Unexpected day off and STILL procrastinating!

I requested today off of work so that I could participate in a massage event with one of my teachers, but she cancelled so I ended up having the entire day off. I thought that this would be an excellent opportunity to study for my Pathology final tomorrow and for my Massage II final on Wednesday. It is almost 11:00 p.m. and I still haven't scratched the surface of all that I feel I SHOULD do to prepare for tomorrow's final. Sigh.

A lucky thing - I've always been a great test taker. I don't get nervous, and some strange part of me actually enjoys being tested. I'm a pretty good mulitple choicer, and the majority of my massage school exams are m.c. When I have to essay, I'm an excellent bullshitter, and can usually write my way into good marks for answers to questions that I actually know nothing about. You pretend to know. Fake it till ya make it! This works most of the time.

So in spite of my procrastination habit, I'm not going to fail my exam tomorrow. I'll probably get an A even if I am undeserving. Wednesday's final is a different story - a practical exam where I have to work on my teacher! Eek! I suppose the fake it till ya make it rule applies here too. What massage doesn't feel good? And as long as I'm in the general area of certain muscle groups that I'm supposed to know I'll be fine.

Okay, back to studies.

Spa-ing

Last weekend after giving massages to a couple of friends at their home (my only 2 clients and they are wonderful!) on a house call, I had the luxury of joining a good friend of mine at Thousand Waves Spa for three hours. My friend had two free passes to use the facilities - a whirlpool, sauna, steamroom, showers and a "relaxation room".

I had only been to one spa prior to Thousand Waves, and it was in Portland (you know - the West Coast where you can pretty much expect the unexpected, so I had no idea whether or not that expereince was normal) so this was pretty new to me, and I wasn't sure what to expect. Bathing suits were optional - this was a big issue for my friend and I. We didn't know if we should bring suits because we had heard that most people don't, and we didn't want to be the weirdos with suits on, but we also weren't entirely comfortable with the idea of prancing around in our birthday suits for three hours. My friend ended up bringing a suit. I didn't. I decided that in order for me to get the full spa experience I needed to do what the Romans did - literally. And I felt the need to "do the spa thing" because of the industry I'm going in to. "Research" I call it.

Well after pruning in the hot tub, suffocating in the Eucalyptus Steam Room, sweating buckets in the sauna, and taking multiple showers for three hours I felt that I had a pretty good taste of your typical Chicago spa. My favorite part actually turned out to be the Relaxation Room where it is socially acceptable to wear clothing (the robe you are handed at the door) and where it is quiet and filled with guilty pleasures like girly magazines (Elle, Marie Claire, Glamour - of that ilk). I learned from my first real spa experience that I do enjoy having a place to go where I'm supposed to relax. You aren't allowed to run around shouting at people or frantically sweeping the floor so you kind of have to slip into the groove of relaxation. Something Cara needs much more of in her life. My body also felt pretty good after soaking in the whirlpool, and so I decided that a definite perk to working as a massage therapist in a spa setting is that you can probably use the facilities for free.

Today after giving a massage to one of the same two people I worked on last weekend I decided that I would go back. However, the friend that I worked on recommended a different spa - one closer to my apartment, and two dollars cheaper than Thousand Waves for unlimited use of their facilities for a day.

Totally different! This was a Korean place called Paradise, at which I was fantastically the only white woman among women of all ages who were there to be healthy (as opposed to checking each other out). In other parts of the world massage and relaxation are considered basic components of maintaining health - not a frivolous indulgence. I actually liked the facility much better - nicer pools, better lighting, some things were kinda old and crumbling a bit, but it was clean. There was no question about the clothing issue - several signs were posted at the entrance "No Clothing allowed in Spa". You go naked and that's that. The owners were no nonsense and supervised the goings-on quite well. A woman who looked to be about 70 kept asking me if random towels that were strewn about were mine. Aparently it is a very bad thing to lose track of the towels that you are given. I made the mistake also of taking my hand towel with me into the whirlpool so that I could use it as a compress for my sore shoulders. The woman wagged her finger at me and said, "no no no no no no no!" I apologized profusely and decided it was time for me to leave shortly thereafter. I was ready anyway. Spending three hours in a spa really isn't my thing. I have the attention span for only about two hours. Another interesting thing about Paradise - the relaxation room is called the "nap room" I think and all it consists of are about fifteen lounge chairs pointing at a television with the USA channel on. So you don't even have the opportunity to get caught up in girly mags! You get so bored watching old westerns that you doze off!

