Hot Vinyasa Yoga

Initially, (foolishly) I thought my pilates class on Monday was taxing. I went with a friend and the two of us were the only non-middle-aged-housewives in attendance. You would think that this would equate to an easier class than what we were used to at school. In Champaign, we would attend giant yogalates classes filled with 18-22 year old girls (plus a consistent, albeit confusing, sprinkling of burly football players). I never once got singled out for inaccurate plank posture, and after a hard day of reclining in lecture halls, I could lay my mat out in a back corner of the room and no one would notice if I slacked off in chair pose or failed to sink low enough during lunges.

On Monday, however, the instructor of our very small pilates class felt the need to challenge us "young girls." The housewives got to do poses on their knees or elbows to accommodate for 'old, aching joints', while the instructor would simultaneously offer specific modified versions meant to whip our two young bodies into tip-top-shape. Unwilling to shame myself by sinking to my elbows or knees like the silver-haired ladies on either side of me, I spent (what I thought was a) brutal hour balancing on shaking muscles and suffered for the next two days when I couldn't laugh or sneeze without severe pain in my aching abs. For two whole days, I thought this was as bad as it could get.

Then this morning, I tried Hot Vinyasa Yoga.

Monday's instructor conned my friend and I into returning for her class today by appealing to our desire for toned summer swimsuit bodies and a more well-rounded weekly workout regimen. I thought being singled out in beginning pilates on Monday was rough. False. Rough is an hour and a half of yoga in a tiny, dimly-lit room heated to a temperature of ONE HUNDRED DEGREES. Holding Warrior 1 for an inordinate amount of time is difficult; holding Warrior 1 while sweat pours off of you adds new depth to the concept 'tough workout.' And to add insult to injury? The old man directly behind me was freakishly flexible, shaming me with his ability to contort into the most advanced stages of Eagle Pose.

The worst part? I understand why people go back to these classes. Around the 25-minutes-in-mark (to this hour and a half class), you are attempting to keep rivulets of sweat from rolling into your eyes and silently swearing you will never try anything other than the elliptical ever again. However, the last 15 minutes, the instructor takes you through an amazingly relaxing cool-down. As she tells you to relax every muscle in your body from your big-toe to your tongue, reads inspirational Emerson quotes, and discusses the importance of bringing fluidity and grace to all parts of your life, you are lulled into forgetting the torturous, sweaty misery that was the last hour of your morning. You consider maybe, just maybe, returning next week.

The jury is still out on Hot Vinyasa Yoga. I suspect that when I wake up tomorrow morning, my muscles will be so sore, I'll be stuck in bed like an invalid all day. But if I obtain the toned obliques and inner-serenity that my cool, tattooed, hippie instructor promised, I might be back, drenched in sweat and regretting my attraction to yoga.

Glee

Eating disorders. A teen quadriplegic. Blatant homophobia.

When did the content of Glee - a musical comedy - turn so heavy?

I love Glee. And quite frankly, I have no problem with the show trying to make a point, or teach its audience a lesson. In fact, in Season 1, I thought that the show managed to do this seamlessly. Glee's ability to satirize the way society marginalizes people based on their gender, race and sexuality always proved one of my favorite things about the show. In Season 2, however, I feel like Glee lacks the very subtlety that once made its messages so poignant, and, to boot, the new heaviness is coming at the cost of the lighthearted plot threads so vital to a comedy like Glee. Let's look at some examples.

Take the episode where Mercedes needs to lose weight to remain a Cheerio. Sue could have issued an over-the-top speech to the cheerleaders demanding unrealistic, stick-thin figures and detailing the ingredients of her unsavory diet shake. This would have highlighted the issue (society's ridiculous standards on body image) and been funny. Most importantly, though, it would have taken up a mere few minutes of the episode, freeing time for scenes like the Puck-Quinn cupcake-baking food fight or the Will-Emma wedding-dress-shopping-trip that made the show so light and entertaining during Season 1.

Instead, the show delved too deep. Mercedes develops an eating disorder, passes out from hunger, receives an emotional pep-talk from Quinn and inspires the student-body through her rendition of 'Beautiful.' It takes so long to slog through all these issues that none of the fun scenes pop up (Rachel and Finn flirtation?). This heaviness, an uncharacteristic shift from the tone of Season 1, keeps popping up again and again this season: when Rachel visits paralyzed ex-football player Sean, when Finn struggles to accept the death of his father, when Kurt becomes hurt by his father's growing bond with Finn and in tonight's episode, when Burt kicks Finn out for his lack of respect for his gay son.

Writers of Glee: I get what you are trying to do. You have a hit show, you have everyone's attention, and so you are trying to make a statement. Or a whole lot of statements. However, you need to scale it back. Return to the golden formula that worked so well in Season 1. Let's have some more romantic tension between Finn and Rachel. Where were Emma and Sue tonight? Bring them back! Let's have Puck infusing the bake sale goods with his 'special' ingredient, Finn frantically trying to remember the mailman crashing into his windshield and Rachel strutting around with her usual diva-like swagger. Make the show fun again, and skip the soap-opera intensity.

If not - if you don't stop trying to make Glee into a musical quasi-drama - you might have considerably less fans to preach to. And I love the soundtrack far too much to give up on this show quite yet. Impress me, Glee.

