Phoenix

So, it's been pretty busy here. I've been attending a bunch of seminars and classes, learning really great stuff. On Friday morning I was on a panel regarding the managing of two-year newspapers. It was pretty interesting. There weren't all that many people there, but more than I expected (like 10). It was fun, very laid back and conversational. I really enjoyed it.

And then just the normal convention stuff. Today I went to a two-hour class on using Excel to help you find and report on stories. The teacher was a woman named Holly A. Heyser, she is the adviser to the California State University in Sacramento. She was just awesome, really into her work. I learned so much.

One term that she used a lot, which I had never heard before, was Computer Assisted Reporting (CAR). I guess for the modern journalist everything is CAR, but in this context she was specifically referring to Excel and Access. Anyways, I learned so much. It was really good. I learned about the basics of Excel (which I desperately needed) as well as the endless ways you can use statistics to uncover and report on interesting and important stories.

Another perk to going to this class was that it was held in the Arizona State’s The Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication…

Oh my god, it was awesome. It had 14 computer labs, dedicated to design, photography, videography and radio. They have their own T.V. station (a PBS affiliate) that reaches a million people.

It was incredible. It’s a fairly new facility and it’s beautiful, really beautiful. It made me want to go to ASU.

So, that is it. Today we are going to go for a hike or two and then we leave tomorrow morning. Because of scheduling conflicts we will miss the awards ceremony. If The Sentinel were to win anything they will mail it to us. We will see.


There it is... even the sign is nice...


... that is there T.V. production room... that is live video...


... I'm not sure why he was being interviewed, but he was. The interviewer is a senior at ASU...


... here are a bunch of people I met at a Subway, they were going to a Japanese festival.

Back to Arizona

And I’m off. There must be something about Arizona. I’m sitting in the Spokane Airport waiting for our plane. Nils Rosdahl and I are going to Phoenix for the ACP Journalism convention. It’s 7:52 am.

We’re taking a rather roundabout route. First we fly to Denver, where we spend two hours, and then we go to Phoenix. It’s a long way, but it’s cheaper than the direct flight, so oh well.

The convention should be pretty good. The classes they offer are usually interesting. Something new is that I will be giving a brief little presentation on managing a two-year newspaper. It’s at 9 am tomorrow morning, so I doubt it will be heavily attended. It should be interesting to give the talk. I’m not too worried about it, but we will see how it goes.

So, I’m excited. I love airports. I love traveling. Being here reminds me of leaving for India, which reminds me of leaving for Europe in September. Exciting stuff.

Opening to Attention

I’ve been working on building a website for my mom. She is going to pay me upon completion for a fully functioning website. For her it’s a good deal because we can work closely together and because I’m much cheaper than a professional web designer. For me it’s a great deal because it lets me get my foot into the web design world.

But, it’s definitely a challenge. It’s complicated stuff and I have so much to learn. My goal has been to work on the website every day.

Anyways, a few days ago I was stumped. I couldn’t figure out how to do something. I’d been ramming my head against the problem for an hour or so and was getting pretty frustrated. Finally, I gave up on it. I moved on to other work.

The next day I went back to the problem. I hadn’t consciously thought about it in the interim, however, when I sat down to work on the problem it seemed quite obvious. It was resolved within minutes.

The subtle attention that my mind had given the problem had opened new doorways of understanding. Stepping back from the problem had allowed my mind to figure out new ways of understanding. It had opened up previously unexplored pathways.

So, this isn’t really the most profound insight in the world, however, it’s something I keep trying to remember. Personally I can get so caught up in instantaneous results. I want something to get done. I want to make clearly measurable progress. But, that isn’t always the way it’s going to happen. Sometimes the best thing that you can do is take a step back and just breath. Just see what arises in you.

In Anusara Yoga there are five key principles of alignment. They are applied sequentially in every pose. The very first one is “Open to Grace.” This can mean many things, however, one way of interpreting it that works for me is this ability to step back and allow things to arise. If you are shut down to the possibility of something good arising obviously nothing will. SO the first step, in a yoga pose or in anything really, is to open up and see what happens.