So I'll definitely go back - to both places. I think that it is the perfect way to unwind on a Friday night after a long week. Well, actually any week night would be fine also. I've learned a lot, and feel that next time I will be able to relax a little better knowing what I'm in for. I also know to limit my time, go by myself (so I'm not tempted to talk up a storm), and bring my own hygiene products. At Paradise the women have little plastic totes that carry all of their personal products. This way you don't have to use the Suave Shampoo.

I'm off to bed now. Wow, I guess I'm liking the blogging thing again! I'll keep you posted on the spa scene in Chicago.

Okay, now I feel better...

The fact that my blog is accessible to people that google my name bugs me, so I changed the address in hopes that this isn't possible. I think this has also been part of the reason I haven't written in a while. Anyway, here I am again after another long break. I don't know if I'll be able to get the blog momentum going again, but I felt like writing tonight so here it goes.

For those of you familiar with the Enneagram, I'm a type 4, otherwise known as "The Individualist". I'm also a "Four with a Five wing" which means that I tend towards Type 5 behavior on occasion. Dave is a Type 5, "The Investigator", and what this looks like is this: a person who LOVES to be alone, holed up in their apartment, working on "projects", isolating and intellectualizing. A Type 5 is your typical computer geek who loves to tool around with gadgets and do things on their own time. This is me this weekend. Not a bad thing, but not very exciting either. I'd rather be curled up with a book or searching for useless information on the web than talking with anyone, including Dave. He's happy too, because he gets to Type 5 in the "middle room" without his Type 4 wife having an emotional outburst because she isn't getting enough attention and/or isn't receiving help she feels she deserves with cleaning the apartment. Anyway, we're both contented this eve.

I was really into the Enneagram for a while, but sort of lost interest when I started school. Some of it is pretty negative and forces you to look at all of the icky parts of yourself you'd rather forget about. I prefer pretending that I'm just groovy the way I am without any rigorous work on my issues. Happily oblivious! Anyway, I much prefer being oblivious to being in emotional turmoil, which, on a bad day is quite bad I must say. Lately things HAVE been groovy though. I've been doing yoga every night, eating lots of veggies, using aromatherapy, taking vitamins, and treating myself to new thrift store clothes and Walgreens makeup.

By the way, as a follow-up to my last post, it was determined that I actually AM a Yang rather than a Yin (long long story), but that early in life I switched from being a happy Yang to a troubled Yin because of some kind of trauma. (Not to say that Yins are troubled, but if a switch from a predominantly Yang personality to Yin personality occurs like that it isn't a good thing, and vice versa. ) For me I believe this was normal adolescent trauma, but people at school have suggested hypnotherapy to get to the real bottom of what happened. Well, I don't think that's necessary, but I am enjoying what I like to call my reyangification phase. By adding more Yang into my life, I've not only discovered what I've been missing all of these years, I've learned that there is a reason that Yin activities like Yoga and eating vegetables make me feel better - they make me balanced. There's also a reason why I get addicted to Yang substances like caffiene, sugar, carbs, and why I'm prone to anger. So though I've re-discovered hip-hop and rap, driving fast, watching junk on television, consuming copious amounts of caffeine and sugar, being sweaty and smelly (hey, this is a great excuse to participate in another Yin activity - nightly baths!), asserting myself when I'm angry, speaking my mind, loving the sunshine, being more in my body instead of in my head, and doing hard physical work (working out, doing loads of housework, giving lots of massages, etc.), I'm gradually realizing what needs to go and what can stay. For example, Eminem and The Blackeyed Peas can stay, but now I'm adding Brian Eno, Delerium, Daniel Lanois, Kate Bush, and Geoffry Oryema to the ipod. Sweating bullets is okay, but eating whole pints of soy ice cream in one sitting isn't. Doing housework is fine, but doing ALL of the housework isn't. I can learn to ask for help.

So as kind of a last hurrah after school is finished next week, I plan to go to an acupuncturist I know to get needled for my terrible pms problem, acne, poor circulation, depression and ADD, and also to get a good massage from a trusted graduate of my school. Yee hah! I can't wait! Amazing how as a soon to be licensed massage therapist I've only had one full hour massage in the past year.

Okay, enough for now. Now that you know much more about me than you'd ever hoped it is time to say goodnight. I love the fact that in blogging you can be so damn egocentric - only write about yourself and not give a hoot about what anyone thinks because after all it IS my blog, and you ARE proceeding with Cara, right?