Grad school is going well, and keeping me very busy. The work hasn’t been too difficult, just time-consuming. I’m really enjoying my Introduction to Library Studies class, and becoming familiar with the issues librarians deal with in the school, public, and corporate environments. I’ve also completed 25 hours of observation within school library media centers, both elementary and high school, and have felt at the end of each observation that I’ve picked the right career.

A couple of things have helped sustain me through the past two months, and I thought I’d drop them on y’all:

Friday Nights Lights. Sean started watching this show on Netflix streaming and after he, Natalie, and Brian gushed over it on our trip to Colorado, I decided to join the party. As usual, I’m years behind on this television show but it hasn’t stopped me from becoming obsessed and making things like the picture you see on your right. You know, because I have so much free time and all. Anyway, I’ve lost many hours of sleep to FNL but am happy to report that come Season 4′s premiere on NBC in April, I will be ready to watch it with the rest of the world. That’s right, I’m all caught up.

Yoga Today. My friend Anna and I have been trying to go to a yoga class at the new Shakti Yoga on Grant Street since it opened in January. We’ve yet to find a time or day that works for us so I’ve been sneaking in classes via the internet when I can. My new computer is fast and memory-free enough to download several podcasts from YogaToday.com. I highly, highly recommend you check out Yoga Today if you’re interested in adding variation to your routine or even if you’re a beginner. My favorite instructor is Neesha. She practices (and teaches) Anusara Yoga, a joyful and low-pressure style that I first learned in college at the Valley School of Dance & Shakti Yoga.

Friday, knowing that I was approaching my one-week anniversary with the flu, I became desperate to relieve the ever-present sinus pressure and began asking people for advice. Brynn, like I knew she would, suggested that I buy a Neti pot. Since we were IM’ing when she mentioned it, I responded with something like, “Great! Thanks! Will do!” and then laid my forehead on the desk in agony. I was and have been afraid of Neti pots.

About ten or eleven years ago I took my first yoga class in the back store of a New Age bookstore on Main Street near UB’s South campus. It was my 9th-grade boyfriend’s idea and, adorably, we signed up together. Our teacher, whose name I think was Jim, held court at the front of the room under a Sanskrit-worded banner and table lit with candles. We chanted Om.

One day at the end of class, Jim asked us to wait for a minute and pulled some things out of his bag. In his hands he held a small, ceramic pitcher, which I immediately associated with the Genie lamp from the Disney movie Aladdin (I was a year out of middle school, give me a break). He poured some water into the pitcher and then placed the rounded spout into one of his nostrils. He tilted his head to the side and as he lifted the pitcher, water poured out from his open nostril and into a bowl on the floor. My boyfriend, David, and I looked at each other, checking to make sure that we were both thinking the same thing: Eeeeeww, grooosssssssssss.

Ladies and gentlemen, my introduction and last impressing of the Neti Pot. Perhaps if I had not been a teenager and therefore incredibly self-conscious when I first learned of them, I wouldn’t have associated Neti pots with weirdness and disgust for so long. It’s sort of strange that I’ve maintained my revulsion for them considering my embrace of almost all other natural body and healing products (google “the keeper”)

So strong was my desperation though that on Friday after work, I went to the Lexington Co-op and bought myself a Neti Pot and non-iodized salt. At home I took the pot out of its box and slowly read through the instructions. In the bathroom with my warm (not hot!) saltwater-filled pot, I took a deep breath and tilted my head to the side. Though not as graceful as my yoga teacher Jim, water poured through one nostril and out the other. I crossed over.