Pampering

Day TEN

Hooray, I'm in the double digits of this challenge and I echo ahappyyogi's recent sentiment about 9 more batches of 10 classes and the challenge will be complete!  I am celebrating!

I've been feeling a little down lately and so I decided to cheer myself up by getting a manicure and a pedicure.  When you get a pedicure at Pema Nails, they do a salt scrub for your legs (up to your knees), pumice (or use a blade if you prefer) your feet, massage in lotion for your legs, and finish the process with a hotel towel on your legs.  It's lovely especially since the ladies here don't rush you and my legs have been massaged for a good 10 minutes sometimes.  I guess there are benefits to being a regular customer.  Btw, did I mention a manicure and a pedicure is $17!!!!  I love living in NYC.  :)

That was at noon.  I had to really drag my a$$ to bikram today.  I just didn't have the desire and that's when the doubts came rushing in.   

You're only at day 9 and you feel totally unmotivated.  
You're never going to complete this challenge.  
You?  Do bikram every day for the next 92 days?  
These last few days have felt like forever.  There's no way you are going to do 92 straight more days.

I tried to push these doubts away and said to myself, "Just get to the hot room.  Just get to the hot room."  Several minutes before I left the house, I remembered to wash the lotion off my legs from my pedicure and arms from my manicure or else suffer a supper slippery class especially at standing bow pulling pose.  You know you do bikram when...

I took the 4:30pm with Caroline at my neighborhood studio and set my mat up to the left side of the room, next to a pillar.  Today, I just needed a little separation from most of the students and this sport was perfect.  It also happened that I was standing in front of an exit door and by the time we got to the floor series, I felt the draft on my face seeping in from underneath the door.  It was nice in the beginning but after a while, I wished it wasn't there, which must mean I am feeling closer to regaining 100% of my health (I usually like it juicy!!!).  Didn't cough as much and didn't need to blow my nose during class -- all good signs that I am on the mend.

I am feeling a soreness in my right quad and there is a pinch that I feel in my lower back, on the right side that I just noticed today.  The pinch became more acute during backbends.  I have also noticed that every time I take a class with Caroline and we are in cobra pose, she always calls me out to lift my chest and go higher.  And every time I try, I feel an incredible stretching in the front of my neck to the point that it is uncomfortable.  And the pinch in my lower back today did not help my cobra.  I wonder.  Have I just been hanging out in cobra?!?!???!!!!  I didn't think so but maybe I was wrong.

I am making great improvements in awkward, toe stand right side, and fixed firm thanks to the healing I feel in my right knee.  My sit ups are stronger and I am working on trying to keep my chin to my chest, my arms by my ears, and get my elbows to the floor when we exhale twice.  And slowly but surely, I feel my upper back opening up in rabbit.  I struggle with all the compression postures, never being able to get my forehead exactly to my knee thanks to my long torso.  I am really working on keeping my chin to my chest and sucking sucking sucking in the belly.  Oh, the joys of a super flat upper back!

Today, as we celebrate the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, I always take a moment to remember those who work for social justice especially for the vast majority of people who don't make it to the news but are recognized by the people who benefit from their tireless commitment.  I especially remember the people of Haiti and the relief workers who are trying to help all those who are suffering in the country.  I remember our practice and how we learn compassion for ourselves and in turn, we learn compassion for others.  We take the energy we get in that hot room and we spread it to those around us, making our lives and the lives of others just a little better.

DWTS's Tribute to Patrick Swayze

I thought it was so awesome that Dancing With the Stars did a tribute to Patrick Swayze last night.

Every time I watch awesome ballroom dancing, it inspires me to take lessons. Unfortunately, MoJo dislikes dancing although he does it sometimes at weddings to make me happy. I am grateful that I don't have to drag him kicking and screaming to the dance floor. But boy, how I wish we ballroom danced together for fun. :-/

RIP Patrick Swayze

As a teenager, I fondly looked back at the 80s and divided the decade into two distinct periods: pre-Dirty Dancing & post-Dirty Dancing. I still divide the 80s that way today.

