balance in the new.

the past week and a half has been a struggle to maintain a sense of calm and steadiness, but i think i am finally beginning to re-find some balance and peace in all of the change that has occurred. so hopefully i can get back into regular blogging again. work has been an adjustment, but i am getting used to the busy days, and am actually enjoying it. the day flies by and it's friday before you know it. and have a mentioned how CUTE those kids are?

and i finally got back to yoga class this week! hooray!!! my 3 week hiatus (i just had to look up the word hiatus in the dictionary b/c i was pretty sure it sounded right in this sentence, but i was worried it was actually a rare disease from india or something like that, and people would start thinking me of the girl who can't spell AND the girl who doesn't know what words mean and uses them anyway) had taken a real toll on my body. i couldn't sit straight during music class and my back and legs would get tired within a few minutes of sitting indian style and my neck was all jammed up and all in all, my entire body--inside and out--felt like the scrunched up snake inside one of those toy cans where when you take off the lid, the scruched up snake comes all unscrunched and flies out of the can like water rushing through a broken dam. i was the scrunched up snake. yoga is the giant hand that took the lid off the can. i can't believe that i used to live a life that was void of yoga. and void of amelia, my amazing yoga instructor. (sigh of happiness.) it's a beautiful thing to find something that makes life so much better.

i'm having a super wonderful weekend. last night after work, i biked through the snow up to the downtown shopping area of ilsan (we woke up friday morning to huge snowflakes quietly falling from the sky and covering the ground, trees, roofs with a soft and beautiful layer of white. the moment i saw it, i burst out of my groggy just-woken-up-state and clapped my hands together and said "ooooohhhh! it's so PRETTY!" and just for fun, i asked myself if i like winter or summer better and to my utter surprise, i exclaimed without hesitation, "WINTER!!!" who knew.) i was on a mission to find new yoga/running/incredibly comfy pants and was feeling pesimistic after telling lucy, our korean teacher, my shopping plan at work and having her look me up and down and say "you cannot find your size here. maybe you can find a unisex shop." a unisex shop? please. the men here are just as small as the women. if i can't find women's clothes, i'm not buying clothes that don't fit AND aren't pretty. after trying 5 different sports stores and running out of each dressing room in despair and frustration, i realized i had had enough. korean tiny-ness was not going to get me down. so after my pilates class and a wonderful conversation with amelia about the importance of meditating everyday and a wonderful order of juk (my new favorite korean dish--a steaming bowl of rice porridge with vegetables and little flakes of seaweed--oh so delicious and oh so easy on my tummy) to go, i headed home with heated enthusiasm and spent the next 4 1/2 hours shopping online and ordering everything from pjs to yoga pants to tanktops from american clothing stores where i am a size medium, not extra large. take THAT korea! i don't need your unisex shops or your disapproving stares. i happen to like the way i look.

and today, i woke up and went for a run (lake park is really pretty lately--it's frozen over and all the trees are lined with snow), cleaned, and had my first stress-free grocery shopping experience in the 5 months (is it 5 months already?) i've been here. i found everything i needed, didn't freak out that the organic products are 3 times as expensive as they are in america, and fit everything in my backpack to make for a smooth bike ride home. and i have spent the night enjoying my clean apartment, enjoying another order of juk, and enjoying the book i'm reading--eat pray love by elizabeth gilbert. it's the authors story of how she traveled to italy, india, and indonesia for a year to search for God in the pleasure of italian food in Rome, the spiritual devotion at an ashram in india, and i don't know what she does in indonesia yet. haven't gotten that far. :) i love the book. i see so many similarities to this woman in myself in her desire to travel and her desire to search for God. i would like to spend some time at an ashram sometime. maybe more than once even. i'd like to spend time in a lot of places, but that may be near the top of my list.

and it's 10:42 on a saturday night and i'm about to call it a day. there's something so great about nights with hot take-out, a clean apartment, and a good book. it makes me go to bed with a smile.