My Boss says "Go to Yoga!"

I'm pretty sure I have the world's awesome-est boss. Yesterday, he said to me "You're pretty strung out. Have you been to yoga? I think you should make the time to go."

This dude does not practice yoga at all, but he can definitely pick up on how yoga affects me.

Once again, I've not managed to find the balance. I've been going through a slammed period at work, I get the keys to my new home tomorrow, and today would've been a year ago that K and I broke up after 5 years together.

So... there's a lot going on on every level and it really felt like I was at breaking point a few days ago. When your phone's still ringing at midnight with work calls and starts up again at 7am, and when you get a 15-minute respite from work only to have to attend to new-house stuff like choose tiles with the contractor or discuss induction versus gas cookers with the kitchen guy... it's a bit hard to tell your arse from your elbow when you're going from spinning one plate to another. And when I say "you", I really mean "me".

So... I've been strung out and exhausted. In my head, I couldn't really face having to get through a 2-hour practice followed by an 18-hour day at work with full-on stress. Leaving what... 4 hours of sleep?! When I got it in my head that "tomorrow, I will go to the shala to practice even if I don't get enough sleep"... some how this would add to my stress levels and I'd end up insomniac. Totally sabotaging all plans to practice in the morning since by the time I'd fall asleep, it would be 3am.

Some meditation and gentle forward bends before sleep has helped... But I guess I'm struggling with "that Ashtangi mentality" of "Do your practice" (EVERYDAY). I can't. I give up.

In the past year since moving to Amsterdam, I've learned to be OK with where I'm at with my practice. I mean... it's been 1.5 years since I was officially given my last pose, Laghuvajrasana, in Sydney. It used to upset me that all this starting and stopping of my practice because of my up-and-down work schedule had "stagnated" my practice.

But I guess that's only if you look at it on the surface, from a total Asana point-of-view. The other things I've learned along the way include being kind to myself - not beating myself up if I've missed a practice (or a few...), and also learning to accept that people go through different stages in life and your yoga practice needs to adapt to that too.

Sometimes I wonder how much of that is STILL making excuses for not getting on the mat and how much of that is really learning not to be THAT attached to the asana part of the practice. Even if I've done just 3 sun salutations or meditated for 10 minutes, I don't "count" that as having practiced. But dammit, it all counts!

So... Granted, I have been feeling lost of late, and it was good to have had a pep talk with the boss. He basically pulled me aside and we just talked. Talked about life stuff. Talked about finding balance. Talked about how at the end of the day, it's JUST work. He was basically telling me I need to reprioritise and put yoga at the top of my list, since he could see how I get affected when I don't practice. "Even if it means you come in an hour late coz you need to go to yoga, take that time. Otherwise when you work the way we work all the time, you're gonna burn out fast."

He's a pretty progressive boss, my boss. I am grateful to have someone as understanding as him mentor me at work. Guess I needed that timeout to pause just for a bit and think about what the hell I've been doing. I definitely need a holiday, that's for sure! Oh but wait, I have to fix this house up first. Arggghhhhhhh! Hahaha.

There's a lot going on. I just need to remind myself to take it one day at a time. Sometimes it feels like I need to take it one hour at a time. Oh, and... I need to GO TO YOGA!

Pretty Prague

Holy Tamale. It's almost been a month since my last post?! Where'd the time go? ...I'm not even gonna make excuses. I've obviously been busy. In between prepping a shoot, I bought a flat. It felt like when I was spinning plates in the air - once I put the work plate down, the house plate had to keep spinning. Since something had to give, I suppose it was keeping up with this blog. Sorry!

A couple weeks ago, I was in Prague on a shoot. Daaaaaaaaaaaaamn. Prague is pretty. No wonder people rate it highly. You definitely get the sense that this place was once a filthy RICH boom-town. There's gilded EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE. As in... there are fancy accoutrements on the oldschool buildings, inside the buildings, and as a workmate pointed out, there are statues EVERYWHERE. In any nook and cranny they could find, a bust of a person would pop up or be built into it.

We had a wee bit of downtime on this trip (we actually had like 4 hours on a Sunday free to roam around! Wheee! Sounds sad that that was the only time we had for leisure, but that's quite a luxury when you're on a shoot!) And fortunately we were shooting in some pretty spectacular locations so we got to do some "sightseeing" while on the job. HAHAHA.

Check out the interior of the opera house. This place is bananas.






And the National Museum there's pretty bananas too!





The food was... Well... It was pretty much full of pork. I felt like I was in a Monty Python skit. Y'know, the one about the spam? Just substitute the spam with pork, pork, pork. And pork. Would you like pork with your potato-pork dumplings? Pork in your pork stew? Pork neck? Pork hock? Pork tripe? Pork sausage? Pork, pork, pork. And more pork for you?

***GAG***


(BUT... to the credit of the city of Prague, they actually had pretty decent vegetarian options on the menu so I was safe)

On the Sunday afternoon we had free, we made a tourist-blitz around the city. Well, just to the top of some hill to see the church and castle up there.


(We were cracking up that that looked like a medieval baseball bat. We are so cultured)


(I got photo-bombed there on the right. But as far as photo-bombings go, that's actually a pretty good shot!)






I thought it was pretty hilarious that all the tourists were stood in the middle of this amazing abbey, ALL with their cameras pointing skywards. People nowadays just can't stand still and take in the awesome wonderment before them without feeling the need to capture it on camera somehow. (and of course I'm the most guilty of the lot)


It was the week before Easter, so there were groups of ladies dressed up in traditional costume (at least that's what I think they are?) and they were singing throughout the church.






Is it odd that I LOVE this door hinge? I don't think I've seen a more beautiful door hinge in my life. And I never thought the day would come when I'd wax lyrical about a door hinge either.


This is their famous clock in the old town square. Unfortunately it was out of order, so we didn't get to watch the whole spectacle that happens at the start of each hour.


See what I mean by there are statues EVERYWHERE? I mean - they've put statues on pedestals in the middle of a wall. It's bananas.


A GORGEOUS art-nouveau building, filled with stained-glass and ornate artwork.


One of the highlights of this trip was shooting in the Barrandov studios. The Chronicles of Narnia was shot on the backlot here, and it's just pretty amazing to see soundstage after soundstage after soundstage in one place. The most famous (and oldest) soundstage here is Studio 4. It's entirely built out of wood and is basically where Leni Riefenstahl, Hitler's filmmaker, shot most of his Nazi propaganda films. HOLY SHIT!!!


The caretaker here very kindly unlocked the studio and allowed us to have a peek inside this infamous place. It is still a studio in use till today. I have to say, the inside of this place smells DISGUSTING. Damp, dank, and it just smells really OLD and STALE (must be all that negative joo-joo from years gone by).


The interior is pretty spectacular though. Like a post-apocalyptic warehouse wasteland.


(Hehe)









And then we walked round to the backlot. Yes, that same backlot where Narnia was shot. This same place was once a winter wonderland for that film, but now it's a medieval town. It's hilarious how the inside of the set really feels like you are in an old town, but when you knock on the walls, it's all wooden and hollow.




I love this shot showing you what a facade it is!!



And that's pretty much all I can share with you of the trip! The rest of the pictures can only be revealed after the spot airs. ;p

PS. Have I mentioned I'll get the keys to my new apartment on June 1? Yeah, MY VERY OWN HOME! ...Will have more rivetting updates soon of kitchen tiles and contractors. Haha.

-----