Travel

Today two of my friends leave on an amazing, month-long, globe-trotting, post-grad trip. Before they plunge into the real-world workforce, they are hitting an enviable array of cities and countries: Tokyo, Bangkok, New Delhi, Dubai, Vienna, Munchen, Prague, and Frankfurt. My first, instinctive emotion: pure jealousy. My second emotion: a (very begrudging and obligatory) sense of excitement that my friends get to experience the world. My third emotion: A faint hope that they will bring me souvenirs. (Or at the very least, the phone number of a wealthy, travel-loving, potential husband for me that they come across in Dubai).

My two friends will be starting up jobs as soon as they return from their travels, and as they majored in Actuarial Sciences and Engineering, I know these jobs would not appeal to me, in spite of the travel they are funding. For four years, I avoided anything related to math and science like the plague, and only fulfilled my science requirements thanks to 'Natural Disasters' and 'Introduction to the Solar System.' However, as I read over Tom and Tim's itinerary, and realize that the current unpaid summer internship I have lined up would not fund a roundtrip flight to Japan (let alone adding flights to another six or so countries) I can't help but wonder: would enduring four years of science/math classes would be a worthwhile trade-off for seeing the Taj Mahal? (I loved my majors. Seriously, I actively enjoyed a 400-level class on Restoration Comedy, so you can't get more 'meant-to-be-an-English-major' than that. But the travel bug is biting, and hard (Peru, anyone?) - so the jury is still out).

At the very, very least, if I am stranded in the U.S. for the foreseeable future, I'm glad my friends have interesting and exciting travel plans. I plan to spend my time over the next four weeks stalking Facebook albums, obsessively pestering for email updates, and implying (with no great degree of subtlety) my love of postcards and souvenirs.

On that note: have a great trip boys! The wheels on your welcome-back-to-America party (menu: burgers, mac & cheese and fries) have already been put in motion!

Graduation Speaker

My graduation speaker yesterday was not that great. He started off strong - making a lot of well-appreciated jokes about how English majors enter college without a clue of what do with our lives, how no actual jobs stem from the English major, and how even though we all possess a secret, uncool love for Hemingway and Shakespeare, we are much more socially-adept than engineers and accounting majors. Unfortunately, however, after this intro, his speech devolved into a 20-minute montage of technological terms and political leanings, when a few concise words (Dream big. Follow your passions. Never give up) would have done the trick. In spite of this lack of relevance and eloquence in the graduation speech I heard, though, I managed to get something out of it. So here it is (and this one is for all of you that just moved back in with mom and dad, have no discernible plan for the future despite very responsibly applying for jobs this last semester, and are on the the verge of a huge post-grad melt-down):

My graduation speaker (let's call him Dan) graduated with a major in Rhetoric from the University of Illinois. Rhetoric is a fancy name for Creative Writing. Throughout undergrad, he bummed around. He switched his major three times, smoked a lot of hashish in Nepal during a study abroad experience (by his own admittance) and donned his cap and gown without a job or future plans. For FIVE years after he graduated, he continued to bum around. He bounced from jobs in the restaurant industry to one on salmon-boat to the construction industry to a gig on an oil rig. Finally, when he was 26, he had an idea for a company, and started it with three other people in a tiny office. The company was successful (so he added a few more ideas and a few more companies in there along the way). He eventually sold his company for an 'obscene' amount of money. My dad looked up this obscene amount on his iPhone in the middle of the ceremony: $750 MILLION.

Moral of the story? You can graduate with an English major and no job and still end up (nearly) a billionaire. It's probably hard now to keep things in perspective when your parents insist on calling you 'roomie' and a handful of your lucky friends are preparing for actual jobs and grad school to start...but stay grounded! We will all catch up and maybe (like Dan) end up with the millions required to fund the jet-setting, out-of-our-parents-houses post-grad lives we envisioned all along.

:)

The End/Beginning

Anyone that knows me knows that I hate change. I get upset and worried and nervous whenever any sort of change comes around - at the end of summer when I have to go back to school, at the end of school year when it is time to go home for the summer, before I left for Spain, before I came home from Spain, etc. When I was little, I would even sit on the fire hydrant outside of my house to wave goodbye (and then have a good long mope) after favorite relatives went home at the conclusion of a weekend visit. I don't think this proves to be entirely a bad trait. A huge part of the reason I hate changes so much is that I am always having such a great time with the people I am with in the current moment, and dislike leaving them. Having a great time isn't the worst way to go through life.

Coming home from Spain might have been the biggest transition so far. It was tough to switch gears from four months of jetsetting around Europe with friends to a summer of hostessing in the burbs. The transition out of college life will probably be tough too - people tell me that the drink specials just aren't as great in the real world, you don't get to sleep in until 10 minutes before your 11 am class, and a diet of mac and cheese and fries is frowned upon. However, this growing up thing is inevitable, so it's time to look on the upside. In the short run, I have a tour of the Goose Island Brewery, Season 3 of True Blood and two new roomies (hey, mom and dad) to look forward to. In the long run, we will have $$, bigger cities than Champaign to live in and explore, and new places to travel (I have close friends planning to be everywhere from Austin to Indonesia next year).

SO. Even though a change of this magnitude feels daunting this morning as I pack up my apartment, iron my graduation gown, and text goodbyes to friends, I know the next phase will be as great as all the previous ones: one I'll be nervous and sad to leave when the time comes.

HAPPY GRADUATION EVERYONE! Congrats and see you on the other (grown-up) side!