Things They Don't Teach in School

My grandmother always wore her house dress and cooking apron when she took me blackberry picking. We would burst through the porch door and head toward the heavily wooded forest behind her cottage, at the edge of which stood thickly tangled wild blackberry bushes. My grandmother would watch me pick one berry at a time and place it in my small container. When she wasn't looking, I would toss a blackberry into my mouth instead of in the Tupperware, melting it's juicy goodness on my tongue and mashing the bitty seeds between my baby teeth.

One day, I ventured past the blackberry bush and into the wooded forest, just beyond her line of sight. When I came back, I gripped a deer antler with two prongs in my fist. I asked her why it was on the ground instead of on the deer.

"Because the deer have an itchy velvet on their antlers. Sometimes it gets so bad that they rub up against the trees to make it feel better. All the scratching makes the antler fall out." Then she took my hand and showed me a bark-worn spot on a neighboring tree where a deer had come to scratch.

I don't know how she knew that.

Nineteen years later, I found a similar bark-worn spot on a tree while leading a group from Outdoor Bound on a hike through Fahenstock State Park in Upstate New York. To my own surprise, I easily recounted the plight of the deer and their itchy antlers. I was so shocked that I had remembered this tidbit that I went home that night and looked it up on the internet to make sure it was true.

Two days after that, I received an email from a girl that had come on the hike with us. She loved the story of the deer so much and recounted to me how her brother, a geologist, always told her fascinating stories of nature like the one about the deer. He had passed away recently and my story reminded her of his love for the outdoors.

Ryan Gosling and Some INSPIRATION

I'm a cheapskate. Or at least I've been a cheapskate recently. I'm saving money. So that I can go fly round the world and the like. And wear a heavy backpack. And make out with Ryan Gosling look alikes. Or perhaps just Ryan Gosling.

Thanks, babe. After my run today, I'm going to need them. Wink.

So every time I'd get out to Central Park for a few miles, I always felt like I was running on boards. Like my legs weighed 800 million pounds. I mean, I've got a little junk, but it was depressing how slow I ran and how much I hurt after each run. I sort of just gave it up and started doing a lot more weightlifting.

Until Sunday, when I popped on over to JackRabbit Sports on the Upper West Side and came home with a pair of THESE BAD BOYS:

I couldn't even stop to take a picture of them. I was running too fast. I was actually running like Wile E. Coyote does. Where his feet just spin in circles and his body never moves. So fast. Ryan Gosling agrees.

I know Ryan. Now please stop interrupting me when I'm trying to tell these nice people about my day. I'll get to you later.

Where were we? No, before Ryan Gosling.

But as I was running a nice speedy little five-miler, I started remembering the feeling of why I loved to run in the first place. I've talked about it on here, but suffice it to say, my running doldrums the past few months was quite nicely quashed with a new pair of cushy shoes. The minimalist inside of me felt very repressed when I purchased them, but I made sure that the nice lady at Jack Rabbit took my old shoes and promptly turned them into high-school track material. Immediately. In the back of the store.

My workouts have been feeling better, partly because I'm trying to go a little vegan this week and next week (hopefully a post on that tomorrow) and I'm not upchucking all of the dairy and sugar that I've been ingesting since Thanksgiving. If you don't want to make out with me anymore that's okay. I know someone who still will...

I know, my hair is a little gangy. I need to get it conditioned. Whatever, Ryan doesn't care. Love you too, babe.

The OTHER awesome piece of news is that I've just signed up for the 30 Day Reinvention Project. It's a free series of emails, lectures, journal prompts and the like to get yourself to start thinking about the changes you'd like to make in your life. You can still sign up (until tomorrow morning I think) and work with the awesome Facebook group of people who want to make positive changes in their lives.

Okay, okay, I'm sorry, I'm getting a little New Age-y on you. And also, part of me is like "Lauren?! What the heck?! You already know that you want to move to India and be a teacher and take petite Lauren's into the backcountry to teach them how to make camps and fires and the like." I know. I said that to myself just today.

