No Good Deed Bends that Way, Or, How I Learned to Not Mail Overnight or Practice Bikram Yoga

Last week I decided to send a friend something for his birthday, and surprisingly I planned ahead. Not only that, but I followed through with those plans, and 40 minutes before my 9 AM class I set out to FedEx with a fresh cake, book, and card, ready to take on the day.

Now, I consider myself a fairly lucky person.  The only thing about it is my luck seems to operate under Murphy's Law*, which on one hand means when I'm unintentionally unprepared, things tend to turn out okay or better.  However this also means that when I'm prepared or overprepared, life gets interesting.

First off, and most time-killing, I was sent to the wrong address.  The street number and name were all correct, only the town wasn't.  I live on this northern sliver of a section of one town, that is  about .5 miles east of the next town and .1 miles west of another.  And apparently the different organizers of these tightly packed communities decided they like each other so much they would use some of the same street names**.  And so, I drove in the completely wrong direction, into a neighborhood that has yet to establish a FedEx.

Upon figuring out the correct address and cursing the Maps App or address from the website (wasn't really sure where the mistranslation occurred), I quickly drove to FedEx, sacrificing a bit of my car's underbumper*** on a too-lately-spotted dip in the road.  By now the morning drizzle had augmented to a dull downpour, but I managed to swiftly and gracefully make it into FedEx.

At the counter I was told that legally they are not allowed to package food and I would have to do it myself at a separate counter (challenge accepted).  First, I had to be given the correct size box.  Interestingly, my pan dimensions must have increased by half an inch in the course of baking, and I was told that it was just slightly (I cannot express how slightly) too big for their small box sizes.  So the 13x9" pan would have to go in a 17x17x7" box.

So after assembling the box with help from a wily tape dispenser and a counter not kind to the vertically challenged, I was faced with the decades-old problem of "How much bubble wrap is too much?" The answer is no such thing, but I used all of a 30 or 50 foot roll next to the counter, sealed up the overcompensating package, and returned to the first counter to wait for the associate who had been amusingly watching me struggle the past ten minutes.

Now, I knew the bubble wrap was about $12, the box around $3, there would be tax, and of course some hefty fee for priority overnight ninja mail to make sure the cake didn't spoil.  The associate rang it up and mumbled my total as she reached for something under the counter.
"I'm sorry - what was that again?" I thought I had heard 73-something, which was okay, up there but not insane.
The associate stood back up. "$173.17"
I'm hoping I wasn't frozen in shock too long, before looking at the clock, seeing I had 8 minutes to get to class across town, and making the conclusion it was not worth figuring out what the ultimate mailing-priority-cost efficiency was.

I passed my credit card over, rushed out the door and made it only 10 minutes late to class. I then proceeded to stalk-track my package the next 24 hours, partly to make sure I got my money's worth, but also secretly hoping that they were delayed and I could score even a partial refund.

And that is how I learned to never ship 4 lbs across country overnight.
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I have a few friends from home that have accused me of getting "west coast" on them - you know, eating farmer's market over fried chicken****, trying alternative forms of exercise (such as hiking regularly), and generally being more active and healthy. And while yes, there have been a few healthy lifestyle changes I've picked up, I may have overdone it with bikram yoga.

Bikram yoga (which I have accidentally called Brickman, Birkham, among other pianist-sounding names) is a certain series of fairly static yoga poses performed while in a very hot room.  The particular studio my roommates, roommate's friend, and I tried had 90 minutes sessions at about 100 degrees. I had planned to work out Friday anyway, and I thought changing up my routine would be a good thing. Foolish mortal.

Imagine a brightly-lit, carpeted sauna, packed with people of a variety of age in a variety of clothes-coverage; an annoyingly-serene auctioneer in only a short towel raffles off stretch instructions while sitting cross-legged on a baby lifeguard stand.  Two adjacent full-wall mirrors allow one to see just how red and sweaty you are in comparison to your fellow hellmates, at least the ones that are still standing.  Your thoughts proceed down a path that you feel many have paved before you...'this isn't so bad'...'a bit difficult, but I'm not that flexible'...'it's not so much the poses as the heat'...'this is almost like meditating, only very uncomfortable'...'"breathe threw your nose" sure easy for you to say, mouth-breather'...'do my eyelids have sweat glands? I feel like I'm visually drowning'...'don't look at the clock, don't look at the clock'...'what is time, anyway? or pain? or heat?'...'nope this is what hell is like, has to be'...'okay one look at the clock - 80 minutes left?!'...

To add to this unique experience, I forgot to bring water, but was rescued halfway through by my nearby gracious roommate.  I also laid my yoga mat and towel down right in front of the heater, a fact I failed to note until about 5 minutes into the some of the 90 longest minutes of my young life.

Dehydrated, gross, and body on fire, we emerged from the depths of bikram to a sweet cool drizzle.  To be fair, I didn't completely hate it - in fact I had wanted to go back on Monday, but a joyous trip to urgent care nipped that in the bud.  But that's for another post.

