Continuing Education

So I learned several new things on Tuesday.

1. Siva (pronounced Shee-va) - Siva the destroyer, Siva the creator.  I had my first yoga class in several years today, and sort of out of left field, about 2/3 of the way through class, the teacher paused in her instruction (a loose term applied to how she lead class - she kept using the Sanskrit words for the poses, assuming that everyone in the level 1 class knew them all.  Because I know things like Sethubandasana.  I didn't know the Sanskrit, but I know the English name for it - Bridge Pose.)  Anyway, what she told us was that Siva both created and destroyed, and that the ring around him represented the ego, and that yoga helps us work through all the ego points until one moves beyond ego.  She said they hold all the things in our mind that preoccupy us and keep us from being fully present in the meditative state of yoga.  That poses like Shavasana (corpse pose, my favorite, so of COURSE I learned the Sanskrit word for it) aid in the meditation to release those mindful things.  And as I was there in my Warrior 2 pose, I was reminded of being in that same studio several years ago and weeping at the end of every class during Shavasana, when I would lie still there, on my mat, and think about Connor and the life he should have had which was denied to him by something no one can explain.  No one knows why this has happened to him.  No one will ever know.  And that unfairness flowed out of me every yoga class back in 2009.

Now, in 2013, I lie in Shavasana, and I know why I am there, and I don't cry.  And it's awesome.

2. Eye dilation - So Connor had to go see his eye doctor yesterday for a check-up.  Besides all the new-job/new insurance rigamarole, they had to dilate his eyes, and when they did so, the doctor said, "It might be pretty quick.  Light colored eyes usually dilate faster."  Really?  Why?  The prevailing theory is that the darker pigments absorb the eye drops more, but I would think that they would then dilate faster?  I wonder if it's that the darker eye, which has more pigment according to the doctor who studied for years (as opposed to me, who did not) already looks dilated so it's harder to tell?  I don't know.  Maybe I should go back to college, earn the right credits to enter medical school, enter medical school, study hard, and blow open the doors of ophthalmology.

Or maybe not.  But it's an interesting thing to know.  Even if it's just a theory.

3. Bus update - This is not technically something I learned on what I now think of as "Learn Something Tuesday," but the bus situation has improved a little.  The transportation department has called and told me they fixed things by making his pick-up time 7:30.  I was able to voice my opinion that that wasn't really fixed because it was still 20 minutes before the original time they gave us.  The day after that was established, he was ready at 7:30, and the bus was late.  Well, I thought late.  Lee said that they had parked across the way and waited for us to bring them out.  I think I may like this bus driver and aide after all...

What have you learned today?