Mar

This week’s topic is favorite things to do on vacation. We have a vacation (to Singapore! ) coming up soon, so the timing is good for me!

1. Umm … ask Craig about this one!

2. Explore a new place – Craig & I both love to travel, and although we have some favorite places, we really like visiting places we’ve never been before. Like Singapore!

3. Absolutely nothing – we take two kinds of vacations: adventure trips (see #2 above) and relaxation trips; the crazier our life gets, the more I appreciate taking time to just chill and do nothing. I prefer a non-crowded beach or an isolated mountain cabin for this type of trip.

4. Try new foods – wherever we are, and why-ever we’re there, we love to sample good local cuisine. No chains allowed!

5. Help my kids learn about other cultures – now that they’re old enough to remember and understand travel, we take the kids with us whenever we can. We both really want them to grow up with high levels of openness and curiosity about and appreciation of other people and places.

6. Walk – Nashville isn’t a walking city, especially the ‘burbs where we are. Nothing gives you a better feel for a place than walking around and exploring on foot. I walk everywhere I can when we’re on vacation.

7. Take a break from work – spend as little time as possible on the computer!

8. Meet new people – humans are social animals, and for me places aren’t places without the people who live there. When I travel, I don’t like to just observe the sights, I like to interact with “real live locals”.

9. Get high – wherever we visit, I like to find the highest spot we can access, whether it’s an observation booth at the top og a very tall building or the view off a mountaintop, and get a bird’s eye view, helps keep perspective. Hah, that’s not what you thought I was going to say on this one, is it!

10. Shop – what’s a great trip without souvenirs?!!

  

Jan

This week’s topic is things I want to do in 2009. I like this better than the New Year’s Resolutions … ’cause they’re more specific, and they can just be for fun (which most of mine are).

1. Be a good coach – I got conned into coaching BOTH kids’ basketball teams this year! I have pretty low expectations performance-wise – only one kid on each team has ever played basketball before. My goal is to teach them to love the game, and hopefully make sure they know which goal is theirs! In all seriousness, my kids have played enough sports that I’ve seen a lot of coaches – some great, some absolutely awful. Even if I can’t be great, I hope I always am able to find something positive to say to each kid after the game, and to make sure they have fun, regardless of outcome.

2. Cosmo challenge – this one is for Craig, he knows what it means!

3. Watch either Kentucky or Vanderbilt win the NCAA championship – based on pre-conference play, this one doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell, but you gotta dream! In the case of Kentucky, a follow-up to this one is that I’d like to watch a press conference where the UK athletics director fires Billy Gillespie.

4. Go on another sisters weekend with my sisters – girls, we’ve been talking about this for TWO YEARS, we gotta get our acts together and just do it!

5. Enjoy celebrating my 10th wedding anniversary

6. Join (or start) a book club – again, this is something I’ve talked to several people about, and just need to get my act together and do!

7. Be better about keeping the web page/blog updated – Facebook is great, and I have been doing more of that, but I know some of you want more details!

8. Go somewhere I’ve never been – that’s on my list every year!

9. Submit at least 5 papers for publication, and two grant proposals – need to kick my work up into a higher gear, and now’s the time.

10. Have a Passover seder or Rosh Hashanah dinner at my house – we have gotten out of the habit of entertaining, but I really like having people over, and holidays are an easy way to get back into that groove.

Will try to check back in over the course of the year to see how well I do!

  

Jul

Okay, very late on this week’s topic, but I have a good excuse … was on vacation last week! So, a timely topic for me. In fact, I will definitely display a recency bias here, since my list of Top Ten Memorable Vacation Moments includes two from this most recent trip. I am blessed to have had many, many happy travel memories, but I’ve also traveled enough to have had some not-so-happy ones, too. Luckily, in retrospect, most of them are funny now.

1. My wedding – best trip ever! We got married on a cruise ship…
2. The look on my kids’ faces when they saw the London Eye for the first time.
3. Craig and my mom fighting over politics in the breakfast room at our London hotel – not fun!
4. Hiking with from Coogee to Bondi beach in Australia … not to mention my surfboarding lessons in Bondi!
5. My first ocean dive – in Costa Rica…
6. Driving to Colorado to go skiing during grad school … to save money, we drove straight through (20 hour drive, split amongst 4 girls packed into a not-huge 4-door sedan) … and around 2am in the middle of nowhere, having the car break down …
7. New Year’s Eve in Times Square … wouldn’t want to do it again, but it was a blast!
8. Visiting the “Bates motel” with Terra & Dayna on our first sisters’ weekend
9. Camping in Canada every summer when I was a small child
10. Riding on a hot air balloon in Sweden…