Pretty neat. So, I’m going to go now and let things arise.

First Real Yoga Class

So, like many of you no doubt know, I’ve started teaching yoga. I’m working toward 20 hours of teaching experience. Once I get the requisite hours I will be able to take a teacher training. My mom will be in charge of this 102-hour training. It’s broken up into three separate weeks starting in June.

In an effort to fulfill these necessary hours I’ve started to teach private lessons and one beginning level class. I’ve done a few privates, however, last Friday I taught my first class.

It was an experience. I loved it, no doubt about it. But it definitely pushed my abilities. Leading people (six in this case) through these poses was not easy. You have to learn how to speak clearly and concisely. You have to be able to demo the poses while also talking people through them.

It’s a skill.

And, like the saying goes, “You don’t know what you don’t know.”

Teaching that one class taught me more about what I don’t know than anything else possibly could have.

Now when I go to my mother’s classes I have a much deeper appreciation for what she is doing. She makes it looks easy. She makes it look effortless. It’s not. It’s a skill, an art that has to be developed.

In addition to showing me what I don’t know, teaching the class also confirmed what I had already guessed. I love teaching Yoga. Something about the interplay of physicality and mental understanding just really lights me up. Being able to inhabit my body while also showing others how to inhabit their bodies in this form known as Yoga is just so much fun.

I feel so lucky to be able to be part of it.

A Miscarriage of Justice

Hey, just read this article in the most recent Inlander. It's pretty terrible. By all accounts are justice system dropped the ball big time on this one.
Click Here to read the story.

The Sentinel (Issue 7) among other things

Hey, so here is the newest issue of The Sentinel. Kind of a weird issue, nothing seemed to click or really flow together, however when it was all said and done it looked pretty good. A short issue, so pretty grey on the inside.
So far this semester is so much smoother. I'm getting better at my job and the editors are improving weekly. One thing taht has really helped is the addition of John Monnier. He is the new photo editor and he is rocking it. He is really good at coming with with ideas for photo stories and just a fun guy to work with.

On a unrelated note, I learned a new word today. It's 'panache' and it means "flamboyant confidence of style or manner." What a neat word! I'm not sure how to pronounce it, but whatever I'm definitely gonna drop that baby in casual conversation.

Leo, my brother just said he had read the word in Calvin and Hobbes. Nothing like high quality comic strips.



Wow... it actually makes sense now (obviously this isn't my original work)...

Too tired to think in anything but tight, tidy torrents of tepidity

So, I’m tired. Dead tired (an odd turn of phrase). It was a production weekend and wow, it was a long one. The actual paper was pretty short (only 16 pages); however, for whatever reason, everything was a little harder. Things didn’t seem to click. It’s an OK issue, no huge lackings, however nothing of which I’m really proud. I’ll put the pages up in a day or two (we don’t distribute tell Tuesday) then you can judge for yourself.

So, like I said, I’m tired. I slept maybe three and a half hours last night and less than six the night before. When I finally finished up at The Sentinel I was about ready to collapse.

But instead of stumbling home and curling up in m nice big bed I managed to stumble my way over to the Kroc center. It’s becoming habitual for me. I finish working on the paper and I go work out. This might seem crazy, however I’ve grown to love it.

See, by the end of one of these marathon weekends, my brain is dead. It’s ready to shut down and watch T.V. for six days straight. The problem is, my body is in the exact opposite state. It’s been sitting for 16+ hours in front of a computer monitor and damnit it’s ready to go.

My brain is good at tricking my body. It tells it that it’s too tired and that it needs to rest. But my body knows and lately it hasn’t been taking any shit from my brain.

So, tonight when I crawled out of The Sentinel office, I forced myself to buck up ignoring my mind and listening to my body. So I went to the Kroc. At first, in an effort to trick my poor, worn out mind, I told myself I would just go and shoot some hoops. Maybe break a slight sweat, but nothing serious.

I got there and, predictably enough, my body took over. Next thing I know I’ve played four intense full-court games putting in a good two hours of physical aerobic activity.

