new paths

"Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you're kind, amazing things will happen." -conan o'brien

i never wanted anything so badly in my life -- to be an OMM teaching fellow. this is my passion and i just thought, if only i could say i am one of them -- i can say that i've made something of my life. i will have more opportunities to dedicate myself to OMM.
i wasn't strong enough, or smart enough.
but, amazing things happened. a few fellows actually contacted me and expressed how disappointed they were that i was no longer applying. like they actually wanted me to be a fellow! like they thought i could actually be one of them!
it feels amazing. it is an amazing thing to have happened. i can repeat the whole fucking year if they ask me to, and it will be okay. because i know that people have recognized my passion, people i admire and idolize.
so i'm not taking a conventional path. so my career in academia was never meant to be. so what. i will work hard. i will be kind. i will give the universe what little i have to give. it doesn't matter whether it's "enough" or not; what matters is that it is given.

catching the buffalo bug

this week has been the greatest week of my life. it was our 40 hr cranial course, and Western is the only osteopathic school in the nation to offer a full 40 hr course to medical students. i was in heaven. i never knew learning, anatomy, cranial nerves, autonomic systems, could be so incredibly exciting.

i really signed on to blog though, because i actually sold something i made. well, re-made. the flannel from my mom that i had altered...actually sold. i took pounds and pounds of clothing to buffalo exchange and it was one of the few items that i had managed to sell. i'm happy that my sewing is decent enough to pass as re-saleable clothing!

craving decent tailoring

when i went post-xmas shopping with my mom (the single time i stepped out of my parents house during break. i know, sosad), we wandered around the mall (big mistake; banana republic line = 1.5 hrs omgwtfbbq) and eventually into a club monaco. GOD what a fantastic store. if i won the lottery tomorrow that is definitely all i would wear.

i am excited!! my classmate found an old sewing machine in his family's garage. because nobody in his family sews, he is lending it to me!!

i think i am gonna get serious about the "no new clothes for the entire year of 2010" thing. my spending habits are so wasteful. my trunk is perpetually full of stuff that i need to bring to Buffalo Exchange (damn you Inland Empire for not having one!!!!!) and i only wear like 15% of what I own. PLUS I have a HUGE stock of fabric and bric-a-brac just laying around, doing nothing. well fuck that! i am gonna make my own shit!! here's my middle finger in your face, american consumerism!

two big projects as a treat for myself this weekend:

1. skirt

2. trying to retailor this plaid button up i got for $5 at wetseal. it fits really weird around the chest and shoulders (you get what you pay for!). this is supposedly the most difficult part to fit, so even if it doesn't work out, i'll have learned a lot about construction in the end.

YAAAAY <3

a little depressed, trying to look forward

there are a million different things i want to try to articulate about the state of my family and how it affects who we are as people and living beings, and how we all got into this godforsaken situation; so much so that when confronted with the opportunity, i am a loss at where to start.

for now, i guess, the best thing to do...is to ignore it all. a temporary solution to the hairiest of knots. there is simply no time right now.

for the new year, i would like to:

-find a place to train once or twice a week in either hip hop or jazz

-perform once

-not buy any new clothes

-watch more Community on NBC...omg so hilarious.

-tell people how amazing they are more often

-watch my health

-wean myself off of everything that is making my mind fuzzy

-let myself be vulnerable

-own a cat...or a guy

-read more poetry

-pass the boards.

osteopathy in the cranial field

yesterday was the uaao's annual trip to san diego to take a workshop from dr. viola frymann, one of sutherland's original students. man, it is amazing what a difference a year makes! last year much of the concepts were quite over my head. all i could grasp was the anatomy she was throwing out at us. but this year i actually felt motion under my hands during our palpation exercise. it was the bomb.

not to mention dr. frymann is like the sweetest, oldest little lady on the planet.

in regards to osteopathic manipulation, i know the road i want to take and i know how i want to practice. gotta learn cranial first, then start learning biodynamics. i love this mode of treatment for its wholeness, its intimacy, its strict adherence to anatomy. i don't love that people are constantly questioning its legitimacy.

the one thing that almost made me cry was dr. frymann's description on why we use cranial manipulation on children. by removing any somatic dysfunction, by encouraging the anatomy to move towards its most efficient form, you allow the body's own mechanisms to heal itself.

and in kids, you allow their mental and physical function to reach its true potential - critical during their development.

potential.

this idea makes me feel so, so sorry for my family in a complicated way. what if the potentials of my brother and myself had not come up against such barriers -- what if he had access to osteopathic treatment back when he was younger. we might be such different people now. we might even be healthy people. real people. not just bodies, simply going through the motions.

i'm in the process of majorly editing my closet. my style's been so schizophrenic in the past so it's been hard to do. plus i'm hugely sentimental about my clothing. ie: all these Tshirts i've accumulated from going to concerts, and doing dance shows...i just cannot throw them away! if maybe i had other tokens to remember them by, like dvd's -- but i don't.
the rest of it, it's a little easier to do. chuck all the junior clothing; time to grow up. i've been reconstructing a lot of my tops into clinic-appropriate work-wear.

and i LOVE love love my issues of Thread magazine. with the recession and all i hope the magazine is still around. if i had the money i would buy a lifetime subscription. it has the best articles on how to drape, tailor, you name it. i understand now why the shirtdress i posted at the birth of this blog didn't look the way i wanted it to look. i love that WWII era full skirted shirtdress thing, and i realized that when sizing down from an XXL men's button down, you can't cut the thing in one piece and then try to shape it all with darts. you have to make two separate pieces and then join them at the waist in order to get that fitted top and a full skirt. tailoring is difficult! but i love it. i would go into surgery if it weren't for the fact that i totally do not have the stereotypical surgeon personality. yeah, they're stereotypes for a reason.