SO many more, I can’t stop at 10! Standing on top of the Empire State Building for the first time, white water rafting on the Colorado river, visiting the Muir woods in California,
having a very huge (and very public) fight with Craig in front of the Terminator ride at Universal Studios, my first visit to O’Riley’s in New Orleans, watching the sun come up in Cocoa Beach on our first anniversary (right after I found out I was pregnant with Samara), relaxing on a gondola with Craig in Brugge, the cheese restaurant in paris, my first visit to Rookies in Amsterdam, stopping to hike in the woods with Craig on a visit to see Greg in Vermont…

I could do this all day! But I should probably try to pull myself together after being gone for a week…sigh … good times, all! Even the bad ones!

  

Jun

My friend Kim & I went to the temporary tribute center for the World Trade Center this afternoon. I cried. I know that may not sound remarkable, but I didn’t cry on 9/11, and haven’t cried about it since then either. In fact, I pretty much don’t cry, period. I was just totally not emotionally prepared for the impact the memorial would have on me.

I absolutely adore New York City. As much as I have traveled, it remains my favorite city in the whole world – the vibrancy, the energy, the culture, the true melting-pot nature of it. I’ve been there countless times – but not at all since 9/11. Part of it was that on 9/11 I had a seven month old baby, and then two months after that got pregnant again, so we weren’t traveling all that much. But part of it was avoidance – like a part of me knew that the void I would find at ground zero would take its toll on my psyche. It was time to go back, though – way past time, really. And this trip provided the perfect opportunity.

I was actually glad to be traveling without Craig for this first time back – we’ve been to the city together a couple of times, and I have very good memories of it, but my love of the city far predates him, and it’s not something he shares. Being a Boston boy, he doesn’t really get New York in a fundamental way. So I wanted to make this particular trek without him.

It all started with the subway. There is still a World Trade Center station. Coming out of the station, I was completely disoriented – a 110 story building is a pretty big landmark! As Eli would day … duh. I mean, obviously, I knew the building wasn’t there anymore. But I couldn’t quite imagine until I stepped out of that station just how HUGE it’s “not-there-ness” would be. I just had absolutely no idea where I was, or where I needed to go, or what I was supposed to be seeing. Just nothing.

In the end, we just followed the crowd, and figured it out. First, we stopped at ground zero to look at the progress on the new buildings. There’s still a massive crater in the ground, reminding you of just how big the Twin Towers were, and what it took to support them. And I couldn’t help but wonder if re-building the world’s tallest building isn’t a mistake somehow … but I guess you can’t let the fuckers win, right?

Then we went to the World Trade Center Tribute Center. The main floor has a minute-by-minute account of the day, complete with “memorabilia” (somehow that word seems obscene in this context, but I don’t know what else to call it). We started walking through the exhibit, which had not only official details and notifications from the day, but also survivor accounts, voicemail messages from people who knew they were dying, etc. – heartbreaking stuff, but nothing I hadn’t scene/heard before.

Except this:

I know, it doesn’t seem like much. You’re probably thinking – man, this chick is wacked. And maybe I am. But somehow, when I saw this window – this actual window from that actual plane that took down that actual building – I pictured a human being – a real live human, with a family and hopes and dreams, who did not plan on dying that day – and all of a sudden I was crying. And not just a small sniffle, a huge stream of tears running down my face that I couldn’t stop.

Kim went ahead of me and gave me some space. I made it through the rest of the exhibit, and then went downstairs. In that room, people from all over the world have written messages that are posted on the walls – survivors, sympathizers, people who were there that day, and people who just heard/read about it. Again, the messages were heart-wrenching, and certainly didn’t make pulling myself together any easier.

But that window … I just can’t explain it. It haunts me somehow. Obviously it’s tapping into some deep-seated fear that I have – of dying? Of bringing children into this awful world? Of not doing more to make this world a better place? I don’t know. But I can’t shake that image.

We left there and hit the closest bar, then went to see a Broadway comedy. What else could we do? But as I get ready for bed tonight, I still see that window in my mind…

  

Jun

So … last night was interesting. Different than I expected, not unpleasant or even weird, just different.

The goal of Harmonic Chant is to connect us to our most primal instincts, and to come to the “universal sacred” through the origins of humanity – they feel like they’ve identified the basic sounds that were present at the creation of the universe, and use those to tap into the spiritual realm.

