Yoga in Hyde Park and a Run

Monday morning in Sydney.

Unemployed, bored, and all alone.

What's a girl to do?

1) Ashtanga home practice to maintain sanity
2) Email a billion people but not really expect anyone to email back (sad face)
3) Go to a local yoga studio to apply for a job, and get coldly turned away (sad, sad face)
4) Get called about an outbound call center job
5) Do some yoga in the park with the lululemming crowd

The deal is, Monday afternoons from 12:30 to 1:15, the lulus will meet at this epic fountain (called Archibald Fountain) in the middle of Hyde Park.

I waited 10 or so minutes and got my first lulu spotting, a bunch of girls wheeling a box of mats into the square.

(P.S.- This isn't a lulu hate-blog. I was actually decked head-to-toe in the stuff. It's good! Pricey, and we all look the same, but good!)

We quickly set up and got to it.

I forgot how a led class feels, especially an impromptu one. It brought back memories of when I! Me! ME! used to do this.

I miss it.

I miss the work of it--studying the bodies and thinking of words or movements that could help, studying the personalities and thinking of the words or movements that could make an impact. I couldn't help but sweep my eyes over the crowd and make those mental notes that come naturally when yoga is your job: "Tight shoulders and chest = hold plank, lower and chest stretch, Runner Man in the back = triangle, and so on, and so on."

I forced my eyes away and pulled myself back into my breath. Which was weird because I couldn't hear a thing!

In Ashtanga, we're all about listening and breathing and counting. When you're outside, you can barely hear your teacher over the cars, birds, tourists.

It's easy to be distracted, especially when someone is proposing in the sky!

Now, I know this is a really bad picture, and yes, that's someone's foot, but the guy was in the process of writing "Marry Me Erica".

C'mon, that's pretty awesome. :)

After class, I went home to eat toast and yogurt.

Because I'm unemployed and poor.

And being SO bored and unemployed and poor, I went for a run.

Shoes. Check!

Garmin. Check!

Sleeves that Jen-Jen bought me for my birthday. CHECK!

Life-sized chess in the park. CHECK!

And MATE! (har-har, oh I'm so witty)

Finally, Starbucks iced latte with soy on the way home because I suck at running.

My stats:
2.55 miles
29:18 minutes
11:29 min/mile average

I was almost thankful for all the people I had to dodge because they slowed me down. I'm so out of running shape! Anyway, I'm thinking of signing up for a race while I'm here, either to run it or volunteer in it. It might be a fun way to make some new friends!

Yoga Burnout?

I woke up yesterday and I didn't want to do yoga.

For me, that is weird.

WEIRD. 

I almost always want to do yoga--I love it as much as I love eating.

More and more often, I'm second guessing what I'm doing with my life. There is no job security with teaching yoga, no benefits, no ladders to climb or advance. You work to be a better and better teacher, but you don't really know if you're doing "life" right.

Luckily, I came downstairs and I saw this:

So I felt better about my life.

Yoga is really the only job that lets me spend tons of time with her, with my running, with my yoga, with all the people I love and all the activities I can't bear to live without.

And it gives me tons of time to do my second favourite thing in the whole wide world...

Eat:

Tonight, we went to one of my favorite vegetarian restaurants. 

Everything is vegetarian, even the sushi!

It's Buddhist vegetarian, which means everything is garlic and onion-free.

I don't get it either, so don't ask me.

After dinner, we went to Yogen Fruz, the classic "mall-frozen-yogurt-place".  I found one north of the city that's eat-in, so we had to visit, especially with the warm days of summer nearly behind us.

Bad news, they were closing when we walked in.

Good news, Randy, the nicest owner ever, said he'd make us froyo anyway.

FROYO FTW!

Bad news, he ran out of mochi balls.

This is Steven's sad face. Zero mochi balls.

My "no-mochi-ball" face was more like "falling-to-my-knees-screaming-WHYYY-DO-YOU-HATE-ME-WORLD" face.

Dramatic? ME? Nevah.

Yogen Fruz has superior yogurt. Hands down.

Real fruit.

No ice chunks.

And it doesn't melt into pools of sweetened water.

Now if only we had mochi balls.

Randy, make the mochi balls happen.