Block Party on Elm St.

As I have mentioned earlier in my blog, I have been working with some people in my area of town to organize a block party. Well to give you the update, we are definitely having this block party. It will be on June 10th 4-9pm, rain or shine. Here's the poster we have created for it, hosted by Tracey's blog entry about the party:


We are welcoming participants to come out and to get involved. If you have a skill or talent you'd like to share with us, please let me know. Particularly, we need:

• people to bring food for the BBQs and dishes to serve (please list all ingredients if you are going to make a dish)
• participants for the circus play zone: jugglers, poi weavers, hula hoopers, staff spinners, dancers, clowns and jesters of many sorts
• musicians and DJs for our sound system
• people to help make the kids crafting zone fun
  
• children to share their talents: we will have a talent show for the young ones
• community builders: those who want to exchange information on how we can grow our local community

We are focusing our promotional efforts on the people who live in the area, but you're welcome to come even if you don't live close to Elm St. Hope to see you there !

Update

So, to follow up on my last post, I have kept up doing yoga every day, but I ended up modifying my schedule. I find that any hot yoga classes in the morning do not jive with me so well. Surprisingly, I did manage to make the 6:30 am class on Tuesday, which was one of the most satisfying classes I've had yet. It included some freestyle dancing of sorts, which was really a great release.

Last night I attended the Spring Action Juggling club once again, and was pleased to have my friend Josh join me. He is a fantastic hula-hooper and learned many tricks just over the course of last summer. Again I saw Dr. Kaboom and found out that he had not recieved my e-mail concerning becomming a part of his shows; I was glad to find this out because I felt uncomfortable about him not having responded to my interest. I also found someone I can buy fire wick off of, so soon I will be doing fire shows again, YAY ! To be honest, I don't find fire spinning any more fun than without fire, but the crowd gets a kick out of it and it also drives me to have a planned routine (wheras I mostly just freestyle and haven't put a lot of energy into "choreographing" the moves).

On Tuesday I attended a Buddhist meditation at the Shambala Centre for the first time. It lasted 45 minutes, which didn't seem as long as I anticipated, but my mind was thrashing around quite a bit. I would like to continue practicing there; the space is very warm and welcoming, and it is very close to where I live. After the meditation there was a presentation about the Street Retreat that the Shambala Centre hosted (a document about this here). The retreat gave the participants a strong sense of appreciation for what they have, as well as helped to break down the social barries between homeless people and themselves. In the presentation I asked the question (paraphrased): "What are your opinions on our current solutions to poverty and homelessness ? Do they address the root causes of poverty and homelessness ? If not, did you gain any insights on how to heal these social illnesses on your retreat? " because I think it is important to address the political as well as spiritual aspects of poverty. I didn't get very much feedback on that though...

Yoga mania

Last night I was feeling rather strong-willed and I got thinking about how I would like to take my yoga practice to the next level. As it is, I only go maybe 3 times a weeek, and I'm at the Rama Lotus Yoga studio almost every weekday for my work. So, I though to myself: I should do a bit of a "yoga marathon" next week where I attempt to fit as much yoga and other healing activities into my week as possible. AND, I should start going to different classes with different teachers so I can appreciate all the variety the centre has to offer. So, this is my schedule:

Monday
9:30 -11:00am - Bikram yoga
3:30-5:30 - Circus arts practice in Primrose Park close to where I live

Tuesday
6:30 - 7:45am - Kundalini yoga (the biggest challenge, potentially the biggest reward)
7:00-9:00pm - Buddhist meditation at the Shambala Centre and afterwards, a presentation about "Street Retreat" where participants chose to live out on the streets for a week to see what street life was like

Wednesday
9:30-11:00am - Bikram yoga
7:00-9:00pm - Spring Action Juggling Club (the circus arts are a kind of yoga/meditation to me)

Thursday
9:30-11:00am - Power yoga
7:00-7:45pm - Shambala Centre meditation

Friday
9:30-11:00am - Hot yoga
5:40-7:15pm - Kundalina yoga

Saturday
9:00-4:30 - 5 elements palm Qi Gong workshop

Sunday
9:00-4:30 - 5 elements palm Qi Gong workshop
6:00-7:30 - Yin yoga

Considering that I'm a person who finds it quite difficult to consistently plan out my day the night before it, this at frist seems like an impossible task. But when I think about it, the more you plan in advance, the more time you have to psych yourself up and imagine yourself fulfilling your intentions. And now that I've not only written it down, but also shared it with the whole world, it far more likely to be fulfilled.

I have extremely low living expenses and I have managed to put off payment of my student loan through the Interest Relief Program (they keep it a secret, but you should know about it), which is why I will be able to sustain myself on part time work for the summer. I would like to take this opportunity to develop my skills and interests so I can get working on something that I really love. Particularly, I need to

• work out an act for my performance character Mizster Cubeball because I have been tentatively accepted into Dr. Kaboom's circus family.
• shape up my software project, pLAySVG, into a well-polished learning resource, as well as expand my portfolio of art made from the software
• find opportunities to work with younger people and elder people

Another goal I have set for myself is to figure out a way to pay for the Hatha Yoga teacher training at the Rama Lotus that is coming up this November, so balancing all of this mostly unpaid work with things that will earn me money is a challenge.

And right about now I'm feeling a bit too self-involved .... if you would like to join me on my yoga marathon or just hang out and socialize, feel free to let me know.

Doing a jig for my gig

I'm pretty happy right now because I just got a paid gig to facilitate staff-spinning and do performance. Here's the details on the event:

Book Bash 2007
at the Devonshire Community Public School
100 Breezehill Avenue (between Gladstone and Somerset)
Friday June 1st, 2007
4:00-7:00 pm
AND
Saturday June 2nd, 2007
9:00am - 1:00pm
Everyone welcome !

With a very large selection of books at $1 each, a clown doing balloons, a facepainter, baked goods, and a BBQ, it should be a good time. I will be there to facilitate staff-spinning and hopefully my one of my hula-hooping friends will be there to round things out :-P Feel free to spread the word.

Internet failures

Well, for what seems like a long time now we at the Green Penguin House had lost our internet service. Cyberus had been acquired by some other company and had some trouble keeping our service up; we lost conenction for something like 5 days. After the second day, we decided to swith our ISP to NCF ; hooray for non-profit internet ! Now that's more like something the Green Penguin House can jive with.