accepting where I am

‎4 years, 4 dorms,2 apartments, changed my major 2 times, floor 9, NMTC, purple group, gallatin, a COW, more In the Heights and American Idiot lottos than I can count, 20 or so shows worked on in some capacity, very few hours of sleep, far too many hours spent at 440, dangerous amounts of starbucks consumed, all nighters in bobst, plenty of blood sweat and tears…. I can’t believe it’s over.

Friday was Tisch Salute aka Graduation Part Two!

While I quite enjoyed graduabirthday at yankee stadium, Tisch Salute at Radio City Music Hall was pretty sweet

Hopefully it was not my last time walking across the stage at Radio City (Tony Awards? Please?)

and I got to see my HERO Michael Mayer, director of American Idiot, Spring Awakening and other musicals of my childhood was our HILARIOUS guest speaker. It was incredibly fitting that after spending the second half of my college career obsessing over American Idiot, Michael Mayer would be the speaker at my graduation

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I’m in the home stretch with the yoga challenge!

Day 19 (Saturday)

Vinyasa at Yoga Vida with one of my favorites, Jessie. She discussed our “ness”, that natural thing confident, radiant people shine out naturally. She explained that as a teacher instead of correcting a pose she instead wants to observe the “ness” and then adjust to make it help us radiate more and feel it deeper.

It got me thinkin’ about happy people, how happy people radiate this positive essence and therefore it makes other people happier. It is as sample as being nice to the starbucks barista instead of silently grabbing your macchiato and avoiding eye contact. Use your “ness” it it’s best ability.

Day 20 (Sunday)

One last class in Manhattan before heading to Westchester for the summer. Took Domenic’s class at Yoga Vida, a guaranteed sweat-fest and challenging class. The discussion in that class was about freeing your heart– that is what the breath does. That is why it is so important to gain control of your breath, especially for people like me who have anxiety issues. Free the breath helps control the anxiety attacks, you don’t get those hiccupy panting breaths when you free it. I was super sad to leave Yoga Vida not knowing when I’ll be back this summer. I have a feeling I’ll be making some yoga day trips to my neighborhood in Manhattan this summer….

and then I was homeward bound with my parents for a summer in the suburbs

random things I bring home: whole wheat bread, girl scout cookies, yoga mat…

Day 21 (Today)

Today began the quest to find quality, fabulous yoga in Northern Westchester! Ready, set, go!

This morning I took at vinyasa class at Sacred Space. My philosophy for the day was accepting where I am– physically and literally. Physically yes, I have limitations. Yes my right arm is literally weak, but that doesn’t mean I am weak— and today began the journey to repairing my rotator cuff with physical therapy. Literally, this is where I am for the summer, for better and for worse. This is where my friends are, my family is and my boyfriend is. But I also feel out of place here– whole foods and trader joe’s are 30 minutes away, yoga is expensive and harder to find, suburbia is obviously a very different rhythm from manhattan– and I’ve always been a city gal at heart.

The class was good, it is also weird having a different instructor and slightly different style of yoga for the first time. I’ve become very used to the general “yoga vida” style that all the instructors follow, and love taking Amrit’s class as well. It felt very different this morning, but I hope it is something I will get used to.

so my yoga mat and I will travel around northern westchester together in search of a good sweaty class. Thinking about trying out Katonah Yoga tomorrow….

and I’ll have to settle for Mrs. Greens as my go to grocery store….

but sometimes it’s nice to be home

and when it is torrential raining all day it is pretty nice to have a car as my main form of transportation instead of walking……

challenge continues

after a mini hiatus from yoga due to painful injections in my shoulder, I was thrilled to return to the mat

day 16: MY GRADUABIRTHDAY.

When I was little I would wake up basically every hour too excited about the fact that it was my birthday. Apparently at age 22 some things never change because at 6:15AM I couldn’t contain my excitement about the day. After a few practice downward dogs on my bed to make sure my shoulder joint was ready for yoga, I was off to Crunch for some graduabirthday vinyasa at Sunrise Salutations.

Between my excitement to be back in a yoga class after 2 days away, my excitement for being the birthday girl and my excitement to graduate college I was a hot, but incredibly happy mess in this class. I knew it would be a slightly lost cause from the start because my body was literally buzzing, but I knew I wanted to go to yoga.

I really try to make a conscious effort now to workout in some format first thing in the morning since it was really reduced my anxiety. I didn’t want anxiety to ruin the day. It was an incredibly sweaty but lovely class.

