Flexibility (subtitle: She's baaaaaaack!!)

Wow, the silent echoes off the pages of my blog have been deafening. They crash and split and whirr, because it's as if this poor little blog is an empty can!

So, what has she been doing, you ask? I'm (sort of) glad you ask. It gives me a chance to call out...

"Help! I've been sucked into the FaceBook vortex, and I can't find my way out!"

I have a friend who turned me onto FB, mainly to share family photos and keep up. I figured it wouldn't go much past that. Then my mother and aunt got on FB, then the premed group found and friended me. Next thing I know, I have about 100 friends that I went to high school with (and haven't seen since then), 20 more online buddies from my bodybuilding days, a gazillion relatives that I'm so thankful to have a means of communication with, and friend requests from people I've never ever met before.

I have a dear friend who is a writer -- very good and very aspiring (check out her blog here) -- who summed it up perfectly the other day.

"FaceBook is evil," she said in response to me complaining about how easy it is to get distracted by it. "I haven't written since I joined." She, too, has a family -- only hers is complete with a wonderfully energetic toddler -- and even more limited time on the computer than me (at least I can pretend I'm studying when my nose is in my laptop, and everyone leaves me alone.) FaceBook has sucked that little bit of time bone dry.

Well, fortunately I can say that FaceBook isn't the only thing that has kept me from this beautifully cathartic blog-venture. (How embarrassing would that be?!) So what else have I been doing?

Besides school, that is...

P90X. I recognized from my personal training experiences that it was a good program, so I coughed up my birthday money (yes, at 38, I still get birthday money -- well, from my mother-in-law at least) and ordered the systerm. One word: WOW! And another: time-consuming (it counts -- the hyphen makes it one!)

Not that I'm complaining. It's structured enough that I will do it. I've let myself slip enough. It'd be a complete waste to get unhealthy whilst struggling towards medical school, only to get there and have a heart attack! So I'm on my second round, and am loving the results. Plus, I'm training for a 10K run in April. Loving the feeling of being so active again!

One of the weekly workouts is a 90-minute yoga class on dvd, and another is an hour of stretching. The flexibility element of the plan is what really sold me on it. I can lift heavy and keep my heartrate in the 170's for extended time intervals; I did that a LOT in order to get stage-ready. But I never worked on flexibility enough, and suffered the consequences. Within three weeks of my start date I noticed that shoulder pain that had been bothering me for a couple of years was just -- gone! My hips don't hurt near as bad as they used to (yes, I know I'm too young for that kind of chronic pain) and my back is much better, too.

But the thing I'm noticing is the most flexible is my schedule. What?? Well, sort of. I've discovered that, yes, I can work out while everyone else is awake and at home. I've discovered that my sons love to work out with me. I've even convinced my husband that this is actually fun and he's doing it as he gets time. (You think I'm busy?!)

Even my class schedule can be flexible. This year is the first year my spring break has not coincided with my childrens' break; they landed on two consecutive weeks. My research super told me this was due to the university's review for reaccreditation. While I still don't quite understand exactly what affect that process has on my spring break, I have no reason to not take her word for it.

At any rate, I approached all my professors and research supervisor with this solution: I do work in advance (during TSU's spring break) and take my actual break the following week. Risky. Simple. Daring. Stupid.

Yes, yes, yes, and yes. And it worked.

Mature Student's Lesson Learned? Our professors want us in their classes for what we add and what we take away (we attend more closely and work harder than traditional students, or so I've been told). And they will work with us around other commitments to ensure we are able to excel in their classes.

Classes/professors are more flexible than I ever thought! Heck, I'm more flexible, in that I actually acted on a wild thought, applying a fix that I never would have accepted before.

Wes and I take getaways as much as possible. Valentine's weekend. Anniversary weekend. Birthday weekend (his, mine, the Queen's.) The second weekend in November, just because. It keeps us refreshed. Without them we would implode under the load. No matter how stressful work got, I am convinced it was *nothing* compared to juggling classes, homework and family. One of my professors said the other day that once we start working we'll wish we were back in school. I've had a fulltime career, buddy, and believe me -- it was nothing compared to this! (not complaining here -- I adore school; I'm just simply stating the facts as I see them.) Wes is in school parttime, in addition to his more-than-fulltime job. Neither of us would make it without the quick weekend getaways. They help us stay flexible when the pressure would otherwise cause us to seize up.

At any rate, we get a getaway next week -- and it'll be a doozy! -- because my profs were flexible, and because I was flexible enough to take a chance and ask.

Palm trees are specifically adapted to the weather extremes of their ecosystems. They are tall and long and stretchy so that they can bend and bow beneath the wind of a tropical storm. Put a mighty oak tree on a tropical island and it'll be uprooted and destroyed by the wind. Strength is necessary, and one must be able to withstand much. But I propose that flexibility is all-the-more important when it comes to surviving extreme times. And I would be willing to bet that any mature student reading these words (and I'm flattered that you do, by the way) would agree that the juggling act of classes, homework, and family and other commitments would constitute extreme times.

So everybody, breathe and stretch with me...