Dear Diary, with Edit

I know, I know… I suck at updating. i’m sorry. What have I been up to lately? Just a lot of working, and trying to socialize on a budget. I’m working more than ever, having added 4 classes to my schedule at the beginning of september, bringing my total up to 11 classes a week. I have known for years that my comfortable max to teach is 10 classes a week, and by the end of September I had a talk to our ‘talent coordinator’ and gave up one of my classes. I dropped the Kundalini yoga class, because it was my only Kundalini class and besides feeling like I was spread a little thin, I also felt the need to keep that practice personal… it’s my happy place, and it’s good to have it feel like it’s just for me.

I’ve had another teacher kind of up in my business and I’m handling it by choosing to not respond. One of my new classes was in a time slot that she liked and she wanted it… she emailed me and facebook messaged and FB wall posted me about, telling me that it was a really good time and location for her, and would I please give it to her and so on… I said that I’d like to keep it. She contacted the talent coordinator and did the same thing, and the TC told her something along the lines of ‘well, you’ve been teaching for 2 years, and Kewal’s been teaching for almost 9. we really need someone experienced with holding a large class…" Ever since then, she’s been showing up in my classes and then emailing me with comments like "why didn’t you adjust my blah blah blah while you were doing this posture?" or "wow, your style of teaching is so different from Sharon’s" which is crazy… Sharon has been my teacher since I started practicing yoga, and she and I take classes from each other all the time; we agree that we’re very similar… in fact, I’m the only teacher that she recommends to people beside herself. So yeah… I don’t let drama into my yoga world, end of story, so you’re being ignored teacher lady.

I do love teaching, and I realize that I’m really lucky to be where I am in my career. My average class size is probably 15 people, with some of my morning classes being around 10 people, and most of my evening classes getting 18-25 people. I have one Friday morning gentle yoga class that is anywhere from 20 to 30 people, easily… and all of this is done without me having to market myself. All I have to do is show up and teach, and continue to train and practice… I have the best job ever, and I love it.

So… why all the work? I’m going to Europe with Rich in May! We have our tickets, and we both have savings accounts that we’re using to…save, duh. we probably have about 9000 bucks saved up now, and my plan has me saving a minimum of 1500 bucks a month until May. Between the two of us, we should have about 20,000  bucks for a month in Europe. We could both spend 2000 bucks a week and still have a little left over. I don’t intend to go crazy like that, but aside from lodging and travel I want to do one thing… buy new wedding rings. We’ll have just celebrated our 10 year wedding anniversary and will arrive back in the states on our 12 year anniversary of our first date… and well… I want a new ring. Our rings now are beautiful… silver and gold, and carved with leaves and flowers, but I want a stone, either an emerald or a diamond. Or maybe I’ll see something totally different and want that. Who knows? Shrug.

So yeah… I don’t have a lot of time for the writing, but I’m here almost daily to read… hope you folks are doing well.

Edit – I’ve relaunched my more public blog in preparation for my vacation, so I will be updating there and sharing some of my mad photographic skillz, yo. I still have a dark room set up in my house, though I made the switch to digital years ago. I’ve pretty much had a camera on me since I was 14. You can check it out at http://www.daringyoungman.com