And you know what? It felt great.

So, now I’m heading off to bed; fully confident that my mind and body are on the same page.

Plain Old Bizarre

Today I had a bizarre encounter. I was picking up some pizza we had ordered for The Sentinel. We have this ad trade with Little Caesar’s Pizza. They make sub par pizza at above par prices, plus they’re semi-local. So between the two it’s a good deal.

I was fresh out of the Kroc Center, where I had just been involved in possibly the longest basketball game of my life. It was supposed to go to 11, however we finally ended (with my team losing) at the modest score of 20 to 18 (due to this little rule called win by two). To top it all off, the team I was playing against was straight out of the ‘80s. Their shorts were short and they were wearing high-top all-star shoes. It was bizarre.

So, you can imagine my mental state. I’m tired (physically) and pretty spaced out from all the endorphins (or whatever). I walk into Little Caesars, not really sure what I want. This isn’t the place to contemplate your order choices. They want you to get in, order and get out. Strictly business. Well, I wasn’t prepared for that. I begin to hem and haw over the various combination's of cheap food with fake cheese. The lady isn’t giving me lee-way. She wants me to hurry up.

So, I begin to order. I ask for pepperoni with olives, mushrooms, green peppers and onions.

Simple, right?

The girl didn’t think so.

“Wow!” she said, “Slow down.”

Seriously? Slow down? There were like five toppings. Not exactly a six-course meal, right?

But I understand. We all have bad days. We all space out.

Then, her manager leans in and says,

“Ah, sorry about her she has downs syndrome.”

Now I’m confused. He seems serious. I mean people don’t joke about downs syndrome right? It’s not like something you joke about. It’s pretty serious, right?

So, I back-pedal,

“Oh, I’m sorry…”

Meanwhile the girl is saying to the guy,

“Oh, shut up, I’m not retarded…”

“Yes, you are,” he said. Then he looked at me and said,

“She is seriously retarded.”

She continued to protest.

I got my pizza and left.

Starting off

It’s been a while since I’ve posted. I’ve been semi-busy. The Sentinel only had a two-week break between Issue 6 and Issue 7. It’s going to be a small issue, but good. So, that has been taking up my time pretty well.

However, probably the newest thing that’s going for me is I’m getting into the yoga-teaching world. About three weeks ago I committed to attending my mother’s teaching training. It’s a three week, 102 hour course. Once I finish that I will be certified with Yoga Alliance. But, before I do that I have to have 20 hours of teaching experience. I have exactly zero. So I’ve taken on some private lessons (twice a week) and I’m going to start teaching an hour long beginning level yoga class. I’ve mapped it out so that I’ll be all done and ready to go by mid May!

Plus, I love teaching (I’ve taught two privates so far). It’s hard, for sure, but I just really enjoy it. I love Yoga already and to be able to teach other people (and hopefully get them loving yoga also) is just so much fun. I’ve got a lot to learn. Right now I just feel lucky that people will let me practice teach on them… I guess that is why they aren’t paying anything.

Also, in two weeks I’m going to be heading to Phoenix, Arizona with my adviser Nils Rosdahl for the Associate Collegiate Press (ACP) convention. I’m really looking forward to it, as these conventions are not only informative but also quite fun.

So, things are going well. But and I’m not even done yet. My travel plans (with Leo) are beginning to take form. As of right now (keep in mind things change) it looks like we might take a train from Holland to Moscow, Russia and then to Beijing, China and finally then to India… It’s a long trip but actually cheaper then flying. So, we will see how that works out.

Well, this post has just been a mix of things… nothing really that interesting, but I like to keep pumping ‘em out. Quality over quantity… right?

Here is a photo of a guy I interviewed. His name is Garth Profitt. He is a neat guy. 67 years old and is studying to get his personal trainer certificate. Really cool.



Here is the hoped for route!


And here is my flier advertising my free class.

The Sentinel (Issue 6)

Hey, so no posts in a while. The semester started. Here is the newest Sentinel. I think that it's our best to date.