But there's a whole lot of other good that can come from working with a big group of people who are on the same page as you. A lot of my friends are super satisfied with their lives at the moment. They have jobs that they like and they have a great core group a friends and nice apartments that no longer contain Ikea furniture. I have some of that, but I also don't feel this giddiness when I wake up in the morning. I don't feel like I am doing what it is that I am fully capable of doing. And so it's always nice to work with someone (or a whole group of people) who are similarly feeling excited about making really big changes. And if you've been reading here for a while, I'm the kind of girl who feels that I am only fulfilled when there is a certain degree of turbulence in my life.

So if there is any part of your life that feels like you could make it better, sign up. It's a few emails a few times a week, so what's the worst that could happen?

Okay, sorry, I really have to go. Ryan is getting cranky, and I need a foot massage. Happy Monday!

What are some changes you're looking to make in your life? I'm trying to eat healthy and whole, go to bed at a reasonable hour, manage my To Do list without freaking out, and work out in the morning instead of at night.

Oh, Finally. Resolutions!

Ho ho! It's the Thursday after New Year's! And I'm finally getting around to making up resolutions. This is because I am Type A-Minus. And I am only anal about socially conforming WHEN I AM READY.

Making resolutions is difficult for me, particularly this year, because I'm already on the road to a large amount of change in my life, and a whole lot of travel and a lack of routine from week to week. In March, I'll be leaving New York to go travel again, this time for two months in India, and will be spending the summer out west teaching girls how to camp and basically be awesome, confident little ladies. The best part is that I get to teach a two week photojournalism program, make up some awesome journal prompts and writing exercises, and watch my girls grow and learn in the wild.

Man, why didn't become a teacher sooner?

But resolutions are ridiculous to make if we don't follow through on them. I think resolutions are a great intention, but if the barriers to entry are too difficult, then you're setting yourself up to fail.

Goals, resolutions, intentions, whatever you want to call them, have to be all that jazz in the SMART acronym (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Time-Sensitive). But they also actually have to be something you want to do. I wanted to resolve to meditate 5 minutes a day. But then I realized that I don't want to meditate for 5 minutes a day because I've tried it before and by the time I'm done I don't feel like I've done anything. Meditation works for some people. It doesn't work for me, possibly because my mind right now isn't busy enough to warrant it. It'd be a waste of time to try to force myself to make time for it.

So, last year I made some lofty goals, this year I'm gunna relax a bit. Cuz I'm already giving up all my fancy corporate benefits, a nice apartment, and two perfectly amazing roommates to live in a tent for the better part of the year. I gotta go easy on myself.

Fitness

1. Sweat once a day. Thanks, Lululemon! You guys are so smart! I can't really say "go to the gym" once a day, because there are no gyms in the backcountry of Montana. Unless you count JUMPING OVER LOGS TO RUN FROM BEARS. But I can sweat no matter where I am, whether it's yoga, or running, or shoving an ice axe into a glacier over and over again. No, sweating from unbearable heat in Delhi doesn't count (though I may have to revisit this, come May).

2. Hold my handstand. UGH! Lauren! This was on the list LAST year! I blame it on the fact that my gym stopped offering my favorite Ashtanga yoga and now I am a yoga FAIL for all time. Literally, I used to be in such good yoga shape that I would run six miles and then go to 90 minutes of Ashtanga and feel like I had no sweat left in my body at the end of it all. But seriously, my handstand is deep inside me somewhere.

3. Break 1:50 in the half-marathon. Dear marathoning, you are hard. Also, you take a lot of time in one place to train for you. I am looking forward to training for a slightly shorter distance, and trying to get really, really fast for it. My boss thinks I'm a wimp and that I will crap out because it's cold. I'll show him.

4. Repeat after me: Dessert once a day. Kryptonite. I'm powerless in the face of sugar.

5. Do a plank a day. Excuse me while I go do my plank right now.

Personal

1. Be in weekly contact with my immediate family. Monthly contact with my extended family. Relationships are going to be huge this year. Everyone will always take their family for granted. I probably still will but hopefully not as much.

