Mindfulness--It's all the Rage

I attended a mindfulness-based stress reduction workshop yesterday, devoting my afternoon to a search for positive energy instead of going to the chili festival in town that I had been looking forward to for a week.  After an average month of "going through the motions," I decided that it was time to get myself out of my mental rut and see if I could get anything out of this workshop.  Ever since I got back from El Paso, things have been okay--not amazing.  My new classes, while interesting and engaging, seem like a hodgepodge of unrelated subjects.  I'm still not totally sure what I want to study, to the point where it has turned into a bit of an academic identity crisis.  Reality is sinking in, and each experience is not new and exciting like it was in fall term.

I went to the workshop with these anxieties, these common anxieties that all college students unfortunately have to share.  The room was filled with people who were interested in subjects like neurology, psychology, and religion, in addition to people who just wanted to figure out how to stay sane for four years.  Most of them were people I had already known, whether we were classmates or good friends.  In fact, we all had the appearance of regular students who weren't quite yet on the brink of ruin.  The truth is that stress is something that all college students must deal with, and there is no escaping it no matter how much training we have in mindfulness and stress reduction.  Our education system is designed that way, so that with each level of schooling, the pressure increases.  But there are ways to deal with stress productively, and I am convinced after this workshop that there is hope.

We did some typical meditation practices, including breathing meditation, a body scan, and some yoga.  As we practiced the yoga, I wondered how many people were nursing a hangover that afternoon and thought that some meditation would be the cure-all.  A Saturday afternoon mindfulness workshop must be more effective than the traditional bacon and coffee cure.  We lay around the room in sweatpants and hoodies on our yoga matts, moving around in awkward positions and cracking bones as we did so.  It was refreshing, especially when we did a 15-minute body scan and I could soon hear people snoring while we lay on our backs.  Our instructor guided us through the meditation calmly and peacefully.  It felt as if time had been suspended for a while, and we were floating in space for an eternity with the occasional reminder of our instructor to rest our minds on our elbows, then our wrists, then our fingers.  What was really helpful was to be in a room filled with people who had an interest in meditation and wanted to discuss how to incorporate it into their everyday lives.  It was relaxed, open, and laid back.

I enjoy when discussions about stress on my campus take place.  It is such an obvious element to college life, yet it is so easily ignored.  People accept that it has to be the reality and that there is no other way to go about life here.  I left the workshop with a renewed sense of peace and truly felt that it is possible to recognize the hundreds of satisfying moments that occur every day as long as we are aware of them.  It is far too easy to cover them up when we are stressed.

Images of the Border

I returned from El Paso, Texas, just over a week ago, and only now do I have time to write something about it.  I find it difficult to know where exactly to begin when it comes to describing the trip--I could describe the people I met, the words they told me, the food I ate, or the harsh facts that I learned.  Doing that, though, would make all of it seem like a travelogue, a static listing of places and activities.  It would make it seem like the trip was a holiday in which I followed a series of prescribed plans and enjoyed relative luxury.  The week was so dynamic and challenging that I don't think it would do it justice to describe it like that.  And besides, who takes a vacation in El Paso-Juárez anyway?  For these reasons, I think it best to talk about images.

The general point of the trip was to go to El Paso with a group of other students during February break.  It was called an "alternative break" trip, which is supposed to connote some type of service, but our mission was more academic than service-related.  By academic, I mean to say that we spent the entire week studying the border, the issues and people surrounding it, and immigration.  We met with different actors in immigration activism as well as border patrol officers and an immigration judge.  The idea was to gain a holistic perspective of what exactly immigration is, although I should preface all of this by saying that we stayed at a hospitality house for immigrants all week, so I am (quite) a bit more sympathetic toward one side than the other.

But now I am delving into specifics and giving the laundry list that I said I would withhold.  Back to images.  Our group spent a great deal of time reflecting upon images when we met every night to gather our thoughts, sharing what we saw and how we reacted to them.  While it may sound hokey and abstract, I truly have faith in the idea of images and the power they create.  I will take the first one I really acknowledged as powerful, for instance: the image of the border.  Our first day in El Paso, we toured the border itself and looked across to Mexico.  On the other side was a neighborhood called Anapra.  When I examined what was there, what stood out most was the eerie desolation of the place.  Granted, we were in the desert and the American side was equally barren, but across the fence stood a neighborhood that was virtually empty, save for a little girl who came to approach us and a man in the background.  The girl said that there were very few people living in Anapra and that most of the houses were abandoned.  There was something surreal about it.  On one side, there was a country of poverty and drug wars, and on the other relative privilege.  Each had a distinct culture that had been determined by innumerable factors.