Perhaps a video clip would be the easiest way to explain …
David Hykes, Harmonic Worlds Chant

Like I said, interesting.

  

Jun

Tonight for dinner was vegetable soup, blackeyed peas, polenta, and mixed greens. There was cornbread with the soup which was quite good. And the polenta had cheese in it (the only protein to be found!), so it was edible. When I get back to the city tomorrow, I think I will be heading STRAIGHT for the closest hot dog stand, I am *so* craving meat!!!

This is my last night here! I’m on my way down to our closing ceremonies. Should be interesting. Here’s the description:
“Contemplative music composer-singer, researcher and pioneering “throat singer” David Hykes will present a special evening event entitled “Harmonic Awareness: Silence, Deep Listening and the Music of the Spheres”. This evening will include a concert of David’s Harmonic Chant, joined by core members of his group, The Harmonic Choir. .. Mr Hykes will share insights from nearly four decades of Harmonic Awareness work, exploring relationships of music, mind, meditation practice and healing dimensions of sound and listening. The evening will conclude with a Harmonic Meeting, an awareness-based sonic group harmonization with MLSRI participants”.

Like I said, should be interesting…

  

Jun

I like tofu. I really do. Cut up into little pieces and included with other things that you know … give it flavor!

It would never occur to me to put a big giant slab of tofu on a plate and call it a meal. Apparently, that makes me very different from the people who cook the food here. For dinner, we had said slabs of tofu with a tiny amount of barbeque sauce on top, kale and turnips, and mixed greens.

I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried…

  

Jun

Wonders never cease … today for lunch we had veggie burgers. Given what we’ve been eating, this was cause for rejoicing! If I closed my eyes and meditated very hard, it almost tasted like meet!!!

  

Jun

So, I survived the 36 hours of silence. AND I did 9 of the 10 hours of meditation (for the hour I missed I decided to go for a hike instead, which I think was a good call).

I have to admit I had a little bit of a mini panic attack last night at about 9:00 (the meditation invoking the silence started at 9:30). In retrospect, I don’t know why I was so freaked out – I actually in the end really enjoyed the silence. Now the actual meditation … in the end, I don’t think it’s for me. At least not mindfulness meditation. I’ll get back to that later.

There were aspects of the day that were easier than I thought, and aspects that were harder than I thought. Going in, I was sure I would feel really restricted not being able to communicate with anyone, and that I would go crazy with nothing but my own thoughts to occupy me. I did miss not being able to call my kids, but I knew they were fine and that Craig was taking good care of them. And the lack of communication with others here was really peaceful – in a lot of ways preferable to all the usual babble that goes on at conferences!

In the beginning, it was just like all the other nights here – we have silence every night from evening meditation through morning meditation. The evening meditation was a very cool lovingkindness meditation – my favorite one so far. She gave us a mantra – “Be safe, be happy, be healthy, live with ease” – and we started out wishing that for ourselves (“May I be safe, be happy…etc.), then extending it to a loved one “May he be safe…” and so on), then someone we’ve met here, then everyone here, then the whole planet “May we all be safe”, etc.). I really liked that one – it was a great way to calm down and start feeling much more positive about the “mini retreat”.

In the morning, things definitely felt different. It was pretty trippy eating in a room with 200 people, and not hearing anything other than spoons clinking against plates. Kind of cool, but bizarre. I tried to be more focused and notice more of the “little things”. The main little thing I noted at breakfast is that the oats they serve for breakfast are “steel cut” oats. I spend the meal wondering what it even means to have steel cut oats, if there are other ways to cut oats (and if so, what they might be), and whether something about cutting them with steel makes them taste better. Not very profound.

After breakfast we had some free time – I noted with some disdain that a girl in the bathroom was using her hairdryer (not very SILENT now is it?!!), and that several people in the lounge were checking their email. I felt very superior for a few minutes, since I was doing my utmost to take it all seriously – but then I decided that was not very much in the spirit of meditation, so I let it go.

We spent the morning doing a combination of sitting meditation and walking meditation – during the walking parts I went outside. It was really too hot to be outside, but I felt claustrophobic being inside for too long. The meditation hall is the only part of the building that is air conditioned (I think they do that on purpose), so it wasn’t the heat, just being around all those people with no talking wears on you after a while. I needed my private space. We did a mixture of classic zen meditation (totally silent) and guided meditations of various types. The outside part was my favorite – trying to be more mindful of all my surroundings, more aware of details, etc.

