girmander

back from LA and SD. and terribly tired.

congrats to Mr. Paul Collins and Mrs. Christina Yee-Collins!

i almost didn't go to work today. my head was spinning and i thought i was going to toss my cookies. negative time is not to my advantage. but i had fun seeing the fam. gpa was so happy to have everyone around. he even smiled and clapped his hands.

the wedding was beautiful. i have to admit - my sister was very calm during this whole thing. i like to kid that she was bridezilla but, in reality she wasn't. she was a pretty laid back bride. and a beautiful one as well. beautiful church and great venue for the reception. too bad we had to catch a 6:10am flight back to c-bus on sunday :(

i only got to spend 2 days with tim this time around. it got a bit hetic and all our time in la was spent with family. we did shop a bit (ok ALOT for me @ lululemon. but this time around i'm a teacher. 15% off! and i get to write off my clothes! yay!) but we didn't get to see the getty and i spent a whole 2 min on the beach. next time i'm looking forward to a 'relaxing la'. which is an oxymoron in itself. in la, we ALWAYS have to do something.

i finally got to meet tiffany and julie. that was pretty cool. of course in my 'midwestern-ness', i just came up to them and said "hey you're ______! right?!?!" might as well have said "how y'all doin'?" too. hahahaha. so awful. i can't help it. i can't help being "midwestern friendly" = dorky.

it's always so great to see tim. i hadn't done 2nd in a long while and i'm so glad that i didn't rize up to laruga's challenge of going to tim's sunday morning 2nd series class. i think i would have died. she definitely had a different experience on her vaca. she mostly chilled her whole time there. i was definitely jealous. i seriously felt overbooked. while she'd tap in and be like at the beach. i need a vacation from this non vacation. at least i dind't have to think about work.

talking about work. i'm back. jetlagged. and i have the on-call pager this week. w00t! i can tell this is going to be a stellar week. i just hope none of this stuff breaks or any servers are down. who knows, it didn't rain the whole time we were gone. luck has it that there are thundrestorms all week this week. hmm... potential power outages. ugh....

ok.. ok.. i know it's posted on my sister's blog but.... i just love this picture of my brother-in-law!

so, my sister has been married all of 4 days now. we keep on having this running conversation on hyphenation, not hyphenating, keeping ect... the surname. since she's married and i will marry irish boys with irish last names, it makes for a peculiar situation. maybe i'm making too much of it. but, i could see it freaking people out to correspond with a person professionally with an english name and an irish last name and then finally meet them and realize that they were asian? and then the questions... not saying that it's right. a first name is a first name and a last name is a last name. but unfortunately, we in the united states work on a unspoken race matrix. not only that, but this is who i am. i feel like i'm turning my back to being asian if i don't somehow keep my last name. it's an homage to my past. more specifically, it's respect for my grandfather.

i've also built up my professional career with my last name. i don't publish which is why many people keep their surname. but, i am still known in the professional arena by my surname. who knows - i could publish at some point in time. i'm not thinking of hyphenating to be uppity. alot of people have a bias to women who hyphenate, assuming that they are b*tches. i for one have actually worked with a woman who hyphenated. she was a b*tch. so, i'm sure that it's not unfounded.

the interesting part is that i actually want to be called mrs. irish last name in social situations. I prefer it. because with him and face to face, it makes sense. alone, i feel like i have to explain. professionally, i want to have my surname. does that mean i *should* hyphenate to be kosher? if so, i could be known as 3 different last names. confusing! but, i'm pretty sure i would only the hyphenated last name only on legal documents. sort of like a venn diagram catchall.

here are the options and the debate between each:

keep my surname and not take on his - i thought about this. i really did. but, i want him to know that we are one unit and not to take his name felt like i didn't want to be unified

take on his last name and ditch mine - like i said, it's a respect thing of where i came from and who i am. i will always be asian and to deny that kind of sucks.

hyphenate and really use it as a last name - do i really want to be percieved as being a b*tch? how awkward is that to have to correct someone each time they leave out either name. i have a co-worker who's a product of hyphenation. both names are freaking hard to pronounce so we call him "TR" for the first letters of each last name. do i really want to be known as "YL" or "LY" ugh... then there's the american way of hyphenation vs the english way of hyphenation. surname - married or married - surname? it's really tricky to have the irish last name end with a "y" and my last name start with a "y".

