Conundrum Solved

I have the best friends. Had a long talk with one of them last night about the whole probation/fear/body thing. I love how he isn't afraid to just be direct and honest even though sometimes its tough to hear. Anyway, I wanna work through it and all. Which I think I knew I would, I just wanted time to feel bad about it for a while first. I swear though, I have the best friends. This one in particular is really good at cutting through equivocations and BS (even when I don't yet know that's what I'm doing) and also at reminding me to be grateful. Thanks, Shaun.

Winter in Hawaii

Winter is here. It was kinda amusing the first few little snows, but this snow is neither little nor amusing. Everything is basically functional and all (no snow days!) but just slower than usual. The snow is up to about my midcalf. Driving in it is not as scary as I thought it would be, if you just go really slow. I have snow tires and things like that too. There's plows all around, at all hours. It's an irritating sound when they go by because of the metal-on-pavement scrape and the loud engines, but its kind of a comforting sound too, knowing that things are being taken care of and I could probably get out if I needed to. The scenery is monochromatic, and not in a calming way; in a boring, craving color kind of way. So, while first kinda fun, winter is no longer amusing. And I still have about 4 months of it left. Why isn't the Option Institute in Hawaii?

Ultimatum

I've been given something of a deadline in my training. If I am not through with an issue by February I will be put on probation. Probation means, you have one month to get through something and no class time will be spent on it, its just all you. If you aren't done with it in that one month, you are out of the program. So now I am working on whether its worth pushing myself on this one issue. Its big for me. Its being comfortable with having attention focused on my body. That's really scary for me, but necessary in the playroom with autistic kids, as we want to be the most exciting thing in the room. A child facilitator's body is her most important tool and she has to be completely comfortable with it and with using it in any way. I'm not. And I don't know if I want to be. I know that I can be, if I want it. I'm kinda stuck on this, because its so big for me. I don't know if I want the training bad enough to work through this scary issue.

November

Wow, I missed all of November...
I'm a pretty busy person these days. I work 8:30 to 5:30 doing training and administrative services stuff (the latter being how I pay off my tuition for the former, in a kind of work/study arrangement), then each week that we have a program at the Institute I work on Sunday from 5 to 9 in the parking lot greeting participants as they arrive and telling them where their rooms are. Every week night that we have a program I close the kitchen too, which is from 7 to about 9 or 10 depending on the size of the program. My class is done with the official class-wide pre-assigned homework papers and essays, but we still get individual homework from class and teachers and have two sheets to fill out every week asking questions about things we've observed. Then I get acupuncture pretty much every Saturday afternoon, and my acupuncturist is also the person I'm closest to here so we then hang out til the wee hours of Sunday morning generally. Actually, Fritz and I hang out so much that if one of us says "we did such and such" everyone just assumes the "we" bit is me and him (no, matchmakers, there is no romance there: he has a girlfriend in England and we are simply close and loving friends). I generally spend some time every weekend with another friend Shaun. He's teaching me guitar and I give him reiki and we have the most bizarre intellectual/philosophical talks about things like how the concept of a concept is impossible to define because you have to use concepts to do so. Somewhat pointless but entertaining, and once in a while we come with something actually useful. I do things with Susan and Paula and Holly too. Fritz and Shaun work in the kitchen and Holly, Susan, and Paula are in my training program. Actually, Susan recently graduated it, Paula is about to, and Holly is in my class. Then there's going to the laundromat, shopping, all the driving you have to do around here to get anywhere, trying to get decent amounts of sleep, making sure I have time to just sit around and read or whatever, getting my personal homework done.... So yeah. Business. To all of you I don't keep in great contact with, it's not because I don't love you! It's just that I'm busy making myself the best me I can be, as a tribute and a help to you and all that you mean to me, because I do love you.