I’ve never left before shavasana in a yoga class, but I knew it was necessary in order to get ready with enough time to go to Yankee Stadium. Leaving I gave a cute little shrug and said “sorry, graduation!”

 

day 17: after the whirlwind that was graduabirthday I definitely needed to calm down and re-calibrate my mind and body. I went to a basics class at Yoga Vida with one of my favorite teachers there. As much as being injured is a downer and consuming much of my life now-a-days, one odd perk is that people remember me now. Teachers remember who I am since I am the one-armed girl modifying everything. Generally I am shy and would never introduce myself to instructors at the end of a class, but because of the injury it has brought about conversation from instructors and other students.

a big focus in this class was finding balance, something that I definitely needed to find after being a ball of energy on Wednesday. It was incredibly difficult for me to balance, a mixture of being a bit dizzy all class and feeling wobbly the whole time.  As frustrating as falling over was, I knew it what mirroring how I felt this week. As thrilling and exciting as graduating is, I definitely feel off balance.

I have found great comfort this spring semester. Sometimes the semester feels like a mad dash to the finish line where I just want the insanity, work and stress to end, but this semester I remained calm for much of it. I found a schedule that worked– I had a good grasp of when I would work out, when I would go to yoga, when I would eat, where I would eat and kept a pretty consistent schedule week to week. I feel frazzled now knowing I will have to create a new sense of schedule when I get home, another schedule when I start work, and a completely new schedule when I move to california. I already miss the sense of balance I had this semester, but I am sure I will find it again

day 18: later today is part two of graduation. Yes, we have TWO graduations at NYU! Today’s is for all the students at Tisch. I am ridiculously excited for our guest speaker Michael Mayer who directed American Idiot. How fitting that the guy who basically created the broadway show that made a hugeeee impact on my life at college would be speaking at my graduation?

Worried I wouldn’t be able to make it to a yoga class later today, I went to Yoga Vida early this morning for a class. The instructor started off class talking about making room for change. Allowing change to happen and not being afraid of it. Oh wow, how perfect for the day of my college graduation, and the day I cut off my last tie to New York University.

Change is scary, terrifying even, since there is a lot of unknown. But this morning I was reminded that in actuality we are constantly changing– my downward dog is different today than it was yesterday, my relationships with my friends are constantly evolving and changing in their nature and I am constantly changing

While big changes like graduating college and leaving Manhattan for 6 months are rightfully scary, it also leaves room for so many good things. Incredible opportunities that I don’t even know about. Change doesn’t have to be bad. 

graduabirthday!

I am now a graduate of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts with a B.F.A. in Drama
ANDDDD  22 years old!

I find it nearly impossible to capture in words the emotions of my 22nd birthday & college graduation, but I hope the permanent smile on my face says it all.

I couldn’t have asked for a more incredible day of celebrating with loved ones, family and friends.

NYU Class of 2012 : WE DID IT!!!

the last hoorahs of college and 21

uh, graduabirthday is TOMORROW? WHAT. it feels like just yesterday I was an itty bitty freshman (and by itty bitty I mean the exact same height as I am now…) moving into Hayden Hall with my parents, anxious and excited to begin my college journey. In some ways it went by super fast, in other ways it has definitely been four long years.

This awkward limbo week with no homework or finals has been absolutely crazy with workouts, yoga, friends visiting, end of year parties, and a brief trip home to Westchester.

Here’s what’s been going down, and how the challenge is going:

Thursday (day 10)

Day 10 was a $1 Karma Yoga class at Yoga Vida. $1 yoga? sweeeeeet. The class is taught by a recent graduate of the yoga teacher program. I am deeply considering attending the teacher training at Vida in the near future, so it was awesome to see the final product of the program and take a class with one of the new teachers. The class was pretty basic, no crazy inversions, but that is perfect for me and my arm at the moment. It gave me a really good feeling about the teacher training program and even more incentive to sign up in the future.

Thursday night was my friends birthday and a trip to DINO BBQ! nom nom nom. I’ve never been to Dino BBQ, but people are OBSESSED with this place. I’m not a huge bbq gal, but this food was awesome, the portions were epic, and the price was great for college students. I highly recommend taking this trip way up town for some delicious food

bbq chicken, totes worth the food baby

Friday (day 11)

Woahhhh we’re half way there!

Friday’s class was a super awesome and inspirational one at yoga vida. The instructor explained that we are going to focus on “pratyahara” today. She explained it as going from the inside out instead of the other way around. So often we look for happiness in outside things– possessions, boyfriends, material goods, etc, when really we are our own source of happiness.