Lunch was difficult, not because of the silence, but because of the food. Asparagus and onion quiche (that was MUCH more asparagus than it was either onion or quiche); focaccia bread, barley and leek salad; mushroom, beet & celery salad; chocolate spelt cake. I meditate for a while being thankful to the universe for the focaccia bread, and wondering why in the hell anyone would put spelt in chocolate.

The afternoon passed similarly to the morning – periods “on the mat” and periods walking. The time seemed to go much more quickly than I anticipated. I skipped out on the afternoon session where the teachers talked to us about the theory behind the meditation techniques (hearing a lecture on theory did not fit with my schema of “day of silence”). Instead, I went hiking outside. I hadn’t been out much since we got here – too hot. But there was a really nice breeze, which made it feel less hot outside than in. I hiked over the railroad tracks and down to the river. West Point is right across the river from here, and you can see the buildings of the campus. I wonder what it would be like trying to get West Point cadets to meditate. On the way back I saw two deer – a buck and a doe. I thought about my dad, and how much he would like to see them (though, honestly, he would like it even more if it were hunting season and he could take them home in a cooler!). They weren’t more than 10 yards away from me. I was as quiet as I could be, but eventually I spooked them. The buck ran before the doe did, which I thought was interesting.

We had a break before dinner. I see one of the Buddhist monks talking on his cell phone, and I only feel the tiniest bit disdainful before I just smile and let it go.

Dinner was even more difficult than lunch: moroccan stew, which included chick peas, carrots, raisins, currants, tomatoes and zucchini (obviously the leftovers from the weekend!), couscous, cooked cabbage, and mixed greens. I kid you not. I meditate on the fact that they are obviously choosing to serve us the crappy leftovers on the silent day since they know we can’t complain. I pick the mushy zucchini out of the stew and think about how hungry I will be for my steel-cut oats by breakfast time.

After dinner was more meditating. I try to pull my thoughts back in from how hungry I am, and focus on good things. I spend a lot of time thinking about how grateful I am that I have a husband I can trust to take care of my kids for 10 days so that I can do this, and all the other things (like scrapbooking retreats) that are possible because of him. Then I get a little sidetracked thinking about showing him my gratitude when I get home and have to refocus.

As I was lying in bed trying to tell myself it was *not* too hot to sleep (or even breathe), I tried to focus on why this was all not clicking for me. I wished our friend Tony was here so I could talk to him about it (though I would’ve had to wait until morning anyway). But, that is kind of a long story in and of itself, and this post is too long already, and not over yet.

After the morning meditation this morning, the silence officially ended. I found I wasn’t quite prepared to deal with the chaos of the dining room – way too loud after so long in silence. So I went outside for a walk around the grounds until it was late enough to call Craig and the kids. So good to hear their voices! Eli was very funny, when I had explained the silence to him on Sunday, he just said “WHAT?!!” – it was just totally beyond his comprehension how anyone could be quiet all day long (if you know Eli, you can easily see why this would be … the boy never shuts up!). So he was amazed that I had, in fact, not talked for two whole nights and one whole day. Samara seemed to get it, but was glad it was over. Craig was awesome as always – so supportive and reassuring!

Now I am using our post-breakfast break to write this, while it’s all still fresh in my mind. Bottom line – I liked the peacefulness of the silence, but I don’t think I will be continuing to practice mindfulness once I am home. We’ll see…

  

Jun

Okay, it’s down to the wire – less than an hour to go until silence. Silence for 36 hours, to be specific. Here’s our instructions for the day:

“This mini-retreat will include guided meditation appropriate for both those new to meditation practice as well as more seasoned practitioners and will include periods of sitting and walking meditation. It will provide an opportunity to practice “phenomenology on the cushion” and to observe and learn from first person experience of the fine-grained texture and moment-to-moment character of emotion-attention dynamics. ”

Hope it works! Send focusing vibes my way!!! Here’s hoping I don’t just bust out laughing in the middle of one of the group meditation sessions – that would be very, very bad. Wow, I wish that hadn’t popped into my head as a possibility, now I’m going to have to focus on pushing all laughing thoughts out of my head. I am just glad my friend Angie is not here – we would get thrown out of this place for sure!

By the way, here is a movie Craig and the kids sent me to help ease me into the silence. It is so sweet!!!
sunday_msg

I miss them a lot – I realized I have never been away from either the kids or Craig for this long before.

You know what I really need to finish preparing for this silence … a drink. Ha!