My Fifth Class

As usual, I start writing something and never finish. However I hope to remedy that by making this blog my unofficial fifth class for the semester - every Sunday I'll have a new post up (no promises on time however, and I'm going by PST).

And I know I will eventually miss a Sunday and end up posting later in the week.  But that's the benefits of being your own professor!

On another note, for future reference I asterisk things I want to tangent about on the second page of my posts, so if you're curious as to what I'm curious about be sure to click "Read more" at the bottom of each post.*

I'll have a new post up by Sunday about my most recent adventures at FedEx and Bikram Yoga!

"If you're not scared, you're not taking a chance...

A Virginian graduate school had offered me a very nice financial deal: along with my Master's classes, a job that would cover half of my tuition the first year, with the potential of a promotion the second year that would cover my tuition for that year and leave some money left over.  I was looking at a secured 50% off tuition, with the possibility of 75%.  I had the opportunity to go to a good psychology Master's program in my home state, a few hours drive from my home town, with what seemed like a lovely staff based on the half hour phone conversation I had with one of the faculty.  Probably the nicest phone call with a complete stranger I've ever had, if not the longest.

Beyond this offer, I had received a lot of "No, thank you"s.  Three, exactly, with a fourth to come long after I had made a decision.  All from some good schools, a couple of which I had at different points in my undergrad career envisioned myself attending.  But like my quirky 4 year-old self, they politely told me "Not now, maybe later."

But there was another "yes", a "yes" I'm not entirely sure I was expecting.  This "yes" came from the West Coast, which is probably why I received my acceptance e-mail before my acceptance letter.  I was very excited when I read the e-mail title: "Welcome!" When I opened the e-mail it read like this:

"Congratulations...(etc. etc.)...Thank you for your application...(etc. etc.)...Unfortunately-"

Wait. "Unfortunately"? "Unfortunately" is a term only used to reject someone in the nicest way possible (read: the least fault-accepting possible). You are technically blaming this negative outcome on "fortune" or bad luck.  Unless their was a coin flip in this decision making process, I highly doubted that. More importantly, I was curious at the seemingly contradicting e-mail.

"...we are unable to offer you a place in our Doctorate program at this time.  However..."

"However". That saving grace, "however".  Turns out they did, however, accept me into their Master's program.  I was, well, ecstatic.  This program was very unique, unlike any of the others for which I had applied.  I would be studying something only offered at two universities in the country with some of the lead researchers and published professors in the field.

But the tuition was almost four times that of the other offer, a vast majority of which I'd have to take out in loans.
But I wasn't even 100% sure what I wanted to do with this degree, let alone what would be available for me.
But it was 3,000 miles away from 99% of the people, places, and things I knew backwards and forwards.

The second I got that e-mail, I knew what I wanted.  I just wasn't sure what I needed.  

Say, for a moment, you needed a quadruped*. Particularly of the horse variety.  You are given an option of a beautiful, young, half-off Palomino (was never much of a horse girl as a kid, but if I had the money to get one now, it would be a Palomino).  This Palomino comes from good breeders who know the horse's lineage - you even know of a few people who have bought a Palomino from these breeders and they've been very, very happy.

And then someone offers you a Zebra.

Sure, the Zebra's, well, a freaking Zebra! Technically it fits the whole quadruped qualification while quadrupling the unique factor.  No one else you know has ever had a Zebra, which makes you both intrigued and anxious.  The Zebra is of course more pricey (it's has to come a lot farther than the Palomino).  You also have no idea what to do with or how to take care of a Zebra, but hey, that's what resources like zookeepers, biologists, and the Internet are for, right? Some people in your life will think you are a bit eccentric for riding a Zebra around town; but you'll also find some people who think it's downright awesome and maybe even want to give you a high-five (which you'll give them, bending down slightly from atop your Zebra).

You've wanted a Palomino for a few years now...but you never even thought it was possible to own a Zebra**.  What do you do?

I ended up accepting the West Coast offer.  And while I was so excited about all the positives, the "but"s still made me anxious.  What if I can't manage my loans?  What if I can't succeed in these courses? What if I'm unable to land a job that pertains to this degree, financially makes up for this degree, and overall makes me feel fulfilled?

What sold me was thinking what would I wonder five years from now? Would I wonder what would've happened if I went to that Virginian university?  Probably not.  But I sure as hell would wonder what would've happened if I have been just crazy enough to move to California and study what inspired me.

If there's one important thing you need to know about this blogger, it's that I adore the show How I Met Your Mother.  I stumbled upon it in its first season and have watched it since (you always seem to love the shows/movies/music you found yourself more than the ones people show you). And there's something Ted, the often-desperate, but funny, hopeless romantic in the show said once that I liked.

"I mean, if you're not scared, you're not taking a chance. And if you're not taking a chance, then, what the hell are you doing?"

Last fall I went skydiving for the first time and, somehow, that was less scary to me than the idea of attending a grad school no one I had ever met had attended (most had never heard of) and moving to California.  I guess because if messed up this leap, I'd have to actually live with the consequences.

But seriously...who doesn't want a zebra?