I really connect with this concept, especially after reading “The Happiness Project” last summer and taking “The Science of Happiness” at nyu this semester. It is easy to blame other things for our unhappiness. I had always been super convinced that having a boyfriend would make me happy and solve all my problems. Last summer I realized though that in order to even “get” the boyfriend, to make that connection with someone else, I had to be happy to begin with. I am seriously convinced that this is why my boyfriend and I did get together at the end of last summer- happy people are simply more attractive, more fun to be around, and the people you want to have a relationship with. If I hadn’t spent the summer laughing, smiling, confident and focusing on having the greatest summer of my life, I don’t think this relationship would have happened.

This is also true with material goods– We all want the newest iPhone, the best gadgets, things that we think will make us happy. But then an even newer, better version comes out, and we are once again sad.

I am a strong believer than money does not bring happiness. You can own all the possessions in the world, but nothing can buy that true key to happiness– human connection, and the ability to find happiness from within.

What I wonder is, does that mean outside things can’t also ultimately make us “sad” or the opposite of happy?

I know death, trauma, etc, can make us unhappy (and justifiably so), but if going on that principle of finding happiness from within, does that also mean we can only find sadness from within?

Saturday (day 12)

Day 12 was a sleep walking through class kinda class. I just kept telling myself to push through.

Sunday (day 13)

On sunday I decided to stay after zumba for Buddha Belly at Crunch. The class was a sort of yogalates fusion combing moves from both vocabularies. While I enjoyed the class, I slightly regretted not going to one of the vinyasa classes I am more accustomed to. I found myself stressed about not doing the moves and poses correctly since a lot of them were new to me, compared to when I can go into full on “I AM FOCUSING ON MY BREATH” mode in a flow class because I know ultimately how to position my body

And it was mothers day! On Friday I left flowers and cupcakes in my parents apartment to surprise them when they arrived that night. I absolutely adore my mama and cannot even begin to thank her for putting up with me…..

For mothers day my family did what my family does best– we went to see a broadway musical! For the past 10 years we have been mega fans of the incredibly talented Raul Esparza, so we knew seeing his new show “Leap of Faith” would be something that made the whole family happy.

Ironically we ended up with tickets to the closing performance of the show. My family loved the show, based on the movie, that reminded us a lot of “The Music Man” meets the energy of Footloose. so sad to see it close

Even better than the show was stagedooring afterwards, where Raul recognized my brother and I. You know you’ve stagedoored too many times with the actor remembers you….

ya know, two NYU Tisch, Playwrights Horizons Graduates 🙂

can’t wait to see what his next project is

Monday (day 14)

When I decided to do a 22 Day Yoga Challenge I knew there were some possible “problem days”. One is tomorrow, Graduabirthday, because I am still not sure how the timing will work out with everything.

The other problem? Knowing I would finally be getting my shoulder checked out and a less than pleasant arthogram.

As someone will a bit of a needle phobia the thought of having a needle stuck into my shoulder joint made me queasy when I found out about the procedure a month ago. While the MRI part didn’t scare me (ya know, just lie in a machine and listen to showtunes, no big!) I was incredibly anxious about getting the dye injected into my shoulder.

Day 14 was my version of Yoga, willing myself to not going into full panic attack mode, keeping my body relaxed, and remaining as calm as possible to make the procedure easier for both the doctor and myself. I like to think that this is what the whole challenge as been about, finding a way to cope with anxiety inducing situations while avoiding full on freak outs.

and I did it! and being the “teachers pet” that I am, I was super happy when the anesthesiologist told my mom I did a really good job. Gold star for Kayla.

In the height of pain I zoned out and went through every trapeze trick I have ever done, visualizing what I looked like and hearing the commands. When that failed me I also sang in my head my favorite musical from childhood, “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat”.

I am okay now, my shoulder is still a bit sore from the procedure, so I decided not to go to yoga at all yesterday.

In my opinion this is not failing my challenge, because physically I cannot go to a yoga class in this condition, and ultimately I felt I still practiced what a class would have given me.

Ironic part of the procedure? While listening to showtunes in the MRI machine (I love how they give you a choice of music stations… and I love how I am probably the only person that picks the showtunes station) “What I Did for Love” from A Chorus Line came on. A song about getting injured doing something you love, in the show it is about what happens if your dance career is over. For me, it’s the song I’ve been singing to myself about performing and trapeze since I got injured. super freaky.