As the week progressed, we learned more about the relationship between the United States and Mexico, about immigration law, about how to cross the border, and a plethora of other relevant information.  We toured a detention center--or a fancy word for jail--and witnessed the process that the undocumented go through if they are caught.  Seeing all of it was revolting in a way.  What an easy way to live among murderers and drug dealers for crossing illegally!  But this was only one of many things that made me realize we can do so much better as a society.  Don't even get me started on the checkpoints that are placed nowhere near the border...

From the balcony of the shelter we stayed at, you could see across to Ciudad Juárez, the mountains behind it nestling it in artificial security.  We never went to Juárez.  The College wouldn't let us cross the border because of the violence, and statistically Juárez is the murder capital of the world.  The closest I got was when I would stand on the balcony every night and stare across the border at the lights of the city, a thousand little orbs giving the false impression of quietness.  Before the trip, I had my own preconceived notions about Juárez, assuming it was a torn-down war zone.  Meeting people from Juárez at the shelter, though, and hearing their stories gave me a fresh perspective: it is still a city, it still has a culture, it still has beautiful people who are doing beautiful things.  I hope someday to return to El Paso and cross over to Juárez in order to see it myself instead of ramble on about what I think it's like.  I have had a longing to go there since I stared across at those lights for the first time.  When I came back to school, I had a lot to think about and still do.  It was a reality that I had not considered before, and while I have no intention to romanticize anything about the trip, it was absolutely refreshing.

J-Term Comes to a Close

My month of intensive Latin has finally come to a close now that I have taken my final, and it will soon be time to have a normal schedule again.  Most people I know say that it went by quickly, but I feel like it lasted long enough--maybe it was because I had a three-hour block of class every day of the week.  Such a routine seems to stretch the dimensions of time quite a bit.  While in a way it was refreshing to be able to focus on only one class for a month, I am more than ready to try juggling four again.  So, in a moment of reflection, here are some things I will miss about J-term, and some things that I won't miss.

Things I will miss:

• The lovely wintry atmosphere and newly fallen snow.
• Having class in close proximity to Sama's Coffee every day.
• Not caring how little sleep I got (sometimes).
• Skiing once.
• The new and improved social scene.

Things I will not miss:

• Having a three-hour class every day.
• Feeling like I'm in Groundhog's Day every day of the week.
• Walking to Twilight Hall every morning through the snow.
• Doing translations instead of playing in the snow.
• Fire drills in sub-zero temperatures.
• Listening to people brag about having class only three days a week.

Before the spring term starts, I have a week-long break to look forward to.  Tomorrow morning, I'll be leaving for El Paso, Texas, to work in a shelter for immigrants over Feb break.  Gone are the endless days of fundraising, selling random items, trying to win a scavenger hunt for the $1,000 grand prize, and filling out pre-departure forms.  This trip is, in a sense, the light at the end of the tunnel for all of us who are going on it with MAlt (Middlebury Alternative Breaks).  And once I return, there will once again be four classes to juggle.  We'll see how that works out.

Cross Country Skiing at Breadloaf

One of my goals this month has been to try skiing.  It seemed like every time I wanted to go, my plan would be foiled in some way--either my day would turn out to be too busy, the shuttle to the ski center wouldn't be running, or I would be paying for a late night the next morning.  I was so disheartened that I thought the only adventurous thing I could accomplish this month was my cake baking workshop (which is extremely fun, I must add).  Last week, however, I finally had the chance to try cross country skiing for the first time.  I went with Troy after class one day after we had the ambitious urge to head up into the mountains and give it a try.  Neither of us had done it before.  Luckily, when we sat down on the shuttle, we met another friend who was also planning on cross country skiing and who immediately offered to teach us, lest we should fall flat on our faces too many times.

