i don't know what i'm doing with myself lately. i think the lack of committments in my life right now is screwing me up! i'm sleeping in, taking walks, sitting outside, meeting friends for lunch, meeting friends for dinner... you get the picture. and i haven't picked up the cello in weeks! the lack of structure allows me to create my own schedule... and this isn't such a good thing. i have good intentions when i wake up- or actually when i go to bed the night before- and then i always end up pushing the little work i have off until the next day. mabye this isn't so bad. come september, when i start school again i'll be insanely busy. so i guess a few months off isn't terrible. today i actually got some work done. i submitted some teacher evaluations to the boss. i have mixed feelings about an evaluation where the numbers 1-4 are the primary way to rate a teacher's performance. i often find myself circling two numbers because i can't decide on one. and then i want to justify everything i circled because the context is so lost when the only thing to describe the situation is a number.

i've also been reading some papers for an independent study i'm doing in math ed. the main focus is what's been going on in the recent decade to improve math education in our country. there are so many factors and views on the topic. the image we all had growing up of a teacher- standing in front of a classroom lecturing (and "pouring" her wealth of knowledge on the information-hungry students) is so wrong. very few elementary/ high school students learn well that way. and those of them that do are successful. but the majority of students end up hating math. we, as a society, love to figure things out. we love puzzles, we love mystery and logic. well, that's math--it's really not about the numbers. when i tell people what i do i'm often met with the response "i always hated math" or "i could never do math". it's so sad. ... well, enough about that.


so like i said, i slept in. but i did my full practice later this morning. i'm learning a lot about breath in my practice from my teacher. i worked on some of what i learned and the practice had an entirely different feel. that alone is making my it harder... forget about learning new poses! and i'm also learning to backbend (drop-back and stand-up) all over again! i wasn't grounding my heels and when i do it's so much harder but less stressful on my lower back, which i guess is the point. who cares if you can drop-back/ stand-up if your alignment is all off! i'm also finally jumping back. usually my toes touch the floor on the way back- especially near the end of practice, but there have been a couple of times they didn't. i'm hoping that couple turns into more soon. and the straight- leg jump through is close. so close.