l'enfer, c'est les autres

"That's the whole trouble. You can't ever find a place that's nice and peaceful, because there isn't any. You may think there is, but once you get there, when you're not looking, somebody'll sneak up and write 'Fuck you' right under your nose."

- J. D. Salinger

my kind of exercise

“What yoga teachers do and what chefs do is not so different,” [yoga teacher David Romanelli] said. “We take everyday actions like moving and eating, and slow you down so you can appreciate them.” Achieving stillness and peace amid the distractions of life, he said, has always been the higher goal of yoga.

Back at the Exhale studio, wandering among the supple bodies of his acolytes, Mr. Romanelli talked about his recent embrace of the Slow Food movement and his dreams of returning American yogis to what he describes as the happy, prelapsarian state of 1995. “Remember before you had your first e-mail address or your first cellphone,” he said. “Don’t you think that your food tasted better back then?”

- "When Chocolate and Chakras Collide" (NYTimes)

In Thailand, there were all these advertisements for "purification" retreats in the mountains, where essentially you go up a mountain, live in total seclusion in this Camp of Peace, and do nothing but yoga and eat organic, fresh food.

Though Duke's campus is pretty mountain-less, I enrolled this semester in a yoga course (which I immediately go from to an African Tech Dance class -- a surprisingly exhausting Tues/Thurs schedule). My new goal is to build up enough strength and endurance so that I don't completely embarrass myself when I go to one of these "Yoga for Foodies" classes. Because I am so going to one at some point in my life.

the beginning of the beginning

On the last day of classes last semester, a fellow senior made the astute observation that second semester was the beginning of every single senior-attended event being graced by That Person who will remind us that, "Guuuuuuys, this is the last time we'll ever _________."

Not to be That Person or anything, but it hit me today--my last bid day--that I can barely remember what it was like to be a freshman, when everything was a First instead of a Last. I vaguely remember feeling lost as a freshman from not knowing any of the girls around me, who were all of a sudden "my sisters." I remember seeing how close everyone else in the sorority was with each other. I remember thinking how much older everyone else looked/thought/acted.

Sorority recruitment is always an event that I love and hate and hate loving and love hating; but when it comes down to it, recruitment is really 50% for the freshmen and 50% for the upperclassmen, in my opinion. For those 2 weeks I may feel like I attend an all-women's college, but--given how catty and petty women can be--it could be worse. A fellow Alpha Phi, during a long day last weekend, commented on how she had only received texts from approximately two people that entire day, which to her seemed strange... until she realized that basically all her friends had been locked into the same room with her for the past 12 hours.

All of it has made me realize that, though I've never considered myself a College Sorority Girl, I will always talk about how I was in a sorority in college, regardless of the stigma it might initially attach to me.

je veux ton amour

My favorite from Google's "Search On" campaign.

marco island: not the jersey shore