February 14, 2012: Hot Date for V-Day

I should start this post by telling you that I can barely begin writing because I am laughing too hard about the title. Period Ten on Valentine's day consisted of two parts. Part 1: I grabbed a red and white tie-dyed T-shirt on my way out of the door in the morning with the intention of making a Valentine's Day T-shirt scarf either before school or during lunch. Did it...Here it is:

Part 2: Hot Yoga! Bikram Yoga to be exact. My friend and I met up after work for some yoga and then sushi dinner. I have done Bikram Yoga several times before but my friend had not. It is an extremely intense workout... well an intense experience all together. First, it is a 90 minute class and takes place in a room that is 105deg F (about 40.6deg C). Clearly even sitting in a room that hot for 90 minutes is excruciating... but add in 26 different strenuous exercises... you've got a challenge! Naturally I was curious about the origin of this seemingly torturous activity. My curiosity opened a can of worms... there is so much to learn. If you are interested in the detailed story just check out Bikram Yoga Wikipedia page and then click the live links to understand the terms and connections. (Thats how I learn all kinds of things.) Here are some of the interesting things that I learned on my informational journey...
There are many kinds of yoga... and there are even a couple of different versions of hot yoga. The Sanskrit word "yoga" literally means yoke... which sort-of means to harness or attach. Sanskrit is the primary language of Hinduism and Buddhism. The goals of yoga range from attaining good health to achieving moksha... or liberation from the suffering associated with life, death and reincarnation. Woaha. A key to achieving moksha is self-realization, which can be reached through performing different kinds of yoga. (Hmmm.... perhaps more people would practice yoga if it were marketed this way?? haha IDK.) Anyway, Bikram Yoga specifically was developed by an Indian man named Bikram Choudhury. He actually started studying yoga when he was three years old and was incredibly successful in yoga competitions (who knew you could compete in yoga??) in his teenage years. His style of yoga is practiced in a hot room with exactly 26 physical poses and breathing exercises. The theory behind the breathing exercises is that they increase lung capacity and therefore oxygen absorption. The physical poses are meant to be strenuous and compress certain areas of the body, cutting them off from blood flow. This, supposedly, causes the heart to pump faster in an effort to supply those areas with blood. When you release from the pose the fresh, oxygenated blood rushes into the deprived area. 
I have to say, when I leave Bikram Yoga I do feel awesome. I have heard some views though that it is dangerous and the heat in the room can invite overextension of muscles and joints, which could be detrimental. I can totally see how this would be addicting, however, because it really does feel refreshing when you are done. I am intrigued by Buddhism and the goals of overall physical and mental health and clarity. 

February 13, 2012: Totally Tubular

Clearly I am getting a little bit behind in updating... I have to look at my list on my phone to remember what I created on the date that I am writing about... Yikes! I have to get this caught up.

On this day, Monday February 13th, I went to training at TSK which was, as it always is, very refreshing. While I was waiting for class to start I was in a Starbucks working on Period Ten. It was then that I realized Period Ten was about to get 1000 views! I thought this was pretty exciting, so thanks for stopping by everyone :).

When I returned home from training at about 10PM, I put some finishing touches on a piece that I had started earlier in the week. Now, I have to say that this is not a test tube! Which, one might assume that I stole from the lab at school... haha. I didn't! This does lead me to the fact that this is a glass cigar tube. I do not smoke cigars! There are all kinds of fun cigar packaging things out there at rummage sales though. Cigar boxes and tubes make great crafting supplies. (So... are we clear? -- I did not steal a test tube... and I do not smoke cigars! haha)

As you can see the tube is filled with colorful seed beads that I have collected over the years. I poured some Ice Resin into the tube and moved it around until the resin covered the sides of the tube. Then I poured the beads in and rolled it around until the beads were stuck all over the sides of the tube. I had to let it sit for a day until the resin hardened. Then I repeated, and repeated, etc. I envision this to be a fun little vase that I hang in the window in the summer with fresh cut flowers. I still have to figure out how to hang it though... TBA.
To learn more about how the resin works, click the label below to jump to previous posts. The new information that I learned is that the term resin is actually referring to organic molecules (hydrocarbons, specifically) produced by plants! I'm not sure that it can get more biology related! As I read through the Wikipedia page, I became more and more fascinated by things you could learn by just being interested in using resin to make stuff! For example, did you know that frankincense and myrrh are resins? There is an incredible amount of history in those two examples. I was particularly interested in the fact that resins are used to make incense and perfume. Obviously there is a ton of organic chemistry going on here too.... without even looking for it.