So 8 weeks later, I found out I have tendonitis in my right rotator cuff. The good news? I don’t need surgery. And physical therapy starts monday. the road to recovery begins

Back in the city at night I hung out with my bestie David before he headed back to the West Coast.

we enjoyed an INCREDIBLE meal at Red Bamboo, this delicious vegetarian restaurant in the village

above is my coconut “chicken”. delish. David had an asian “beef” dish which was also delish. Even though I eat chicken and turkey, I still really enjoy vegetarian food. My big suggestion is enjoy the dish for what it is, not what it is trying to imitate.

TODAY (Tuesday)
and today. I set my super early alarm, ambitiously hoping to go to early morning vinyasa at Yoga Vida. While I was wide awake and ready to go at 6:15, my arm is still a bit sore from the injection. I decided to wait and see if my arm is a bit less sore to do a yoga class tonight

Instead, I went to LaBlast and Pilates Fusion at Crunch Christopher street. I must say I was SUPER impressed with everything there. The gym is spread out and not crowded, the people in class were seriously the loveliest I have taken a group fitness class with recently, and Carol was awesome about making sure I was doing okay with my lame arm. Two thumbs up for this mornings sweat.

 

 

and now, tomorrows the big day! Turning 22 and graduating!

a lil’ sneaky peak at what’s in store:

I get to wear that… uh lovely… purple tent all week!

morning yoga, afternoon shop-athon

2 weeks til graduabirthday — my graduation and 22nd birthday all in one!

I may or may not be typing this as I am wearing my brand new dress I bought today for graduabirthday…..and my Mickey Mouse graduation cap………

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Today was Day Two of my 22 day Yoga Challenge !!!!!

Alarm goes off at 6:15AM. why god, why am I still getting up crazy early when I don’t have any plans til noon? Because I’m crazy and masochistic? No, no, because if I don’t go to yoga now I am not positive there will be time later in the day… and either way you love Amrit’s 7AM antics in Sunrise Salutation, no?

The class was worth the early wake up call, I mean really, it always is. My arm is still being bitchier than usual, I think it is because of all this rain and humidity. The class was super hot and schweddy and I was seriously working. I’ve been thinking a lot about music and yoga. At yoga vida all the instructors use music in the background, while the morning class I take at Crunch never has music. I love having music in the background, it gives me a focal point and quiets my own thoughts and “to-do lists”. However, a silent yoga class allows me to focus on my breath and body more. What do you prefer, silence or background music?

My focus was definitely better than yesterday, I felt more in the moment and connected to my breath. The biggest distraction today was my arm, I could feel Amrit’s eyes staring at my bent right arm– no I am not lazy, I am injured. 6 weeks of being injured actually….

It is weird when you are injured for that long of a period of time. This is my first  real “injury” ever– I might have fractured my pinky this summer which hurt for a bit but didn’t alter my daily life. I’ve broken a toe here and there and have been seriously sore and achey from trapeze but nothing lasting until this

I now look at other people doing particular exercises and think “oh, I can’t do that because of my arm”. I look at people dancing and start modifying in my head how I would do it. My right arm has always been a slacker, I do everything left handed, and I always joked that my right arm was sort of a waste, but I take it back. I miss feeling even, not having to rely on one sides strength, and I miss the equality of having two strong arms. Most of all I miss feeling strong, I hate having to modify something not because I lack the strength and muscles, but because I physically cannot do it with a torn rotator cuff. This has definitely been a wake up call for me about how I treat my body, and how my “go go go” mentality has to slow down for this injury.

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Today was technically my first day of freedom. And I really do mean technically— I had a rehearsal early afternoon and still have to attend class tomorrow, but essentially I’M FREE I’M FREE I’M FREE!

I spent my first day of freedom doing a shopping marathon with my mama at bloomingdales and macy’s. we have a massive mission: buy a pair of wedge shoes & buy dresses for NYU graduation, Tisch graduation, my cousins wedding, my cousin’s pre wedding celebrations, and a dress for my friends bridal shower. Trying to cover all the requirements for those occasions with as few dresses a possible? definitely a challenge. But we did it!

Look at the beautiful shoes I gots:

Despite being rather short, I have never got the hang of wearing heels. Enter my new wedges! I am already obsessed and don’t have to worry about falling flat on my face during graduation!

After being a bit worried about finding not one but 2 graduation dresses that I would also be able to wear to other events, I am SO SO SO happy mama and I found everything today (and got some awesome sales). Can it please be graduabirthday already so I can rock these pretty dresses?

Day 2 of yoga challenge and successful shopping extravaganza, winning.