Stay Tuned
Well, I figure it's about time to give my loyal readers an update, as I haven't posted anything since I was leaving for the retreat and I'm sure everyone's getting anxious. So here's what's going on:
I've felt pretty overwhelmed lately. In addition to working 40+ hours a week at Great Insurance Jobs, I've been...
- PHP Programming for The Atlasphere The main programmer for the site has been extremely busy lately, so Joshua Zader hired me to do various tasks in my sparetime at the rate of $20/hr. I really enjoy being able to contribute to The Atlasphere and I'm glad I have the opportunity to work with Josh. The additional income is great too, but sometimes I put in odd hours -- Last night, I stayed up til 3am fixing the site's cookie for the dating section.
- Writing New Blog Entries So far, I've drafted about 6 or 7 new entries that are waiting to be completed. One of those includes the details of my retreat experience, which I expect to publish this weekend.
- Attending Meditation Class This class is every wednesday night at 7, and consists of meditating for 45 minutes, followed by a 75 minute dharma talk. While we hadn't been going for a while, we've been both wednesdays since we returned from the retreat because the retreat reinvigorated our interest in the subject. Grant came with us to last night's class, followed by Starbucks afterwards for percolated beverages and conversation. I had a really great time.
- Volunteering with Renovating the Meditation Hall The meditation hall is located in Peter's backyard, and he's decided to add another big room onto it, so Brittany and I went there last saturday and helped him paint, followed by 45 minutes of meditation. I plan on helping some more in the weeks to come, it's a really neat feeling to go there and know that a part of you is forever part of the meditation hall.
- Exercising I recently joined LA Fitness on Monday night and have since worked out there twice doing high-intensity strength training. It's nothing like Ken's gym -- There's mirrors on all the walls, lots of people there, less-than-desirable equipment and annoying techno music playing. The worst part, though, was the salespeople. We had to deal with this greasy guy with a mustache and a Brooklyn accent. Some of my favorite lines of his: "You look like quality people, so I think you deserve to attend a quality club." After he said that, I just laughed and said sarcastically, "Well, I never thought of it THAT way!" Another one was, "So what ya sayin' is, ya health isn't a priority?" I'm having a heard time not being judgmental about the whole thing, and even though I got him to knock $80 off the new member fee, I still felt dirty about the whole experience. But the gym is adequate, and has a pool, basketball court and sauna, so eventually I'll be distanced enough from the experience to not care. And right now, I'm really sore.
- South Beach Dieting I've been strictly adhering to the South Beach Diet, which requires you do a great deal of cooking. So far I've lost 17 lbs! Brittany made jumbalaya last night and it was absolutely incredible. Speaking of cooking -- we've been considering opening a cooking blog where we'd post all of the recipes we make. Anyone interested?
- Arinna Weisman's Website I've agreed to donate my time and efforts to redoing Arinna Weisman's (the retreat teacher) website. We talked last night on the phone and we discussed what could potentially be done with the site. I mentioned that a lot of meditation teachers had flowers on their sites, and she said something that I thought was pretty funny. "Oh, no, I'm sick of all that new-agey flower stuff." She's going to be sending me several tapes of her dharma talks so that I can be inspired, which is pretty cool because those tapes usually cost at least $12.
I've been wanting to finish and implement the new design for my blog and theres also a stack of books about a mile high I've been wanting to read. It's strange to think about how much I've been doing lately when a little over a year ago, I was doing practically nothing. I think it's a step in the right direction. Stay tuned for more!
Posted by Marshall at March 19, 2004 05:03 PM
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