what's been happening

I was inspired by my friend Cara (Hi Macsies! We all loved your note!) to write what sorts of things I've been into lately. We'll start with:

Music - I have been listening to 2 main CD's lately. Sherwood (you can check 'em out at www.sherwoodmusic.net) and Chant (which is a CD of Gregorian chants by Spanish monks - very peaceful)

TV - Grey's Anatomy has been on the past 2 weeks (yeah for the ladies in my house!) and Heroes started up again last night after a two month break. LOST begins again on Feb. 7th and the new season of Survivor starts in Feb, too. That's all I watch, I promise! Gosh, 4 shows sounds like a lot, but it doesn't feel like that much.

Books - I just started a new book called "Transitions" by William Bridges (you can check it out under my Books section to the left). It's been really interesting. He talks about methods for coping and dealing with transitions in life whether it's moving, a new job, divorce, marriage, new child, death, etc. He breaks the transition into three stages: The Ending, the Transitional or Neutral Zone, and the Beginning. Take the example of losing a job (whether by quitting, retiring, or getting fired). He talks about how important it is to mourn for what's lost. And to take advantage of the hard in-between time (most of us would rather rush into the new beginning, but he advises against that because we can learn so much from that transitional time). And then to embrace the new beginning.

He even used the example of entering a dating relationship. I was like, "Huh? What 'ending' is involved there? Isn't it a 'beginning' right off the bat?" But he says that before we enter a new relationship, it's important to focus somewhat on how things will change. Not so much a mourning for singlehood, but a time of realizaion that we will no longer be just thinking about ourselves. We won't just be doing things on a whim anymore, because soon someone else will be involved. And like anything we want to flourish, it will need our time and attention. And then there's the in-between time of dating and the "beginning" is of course the beginning of the steady relationship. Each stage is different for different reasons. I think the idea of mourning what is lost and embracing the in-between time is a cool idea.

Movies - I just recently saw Pan's Labyrinth and it was SO good. It was super hard to watch the violent stuff (closed my eyes a few times) and if you're not into subtitles you can skip it. But wow, I was amazed and I totally recommend it. (http://www.panslabyrinth.com)

Theater - in a month and a half, I am taking a road trip to LA with some friends to see the musical Wicked! Yeah! We bought our tickets back in October, so we've been looking forward to this for a long time. I'm sure we'll be singing all the songs on the way down...

And last but not least...this doesn't really fit into any of the above categories but I just have to say how much I am loving my jazz class. I look forward to it every week. We're learning a dance and I love coming home and showing it to anyone who will watch. =)