Yes. The release of Dirty Dancing in 1987 opened up my innocent 11-year-old eyes and mind. You could say that it was a coming of age for me as the movie introduced me to issues of class, women's rights, and charged sexuality. I had to sneak into the theater to watch Dirty Dancing because it was rated PG-13. Immediately, I related to Baby Houseman whose jaw you see drop in the following scene when introduced to something she had never been exposed to. I understood her rapidly changing emotions from discomfort to embarrassment to curiosity as she watched what has happening in front of her. When Johnny beckons Baby with his finger, she goes from being a voyuer to a participant. And just when she's just about getting the hang of it and she begins to enjoy herself, she is spun around and is left wanting more.

Dirty Dancing - Baby Meets Johnny

Like Baby, my jaw dropped watching everything I was being exposed to. I especially couldn't help but be mesmerized by the undulation of Patrick Swayze's hips. Like the generations before me who went gaga for Elvis Presley and John Travolta, there is just something captivating and incredibly sexy about a man who has the ability to move his hips with such suave grace. I was hooked. He was my biggest crush in the 6th grade.

When Patrick Swayze was promoting the movie, he was a guest on Z100, the local radio station. I was one of the lucky call-in winners that won an autographed copy of the soundtrack on cassette tape (which I still own)! I also asked my friend to tape the movie on VHS when it aired on HBO since we didn't have cable. When the tape was ready, I rode my bike to her house without telling my mother. I kept watching it and watching it to the point that I even memorized Baby's steps in their dance number.

Dirty Dancing - Final Dance Scene

Little did I know that this movie would capture my heart again in seven years when I enrolled at the very college that Baby was going to attend to study economics. Lines like, "Baby's going to Mount Holyoke in the Fall" and "[My name is]Frances...after the first woman in the Cabinet" suddenly had extra special meaning.

So thank you Patrick Swayze for your movies and your dance moves. Thank you for inspiring me to shake my own hips on the dance floor and to fall in love with ballroom dancing. Thank you for teaching us how to live with courage in the final chapter of our lives. And thank you for being a Hollywood anamoly: a devoted husband to your wife of 34 years.

Oh yeah, and thanks for teaching us about humility and the ability to mock yourself.

Patrick Swayze & Chris Farley - Chippendale SNL Skit

For a real in-depth analysis of Dirty Dancing check out this blog.

To Those Who Fight For Social Justice

Dr. King and the life he chose to live reminds me of the choice we make to heed the call to serve and to fight on behalf of those who are disenfranchised, those who lack a voice. Thank you Dr. King for teaching us to be resolute in the face of uncertainty and to be fearless in the face of death.

Let us also remember other less popularly well-known leaders who fought in the Civil Rights Movement such as Ella Baker and Robert Moses (and many more) plus the countless unidentified men and women who fought and whose lives were lost in the quest for equality for all.

To inspiring leaders like Daw Aung Sun Suu Kyi, Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Theresa, Benigno Aquino, Jr., Nelson Mandela (to name just a few): THANK YOU. We will never forget your contribution to humanity and to making this world a more peaceful and just place.

Rest in Peace: DD 1907 - 2006

My maternal grandmother and my last surviving grandparent, passed away at 4am today in a Philippine hospital from complications of pneumonia. She was 98. She is survived by 6 children, 20 grandchildren, and 25 great-grandchildren.

When she was alive, she used to say that she was comforted by the fact that at least two of her grandchildren would remember her when she was gone (As if the rest would not! She was definitely dramatic...I see where my mom gets it from.) because one is named after her and because the other shares the same birthday with her. The grandchild that celebrates the same birthday with her is me.