The Breadloaf Campus has a series of well-groomed ski trails, affordable rentals to choose from, and a ski center with a wood burning fireplace and snack bar.  I paid $22 for skate ski rentals and a day pass for the trails, which is cheap considering the extensive network of trails at the guest's disposal.  One could easily spend a day at Breadloaf, exploring the trails that run through the nearby forests and plains.  Never having skied before, I was not sure whether to rent classic skis or skate skis, but our friend assured us that skate skiing would be much easier--or at least less exhausting than classic skiing.  So we donned our winter gear and put on our skis, ready to enjoy the gorgeous day away from the campus.  Trying skate skiing for the first time was nothing short of interesting.  I lost count of how many times I fell, but it must have been at least twenty throughout the day.  Skate skiing is undoubtedly less work than classic skiing, but the technique behind it is a little harder to master.  It is essentially like ice skating (you shift your weight from side to side as you propel yourself forward), except the ice skates are awkward and long.  I thoroughly enjoyed eating buckets of snow as I fell from going too fast, losing my balance, and not turning properly.  To say the least, it was humbling.

After a few hours of trying to get a hang of the technique (with some success), we decided to take a break at the ski center.  Drinking some hot chocolate and sitting by the fireplace was a perfect end to our skiing adventure.  It is interesting how every time I have tried to do something new this J-term, it has inevitably fallen through.  It got to be quite a buzz kill after awhile, but I realized that it has been mostly my fault for taking a language during what's supposed to be the most laid back month of the year.  I would quickly go back and do it again, though--and I still got to try skiing at least once.  Winter can easily become annoying, especially when everyone has to trudge through two feet of snow on their way to class and constantly walk in sub-zero temperatures.  And it can be irritating when driving becomes an Arctic expedition every time the ice gods decide the roads aren't slippery enough.  But come on, sometimes you just have to grow a pair and get out in the snow!  It's only there for a few months anyway, so why not take advantage of it?  And besides, enjoying what the snow has to offer instantly makes it less annoying.  It makes us appreciate the winter months and do something with the masses of white fluff that blanket the world.  Today, I decided to enjoy an afternoon inside because it's just too damn cold and I'm off from work.  Needless to say, though, I will be back outside soon, maybe to go skiing again or to try snowshoeing--if I ever get the time.

Inceptum

I tried to write in my journal after Latin class today for the first time in five days, and besides that short scribbling, in over a month.  I had no success no matter how eager I was to write at least something in those pages.  I decided that I would rather do this--create a blog filled with my random thoughts, goings-on, and ideas, whether or not people will actually read it.  People reading my thoughts has nothing to do with it, really.  I just realized that I had very little desire to scribble down my most private thoughts--the ones that a written journal would necessitate--so I put the leather-bound book back on its shelf and began working on this.  It isn't that I don't have private thoughts to write down in a journal; I've been keeping one consistently for over two years and have always found something to write in it.  I'm also sort of an old soul and have always preferred to write things down in a handsome, hardcover journal with tan pages and a ribbon that I can use as a bookmark.  But maybe I need a break from that.  It has become a bit routine and tiresome lately.  So this is my fresh start, in a sense.

I am sitting at a small table in the study lounge of my residence hall, grateful for the hour of free time that I have.  It has become a commodity this month, as I adjust to school again after spending a few weeks back at home in Milwaukee.  The truth is that I thought J-term (a month in which students only take one class) would be much more laid back than it turned out to be, or at least that's what everyone led me to believe.  I still have work, a trip to El Paso to fundraise for, and three-hour blocks of class every day of the week.  I suppose that's my fault for signing up for Latin.  I tell myself that it will be worth it by the end of the month, and I am pursuing my passion for language.  Even though the third declension pisses me off sometimes and even though I get exhausted, I can say that I enjoy what I am doing.  It is good to be back at school.  I can fuel my coffee addiction again because I was stupid enough to take a morning class, I can stay up late having spontaneous and profound conversations, and I can play impromptu games of ping pong until my heart is content.  So what if I haven't tried skiing yet?  There is a list of experiences that must be had in J-term, some of which I have fulfilled and some of which I have not.  You can't do everything in a month.

This is my new start, something refreshing that can distract me from the mundanity of having the same routine every day.  I cannot say who or what this is written for, aside from the very sake of writing.  I did not create this for any specific reason; I created it on a whim, and I hope I am consistent with it over the next few months.  As I sit at my table in the study lounge, I think about having a fresh perspective.  This is mine, and I think that it may help me to look at things in a new way.