2. Get serious in the friend KEEPING department. I'm REALLY good at making friends. Like, real good. Traveling for 3 months alone abroad will be the fastest education in cross-cultural socialization that you could ever have. But I'm bad at keeping them. One thing I am always feeling a little lost about is why I don't have many close friends in New York. I'm nice, I go out of my comfort zone, but I'm never like "OHMIGOD I NEED TO CALL XYZ TO VENT ABOUT THIS RIGHT NOW." I have some amazing roommates and a few buds here and there, but I always feel like my M.O. is more individual. Which some may seem to want to say "Oh, you're just independent" but I really think it's more like "You don't want people seeing all the bad things about you so you never let anyone in."

3. Write weekly on this blog. I love to blog, but I haven't been great at creating a community. I know that I'm a good writer, but I'd suspect my inconsistency and lack of pictures has something to do with it maintaining the level that it currently maintains. What I want it to turn into is not really anything huge, but what I can do is at least have some regular comments on here. That would be lovely. I mean, look at Miss Minimalist. She writes once a week AND is taking a two month sabbatical. Girl knows how to run a website, even if she only has her laptop and four other things to her name.

4. Learn Hindi. If I do get called in for an oral interview with the Foreign Service, I'm going to need some assistance from those extra critical language points.

Professional

1. Get accepted at The Island School. I submitted my application for a teaching fellow position yesterday, and I don't think I've wanted something so badly since I applied for the U.S. Foreign Service. Except this time, I actually have a shot. I am so excited about this school's curriculum that I actually have read every single word on their website. It's slightly embarrassing.

2. Write for a website on a weekly basis. I don't really even care if I get paid. Hey, reader, can I write on your website?

3. Have enough teaching experience by the end of the year to be accepted to teach at a private school during 2013-2014. Wow, that was long.

4. Become a NOLS instructor. Okay, that one is a stretch. But how effing cool would it be?!

Alright, YOUR TURN. What are your resolutions? Or how about just one?

Type A-Minus

Nope, still haven't written my resolutions. BUT I'VE THOUGHT ABOUT THEM. That counts.

I was thinking today (I've been doing a lot of that it seems), as I trundled home from the gym, burrowed under multiple articles of wicking fabrics and synthetic top layers (a bit of premature prep for India, compliments of Mother Nature), I realized that I'm the kind of person that I'd like to call Type A-Minus.

What is Type A-Minus?

I'm, like, almost Type A. But with a bigger interest in Netflix and a rather large disinterest in properly learning how to use Excel on my Mac. Command functions on a Mac require pressing like 17 different keys and I don't have that many fingers. Also, I'm the girl that goes without a gym locker because I frequently forget the combination and have to have the lock cut (This is an example of "Type A-minus"). So TWO sets of Excel key commands is just beyond my grasp, and besides I NEED that extra brain space dedicated to retaining information about the Housewives of New Jersey.

Sorry, what am I talking about?

Right.

Type A-minus is the kind of person who is anal-ish and overachieving-ish, but can't be bothered to created detailed spreadsheets of my monthly expenses or very organized To Do lists. It's partly because I don't particularly care to be that organized because I'm organized enough such that I can keep it together and even remember to get my teeth cleaned every six...uh...nine months. Here's how I (sorta) do it:

Expenses

Okay, let's take expenses. There was a time (when I had just moved to Manhattan and I ate Ramen raw for breakfast because I did not have a microwave and my stove had mice living in it. Don't ask.) when I created a very fancy spreadsheet template to track literally every damn thing I spent money on. It was good for a while, but then I started doing things like having a social life, and running, and living in an apartment that had rodent-free appliances. So my free time went down as did the amount I cared about tracking my finances. However, I remained conscious of my spending because I still wasn't raking it in. Instead, I taught myself to play this mental game where I counted how many times I've pulled out the credit card that month, then subtract how much was in my paycheck. Totally unscientific and practically immeasurable. But then it just worked and I'm not in debt and I saved a crapload of money to go trek around in India on crampons. So take that, Excel.