hyphenate and use subsets of each name in different situations - if i'm going to use my married name in social situations and my surname in professional situations... legally, this works out the best. because i can have 3 variations on my name and it's accepted. so legally, i'm hyphenated - professionally, i'm the plain old giraffe - socially, i'm mrs. lion. the only draw back is that i'm 3 different "me's". and the potential of confusion is huge.

let's not get into the kid debate...

what to do.. what to do... any ideas?

when one starts out being a teacher. it's overwhelming. you're nervous, unsure and really afraid. so the last thing on your mind is your intentions for your students and yourself. sure you had intentions becoming a teacher and wanting to be a teacher. but, i find that they change when you have students.

it's quite the balancing act to identify your intentions for you and your intentions for them. in many ways they look up to you to give them guidance, they may put you on a pedestal. how do you deal with that? even if you have a strong practice or know of someone with a strong practice, the same dilemma is shared. we're all in it together. we should be on the same level. the word guru is meant for exceptional beings like yogananda and jesus. definitely not for me - nor the likes of bikram or rodney yee.

the trickiest thing i've found in my own practice and my practice of teaching is how do i convey that to others? i mean, yeah, hell larugala (haha!! the lion's new nickname for laruga) has a freaking sweet a$$ed practice. i was there once too. how do you deal with the random person (this really happened yesterday in my class) staring awestruck @ her saying "she is the most beautiful thing i've seen"?

and how do you tell your students that, really you're here to guide them and be there for them but don't put me up there with the name "guru"?

so with those questions in mind, here are my thoughts as written to a student:

believe it or not, you have your own guru and it's yourself. you may have other guru(s)/teacher(s)/mentor(s) that will help you lead the way or align yourself with your inner guru but, the most important guru is you.

when i started teaching, i saw alot of things that i didn't want to do as a teacher. my former teacher really thought her student's practices were her's. she felt like she made them and that all they had accomplished was her work. it was almost like she felt like she owned them and when she found a better practioner, she tended to drop her students and try to own this new practioner's practice. i made a vow not to "own" someone's practice nor to "ditch" students for other random practitioners with great practices. it happened to me and it hurts. so much comes out of this journey, the last thing you should do is abandon a student no matter how beginner they are. i create the space for you every wed. what you come in with is your strength and dedication to your work. i'm only here to facilitate and to guide you as a "teacher" with a itty bitty "t". i am grateful and in awe of your hard work and i am really happy and joyus to share what happens in your practice. if you don't remember anything else...know that :)

i just wanted to say those thoughts before i get into the guru question... it really is hard to find an external guru. you almost want to put that person up on a pedestal. i personally don't feel like i am worthy of being a guru. after reading the autobiography of a yogi (yogananda), i feel like modern day "gurus" or i should clarify self professed "gurus" don't have shit on yoganada or krishnamacharya (iyengar and guruji's teacher). that's why bikram and rodney yee don't resonate with me and tim miller does. you can see it when he walks (or hobbles) into a room. he's the real deal. not some marketing machine that churns out the self proclaimed stamp of guru. with that said. i'm flattered that you see me as a guide. i can't offer myself to you as a guru (because i don't know shit :D) but, i can offer myself as a teacher (with a tiny "t") and a friend. quite honestly i am surprised, because i don't have "skillz" like tim!

i will do my best to help you with anything you need. but i also understand that you grow out of teachers and that i may not be the right teacher for you in 2 years. and that's something that is part of being a teacher. unfortunately, most teachers don't get that.

i'd like to think so - but, i'm not sure yet.

i've been having a couple of really strong practices lately and i now feel that oh so familliar urge to practice - like in a class or like by myself :0!!

it's been almost a year now of this lethargy and i think it may be lifting. for sure it would lift if i was in another town (ahem san diego or even austin for crying out loud). but for now i've got to work with what i've got and it isn't much.

i found out that i'm going to the Macromedia i mean Adobe MAX conference in October in Vegas. so, i'm trying to finagle it and see if i can visit my sister and her husband (that sounds so weird to me still) in SD and see tim at least for 1 day. i may have to pull a lion and fly into vegas and then catch a plane to SD and then fly back on monday morning. apparently they had MAX in anaheim last year. i really wish they could have repeated that. i'm excited to go. i mean the next coolest conference would have been flash forward NYC. so excited to geek out!

i love my clients. they are the best. even though all my clients are internal and i pretty much have 1 with other random clients, i couldn't have asked for better. today they gave me a junk drive that they were giving to all the doctors as promo gifts. only a g33k would appreciate that.

hmmm now to go to pistachio to get a birthday cake for mom and muki.

w007!