I will never forget a beautiful memory I have from 2001. I traveled back to the Philippines to co-celebrate our birthdays: I turned 25 and she 94. Early in the morning before the big party, our whole extended family came to her house to greet her happy birthday. She was showered in kisses and hugs. I waited until the crowd subsided and I went to give her my own well-wishes. When I was done, I began to walk away from her when she called my name. I turned around to see her waving her hand and signaling me to return, so I did. When I looked into her face, she said, "Don't let me forget to greet you because it's your birthday too." And then she held my face in her hands and kissed me on both sides of my cheecks. I started to cry, overwhelmed by the poignancy of the moment. She was startled and asked me why I was crying. I told her that I was so happy and I felt so honored to share the same birthday with her. And she smiled.

(These pictures were taken later that day at a birthday party in our honor. The top pic is right before we left for the restaurant. The bottom pic is me blowing out my "25" birthday candles with grandma and mom looking on. There we are, three generations of the D women. I love this photo.)

I love you Lola! May God welcome you home! I look forward to the time when we will see each other again in a place where no pain or sorrow exists.

Pope John Paul II, 1920-2005 - Welcome Home

For anyone who knows me, they know that my faith in God is very important to me, that I have chosen to remain an active participant of the Roman Catholic Church, that I struggle daily with the Church's teachings as made clear by Pope John Paul II, and that I rarely wear my faith on my sleeve. I have never been one to proselytize my faith to others, partly because I believe everyone is entitled to their religious ideas and need not hear what I have to say about mine but more importantly, I believe that the best expression of my faith is through living a life of love, trust, forgiveness, with a call to social justice.

I rarely would use my blog to discuss something that is so personal to me, as is my relationship to God and my relationship to the Catholic Church. But today, on the death of Pope John Paul II, the only Pope that I've ever known in my life, I felt that I could make an exception and put forth what my heart feels today.

Having been raised in a Catholic home whose family is from the Philippines, a predominantly Catholic country where the line between church and state does not exist, I have been exposed to the Church since I was born. It was only during my college years that I turned from the Church, eager to get away from what I experienced as a stifling tradition. Without my mother's influence and gaze, I did not attend Mass on Sundays and shed all sorts of practices that I associated with Catholicism.

But God does indeed work in the most mysterious and the MOST GENTLEST of ways. Even though Sunday was filled with food, friends and good times, I felt like something was missing. I truly can't explain it...except looking back now, all I know is that it was God's Grace at work. So I tried going back to church and attended Mass on campus. I was struck by all the women who attended Mass out of their own accord without being dragged by parents and I witnessed how my peers incorporated their faith into their lives as students, as young women, daughters, and sisters.

Since 1994, I believe my faith has grown incredibly in due part because of my daily struggle with it, in questioning it, and in practicing it. Despite many painful disagreements with my Church, I still believe at the end of the day, that it is through Mass and the practice of the Catholic faith that I maintain my personal relationship with God, with others, and with myself.

I did not necessarily agree with all of Pope John Paul II's conservative ideology but I do believe that he has been a wonderful example of how one can lead a moral life. I have to respect a man who holds fast to his convictions and beliefs and has not once swayed from them in the context of a fast changing and "modern" world. His impact on others through his selfless and loving actions, is a wonderful model for us as Catholics, and ultimately, as human beings. His life example transcended Catholicism yet it epitomized perfectly the teachings of Jesus Christ. He taught us how to live faithfully, how to give our wills up to the will of God, how to accept pain and suffering in life, in illness, and ultimately in death, and how to fight for what we believe to be right -- to speak out and act on behalf of the disenfranchised, the poor, and the forgotten.

For these reasons, I am thankful to God for more the 20+ years of service this Pope provided. I am thankful for his life example. And I am thankful that he now is resting in eternal peace, free from human suffering and pain. The crux of my faith is the belief that death is not the end of life, but merely a transition to something better, something bigger, something so incredible that our own humanity will never have the capacity to fully understand it -- the promise of eternal life. This is what I believe. Although Pope John Paul II leaves behind a great void in me, and perhaps in all of our hearts, I rejoice at his coming home. I will miss his incredible perservance, his fight for justice, his love for humanity, and his example to us all.


Pope John Paul II FORGIVES his would be assassin, Mehmet Ali Agca, December 1983

Ambassadors of Love & Peace

Pope John Paull II & Mother Teresa, 1986