Every now and then, I go on a big spending splurge and travel a ton or take a ton of classes and then I go back to EXTREME TYPE A and track my spending again. But then I get a handle on it and go back to Mental Accounting. And thus is the Type A-Minus' guide to financial responsibility.

Food and Fitness

Same story. Once, last year, I gave up everything except kale and its closely related friends and frenemies. And I was working out everyday and being SO TYPE A and WINNING THE WAR AGAINST CELLULITE. I tracked calories (which was brutal and so damn annoying). But then I realized I liked chocolate and also, my mom sent me brownies for Valentine's day. So I kinda relaxed a bit until I found noticeable jiggle in the thigh area (more likely the jiggle was always there, but I only noticed it because it was June and I started wearing shorts again). Thankfully, I've switched out of food and beverage and into something that takes too many words to explain (think planning and crisis and other corporate-y things) and now I just do some mental math based on breakfast calories plus lunch calories plus chocolates nibbled from the guy down the hall's desk and adjust my workout accordingly.

So, Type A-Minus fitness is a series of peaks and valleys where some days I eat egg whites for breakfast and some day I eat brownies. But I still weigh the same so until the metabolism wears off for good, I'll stick to the A-Minus Fitness Plan (aaaaand we have a title for my first book. Insert copyright sign RIGHT NOW.)

**(Also, I have as of late been microwaving egg whites in a mug for breakfast. So now, I KNOW that people who tell me they have no time to make breakfast are PHONIES. IT ONLY TAKES TWO MINUTES TO KICK OFF YOUR DAY RIGHT, PEOPLE!!)**

To Do List

This is one that I'm a little embarrassed about because I do really feel much better when I have a very organized To Do list planned out in my fancy Moleskine notebook. It stands to re-whelm me when I am in fact very, very overwhelmed. There was one time when I quit my job, moved out of my apartment of 3 years, traveled through SE Asia for three months, and decided to do all of this within a four week time span. So at that time? A To Do list was a good idea. But sometimes, when I have a running To Do list, I always feel that I should be, well, DOing something. It's satisfying, striking a neat pen line through a task. But I don't ever write "Finish reading 'An Object of Beauty'" or "Try new recipe out of Giada cookbook". Because that is ridiculous and will make my To Do list long and overwhelming. Which is the opposite of what it is intended to do.

So sometimes, when I feel like the actual living of my life is getting bulldozed by my Moleskine notebook, I forgo a To Do list the cycle repeats itself and I feel like quitting my job to go travel in India or something (oh, wait...).

What kind of personality type are you? Also, if you're not Type-A, what are you? I've never heard of "Type-B" although I imagine it exists.

What I've Learned This Year

Sometimes, staying in one damn place isn't being stuck but letting all the chips settle before the next adventure.


Everyone should really have a mentor. Or five.

Spending a few minutes (hours?) in your boss' office talking about your day, his thoughts on the election, and the Reconstruction Period of American history can be more productive and important than working through your lunch on a report about Japanese technology bylaws. That's called "camaraderie."

I can eat lettuce or licorice and I will always be the same weight.

My family is more important to me than I like to admit sometimes.

Reading is a perfectly acceptable activity. And documentary watching definitely counts as being productive.

I like to run. Hard. And fast. But marathons are a real commitment. And my legs hurt after.

Even though I get boyfriend-lust, flying across the world to spend forty days without access to phone or internet (or showers) would probably put a damper on a relationship.

I don't have to make all of the changes in my life at the same time. Small changes over a long period of time work just as well, and I get to keep my sanity.

Just because someone is older than you, doesn't mean they have it all figured out. Sometimes 35 year olds need 26 year old wisdom, too.

It is possible to find the best roommates ever from Craigslist.

The internet makes the world a very, very small place.

Changing careers can be frightening and soul crushing and worrisome, but that the alternative is NOT making that change. And I think that's worse.

Maybe living in Manhattan isn't all that bad.

What have you learned this year?

