hear the music from this concert. I don't really know anything about traditional Indian music, but this sure sounded like it. And for dinner I had a Rajasthani pizza, which was a bunch of vegetables baked into a chickpea flour crust. 'Twas yummy.

Dinner serenade. Good food. Good views. Monkeys. Hot water and WATER PRESSURE. A giant dog. Walkable places. Udaipur sure knew how to treat a lady.
More Udaipur later. 

Forward

I've been putting the wheels in motion. Ok, so it's more like I'm putting the key towards the ignition. The wheels aren't in motion yet, but soon. Hopefully.

A week and a half ago I got an interview with a company to be a "territory manager" aka salesperson/prospector. I can see myself doing a number of different jobs. Jobs involving prospecting and meeting quotas are not really among them. I tried to fire myself up to at least go to this interview. But in the end, I was the little engine that could not. 

But that interview got me thinking about what I really want to do. Naturally, in a perfect world I'd be Samantha Brown, or Andrew Zimmern, or even Rick Steves, though I'd eliminate the term "backdoor" from my books/tv specials. Also, in a perfect world I'd also be 15 lbs skinnier, wouldn't get headaches from eating chocolate or drinking wine, and the Cubs would be on their way to winning 100 games this season. 

Basically I'd like to be anyone that gets to travel around and get paid for it. But, who doesn't want that? Be realistic, Laura. So I started thinking of more practical jobs. And my mind went back to what I'd for a long time intended to eventually end up doing, but kind of put out of my mind due to the high cost of returning to school as well as the high levels of suck and unsatisfaction substitute teaching gives me. I'm of course talking about teaching. While I do find history, geography, current events, etc, interesting, the idea of teaching high school history isn't really overly appealing to me. There are two things that I would like to teach-French or little kids. The problem with teaching French is that I don't speak French. C'est vrai. Quel dommage. Plus, I still like little kids better than older kids of typical foreign language learning in America age. 

So right now I'm looking at elementary education masters programs. I'm also doing some research about reading specialist programs. I think the latter appeals more to me, because I prefer smaller groups and reading is fun. But, I'm having a more difficult time finding programs for that. I'm also looking at online programs, due to cost and not living near a college. I commuted to ISU for three semesters. Gas killed me then, and that was more than 5 years ago. Plus, online gives me some freedom to move wherever I want, for a time anyway. I'd have to do some clinicals and student teach again. But as long as I had a solid internet connection, I'd have a year or so to move away again...some place like...Korea. 

I miss it. A lot. I'm of course worried about having a first rate complete and total meltdown like I did last summer. So if anyone has suggestions as to how I can prevent that from happening again, I'm open to them. Or if anyone can get me some prozac, xanax, or something of that sort, I'm open to that as well.