And the strangest thing
Was waiting for that bell to ring
It was the strangest start

I could feel it go down
Bittersweet, I could taste in my mouth
Silver lining the cloud
Oh and I
I wish that I could work it out

And the hardest part
Was letting go, not taking part
You really broke my heart

And I tried to sing
But I couldn’t think of anything
And that was the hardest part

I could feel it go down
You left the sweetest taste in my mouth
You’re a silver lining the clouds
Oh and I
Oh and I
I wonder what it’s all about
I wonder what it’s all about

Everything I know is wrong
Everything I do, it’s just comes undone
And everything is torn apart

Oh and it’s the hardest part
That’s the hardest part
Yeah that’s the hardest part
That’s the hardest part

Since I’ve been reading a lot of books on Transformation… I decided the best thing to make was a bookshelf to store them in.  The following picture shows how far I had come on the project last time I worked on it.  Today I spent most of the day staining it.  Sanding, staining and finishing is the part I don’t particularly care for.  Part of it is because I don’t have a shop to create stuff in- it’s all done outside.   Otherwise I wouldn’t mind so much this last step of the finishing process.

shelf

stained, finished and waxed...

Crazy enough how things line up when you’re ready for them.  A couple of weeks back Out of nowhere this dance instructor chick i had met back in the Fall (and forgotten about), emails me and asks me if I’m interested in possibly performing, and doing some occasional social salsa parties with her to start getting the name out.   The thing that blows me away is that I had just decided that I was going to create a choreography a week earlier.  And Kavoom! Next thing I know I am practicing with her.  Ya, I know craaaazy!

I am using this ‘sickass” salsa groove  by Eddie Palmieri.  More to come on that later….

One of projects i recently started this past Saturday  initially looked like this:

pieces of lumber

By the end of the day I had it assembled.  The fun part came on Sunday which I spent most of the afternoon and early evening sanding it.  (Being sarcastic about it being fun, it was anything but fun.)  But the cool thing about it is that I made it from scratch.  Initially it was just an idea in my head and now it’s a physical manifestation .   I’ll post more pictures of the stages of this beast once i have it all stained and finished.  In the meantime you can play around with the idea of what i created…  If you had those pieces of wood what would you do with them?

How has it been going? I wish I had some words of enlightenment or major epiphanies to share with you, but I don’t.  What I can say is that it has given me a bit of clarity on a few things. Taking away my Salsa evening and weekend social activity allows me to evaluate if me feeling tired has more to do with my 40 work week or because of the late nights dancing.

What I am starting to feel is that it has more to do with my job.  It’s not what it used to be- it’s definitely more stressful.  I am feeling more like a social worker than an Academic Advisor.  The realization then is that I don’t want to stop dancing- dancing helps me keep it “balanced”.  Dancing is my outlet to unwind.

Now I am trying to decide how serious I want to be with it.  Should I go back into teaching? Do I want to perform?  Do I want to do both? Those are just some of the questions I have asked myself as far as Salsa’s concerned.

I can say that in the six weeks since i’ve started this personal retreat, I’ve checked my Facebook once from my cellphone.  Having had a couple of drinks and right around my birthday, my weekness got the best of me.  However I was only on FB just long enough for it not to be noticable (i checked it when I went to the bathroom), so it mustn’t have been for more than two minutes.

Apart from Facebook, I’ve also stayed away from junk food.  Most of my meals since i’ve been doing the 90 days I have cooked myself.  And I’ve also have started working out.  (more about working out in later posts).  Well better get going- trying to get some ideas on performances…