Getting My Ass In Shape to Climb A Mountain

HIMALAYAN MOUNTAINS, WHY ARE YOU SO HIGH?!

So there was this one time that I stopped working out basically altogether and instead ate brownies for three meals a day. That time in my life was called job-switching and pre-Thanksgiving and I'd like to announce you all that it is over. Except I still might eat brownies for breakfast.

HOWEVER. I have been a rockstar at the gym. I think something about knowing that my little gym membership is up in less than a month is getting my ass there more and more. Oh, also the fact that I have to hike like 7 million miles in the Himalayas in April. At 18,000 feet. If that doesn't scare you into six-pack abs...

I will look way more badass than this. Yea, I didn't think it was possible either.

So I've made a short-term goal to break 1:50 in a half-marathon. It's not an enormous goal, but it's one that will take some effort and concentration. Truth? I've never actually trained to race a half-marathon. I don't think I've ever trained to RACE a race except when I was trying to get under 4 hours in 2009 (I did and then I promised myself that was my last marathon ever...and then I did 3 more).

In the effort to not only attempt to stay alive while hauling 50 pounds on my back in the Himalayas, but also get RILLL FAST (not to be confused with "RILLL SWOLE") in a half-marathon, this is what my week last in workouts looked like (starting last Wednesday):

WEDNESDAY: 5 miles at tempo just over 40 minutes (fail, I didn't really do a great job tracking that one)

THURSDAY: Ate many, many Christmas cookies at holiday Christmas party (aka GYM FAIL)

FRIDAY: 5 miles at 9:00 min/mile pace, 1 hour of power yoga

SATURDAY: home yoga (basically lots of crow pose. GAH! CROW POSE! YOU RUIN ME!), 3 miles easy pants in the park

SUNDAY: Do not leave house, instead stay warm and drink lots of tea and bake Christmas cookies. Also known as "Rest".

MONDAY: Body sculpt with Constance, 5 miles at 9:00 min/miles

TUESDAY: 3 miles easy, tons of squats, crunches, booty lifts

WEDNESDAY: 30 minute temp run (8:00 min/mile pace, 3.75 miles), 45 minutes of the Titan Method (similar to a ballet or Physique 57 class)

So all in all, not too shabby. This weekend I'm going to try to get a long trail run in on Christmas Eve at Fleet Feet in Rochester (and maybe I can connive my brother into doing 3 or 4 with me) and then probably hit up some power yoga at Breathe.

Then I will dissolve into a pile of pillows with some good books and Christmas cookies.

How have your workouts been this week? Holiday time is tough, so does anyone have some awesome quick workouts that they love to do?

On Being in the Arena

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

--from Teddy Roosevelt's "Citizenship in the Republic" speech at the Sorbonne in France, April 23, 1910

***

Sometimes it's easy for us to get bogged down by the negativity in our lives. We always want to do more, to do better, to be the best of ourself that we can be. We want to schedule our lives to be of the utmost productivity. Or at least more productive than the girl in the next cubicle.

Don't listen to the critics. Don't get jealous of the girl down the hall who has it waaay more together than you do (disclosure: she's doesn't). Do it your way. Because you're the one in the arena. You're the one that is making the mistakes, learning, growing, failing, overcoming. It's easy to point fingers when looking in from the outside. But really, it's your arena, not theirs.

I have a lot of visions. For myself, my career, my personal life. For this blog and my writing. And I get frustrated a lot. I get frustrated with how slowly it all seems to take. How I never seem to get there when I want to be there. Hell, after I quit my job and took off to Asia for three months, I thought I would never, ever, ever again be tethered to a desk. And 18 months after I got back, I'm working a corporate lifestyle to finance my next adventure.

But you know what? It's okay. I'll get there. And sometimes, getting there doesn't mean making a string of rash decisions to get my ass out the door. For me, who has no problem making rash decisions, sometimes it means pulling hard on the reins and staying put for a while. To find out what it really feels like to be in the arena. To know what mistakes look and feel like.

What does your arena look like? Mine currently looks like a stack of unwrapped Christmas presents and unbaked cookies.