  

Jun

MUCH better than yesterday!

Started out rough, though … decided to try the yoga mats instead of a chair for morning meditation. They have these little round pillows that you sit on, on top of a bigger rectangle mat. Most people sit like this:

I also tried sitting like this. Initially, all was well. For the beginning of the meditation, we were supposed to feel our pulse in our wrist, and concentrate on that – was it “thready” or “bounding”, regular or irregular, etc. Aside from the fact that I thought my pulse was somewhere between thready and bounding, all was well. But after a few minutes (as my butt was falling asleep), I realized that other people were sitting really far forward on these pillows. But, since we’re supposed to be being still and concentrating on our pulse, I couldn’t really move. As we transitioned from concentrating on our pulse to concentrating on our breath, I was profoundly distracted by the needle sensation in my butt, and how my neck was getting a kink in it. Obviously, I still have a lot to learn about meditation!

After that, things improved, though. Breakfast was the same as yesterday, except today the croissants at breakfast were CHOCOLATE!!! The talks this morning and this afternoon were really interesting, and much more relevant to what I do. I got some good ideas for studies I might pursue when I get back. Lunch was a bit of a downer – mozzarella & olive (yuck!) sandwiches and salad. But, they had pecan bars for dessert which were delicious. I had 3! Perhaps now I am on a sugar high!

We have a break now until dinner – was going to go swimming in the river with some other people here, but then it started raining. Oh, well, hopefully the storm will provide some relief from this heat & humidity, though.

Am feeling pretty nervous about tomorrow – our silent “mini-retreat”. Starting with evening meditation tonight (starts at 9:30), we have to be silent all night, ALL day tomorrow, and all night tomorrow night, through morning meditation on Tuesday morning. So from 9:30 tonight until 8:00am Tuesday, I am not supposed to say a word. Also, no email, no text messaging, none of that. (And that includes this blog, so you will have to check back on Tuesday for an update). We have ***TEN HOURS*** of meditation scheduled during that time. Keep in mind that I can’t keep my mind from wandering in the half hour sessions we’ve been doing so far, so I am *seriously* worried about where my mind will be after 10 hours.

Send good vibes my way, I will ***REALLY*** need them!!!

  

Jun

Okay, the rest of the day … not so great. The talks in the morning were very dense, hard to follow (or maybe I was just tired). So much so that after lunch (mac & cheese and BROWNIES), I took a nap and blew off the afternoon talks. Dinner was curried lentils, couscous and salad – tolerable, but nothing to rave about. Tonight there was a movie about the life of the guy who started this place – which I also blew off. So far, none of this is related to the work I am doing, or will be doing, plus I am missing Craig and the kids, and really questioning why I came. Hopefully, tomorrow will be better!

Did I mention there’s no air conditioning here? It was 95° today. And *very* humid. It feels like Nashville! Wouldn’t you know I would come up north on the week they have unseasonably hot weather. It’s supposed to be even hotter the next few days, with no break in the temperature until the day we leave. Naturally.

I think I my be grumpy from the lack of caffeine, too – something I forgot on my original list of prohibitions, no Dr. Pepper. They have tea, coffee and water here. That’s it. They had iced mint tea at lunch, but I don’t think it had any caffeine in it. And it’s way too hot for me to drink hot tea.

Okay, off to evening meditation…wish me luck!

  

Jun

Mercifully, my roommate is very nice and friendly. And also, skeptical of all of this like I am! We are getting along well, sitting together at talks and meals, etc. She is from UNC-Charlotte, and knows some of the people in my department.

First thing on the agenda last night … dinner. This consisted of potato/carrot curry that had some bits of tofu in it, rice noodles, zucchini, salad, rolls, and watermelon. Tasted good, but … I like protein. Also, dessert??? There was no mention of no sugar on the list of prohibitions!!!

After dinner, we went to the meditation hall for our opening sessions. The meditation hall is beautiful:
We had a brief overview on Buddhism in general – interestingly, like Judaism, there are a lot of different perspectives and competing ideologies under the overall rubric “Buddhism”, I never really knew that before. We also had our first meditation session. I have done some meditation sessions before – not a lot, but some. Usually they have been mantra-type meditations, where you repeat a word or phrase over and over again. This session focused on breathing, which it sounds like most mindfulness meditation is centered on. That was weird – being aware of our breathing, concentrating on it going in and out, etc. For the first 5 or 10 minutes, it was very relaxing, but then my mind started wandering. During this kind of meditation, when your mind wanders you’re just supposed to notice that it’s wandering and, non-judgmentally bring it back onto the breath. Yeah … that really didn’t work for me. Hopefully I will get better at this!

This morning I (remarkably, I think) made it to morning meditation at 7am. I did not make it to 6am yoga – there are limits! Morning meditation centered on breathing again, but was largely silent, not as much vocal guidance from the teacher as last night. Also this morning, I discovered I like oats – when drenched in brown sugar and maple syrup! %-) I was so desperate for sugar, any vehicle for it would suffice! I also scarfed down a hard-boiled egg and some peanut butter on a croissant, so I would have some protein.

That’s it so far – now off to a day of talks. Stay tuned for more adventures from the monastery!

  

Jun

Arrived in NYC yesterday afternoon, and headed straight up to Poughkeepsie to visit with a couple of our friends/colleagues at Vassar who we’re working on a grant proposal with. Had a really great time, AND got lots of work done on the grant.

Left Poughkeepsie at 3:30 this afternoon, arrived here a little after for. Garrison is teeny-tiny – not even a train station here, just a platform with two tracks. The shuttle from the Garrison Institute came right away to pick me up. The building and grounds here are gorgeous. The rooms, however, are not. Here is mine:

I think there are prison cells bigger than this. Truly.

My roommate is already here, but haven’t met her yet. One good thing – there is an awesome jacuzzi in the bathroom on my floor. Also, I can access the internet from my room – in the materials they sent, it said we would only be able to get online in the lounges. So, worse comes to worse, maybe I can hide in here and get some work done. Unless of course I hate my roommate…

Send positive vibes my way, I will need them!!!

  

Jun

Really, it’s not a joke. It is the Mind-Life Summer Research Institute, held at the Garrison Institute in New York, about an hour north of NYC. The Garrison Institute is a former monastery.

WHY am I going to this … well, it’s a long story. But it is for my work. I have become very interested in looking at how/why things like positive thinking, gratitude, meditation, etc. improve people’s physical and mental health. They all claim to, almost like little magic pills you can take, but no one seems to know (and a lot of people don’t even care) what the mechanism is, how these things relate to each other, whether there is some other factor underlying all of them, etc. Have looked at religion/spirituality in a couple of recent studies, but in the fall will be looking much more explicitly at these types of things. The other reason I was going is that Tony (Craig’s best friend from grad school who was in our wedding and has become “Uncle Tony” to our kids, braving traveling with us to the beach, Disney World, etc.) persuaded me we should both go, then he backed out at the last minute.

So here is the deal, and why it’s so funny to think of me at this thing:
1. There is no meat. Meaning, all the meals are vegetarian. Not vegan, but vegetarian. In case someone is reading this who doesn’t know me very well, I am SO ***NOT*** a vegetarian. I eat red meat at least 3-5 times a week, and on the days I don’t eat red meat, I eat chicken or fish.
2. There is no alcohol. This pretty much speaks for itself.
3. Silence - we have to be silent every between 10pm and 8am every day, PLUS one one of the days we will be silent the whole day. So, from 10pm Sunday night all the way through 8am Tuesday morning. No talking. At all.
4. No scented products – lotion, deoderant, shampoo, etc., all have to be fragrance-free. Do you know how hard it is to find stuff that is truly fragrance-free?!! Four drugstores and a Target later, I am coming up nada. Of course, they conveniently sell these at the Institute…
5. No sex – we’re supposed to be “chaste” in both thought and deed. I mean, Craig isn’t going to be there anyway, but still…

Other fun tidbits – there are no TVs, and also no elevators. The place has 4 stories – don’t you just know my room will probably be up in the attic!!! %-) Plus, we have roommates!!! I can’t remember the last time I had a roommate, other than family of course. I am wondering if they will, like colleges do, try to broaden our horizons by pairing us up with opposites – in that case I will likely end up with someone who has been meditating for 30 years, goes to bed at 8pm and gets up at 4am, and … I shudder to think what else! Also, supposedly our cell phones are not likely to work, and there are no phones in our rooms, so communication with the outside word will be limited (probably to keep us from calling a taxi and fleeing in the night! %-).

The grounds are supposedly beautiful – though crawling with ticks that have been shown to carry Lyme disease.

So, to summarize, I will be spending 6 days with no meat, no alcohol, no sex, no food that I like, no TV, and likely no phone calls to my family, sharing a tiny room with a roommate, and getting deathly ill if I walk outside.

Why did I say I was doing this again?!!

  

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