Thoughts | Tendu at the Bus Stop

I started this post on May 4 and never published it. Six months later I am still confronted by same academic and personal challenges. This is what I wrote then:

May 12 will mark the second month of my staying in Waurn Ponds (Victoria, Australia) and this is my eighth Saturday. My weekends here have been in state of almost complete isolation —and frustration. Frustration in dealing with academic politics as well as cultural and emotional isolation. 
Studying, creating and "moving" are my survival means in this emotional desert.
I am addicted to movement; perhaps there is such an addition. If don't power walk for at least 8km, or practice 45 minutes of fast aerobic routines, one hour of "power yoga" I feel helpless and hopeless. My moving body is my only friend and support. The effect of movement on mental processes is one of the research questions of my thesis and I have become the living proof of how physical exercise can dramatically improve emotionally states and give clarity and focus. I practice battement tendu while waiting for the bus and use any chance I have to purposefully and harmoniously move in every task and function of my daily routine.

As of today I have been still resorting to movement and creative production as solace to my isolation and frustration for the lack of progress in my PhD journey, which seems to be totally trapped in academic politics —with a major twist a few days ago. Unfortunately since the past Sunday I have also been dealing with a tendinitis and my range of movement is quite limited: any compression in the left leg causes severe pain, even in walking. I am still trying to continue with my usual yoga practice, which has become totally asymmetric, but for a few postures. I am also trying to focus more on pranayama (breathing exercises) as well as learning a few kriyas from kundalini yoga, definitely shifiting from cardiovascular exercise to a more spiritual practice.
My weight loss intention of ten days ago has been greatly impacted by my injury, as almost all the cardio routines I am familiar with, heavily depend on use of legs. I started to learn some seated cardio workout.
Again, I am trying to adapt to change, but I feel extremely weak and vulnerable, without a nearby social and emotional support system; especially now with this physical injury, I cannot count only on the virtual presence of my friends overseas. After the solace of the few hours spent on the beach yesterday, all the negatives of my experience are today amplified. I am seriously questioning if I should stop this endurance test, admit that I cannot live in isolation and go back home...

Northern Solstice: Changing Perspective Point

 

Once again I am reminded that life is about change and adapting to change. For the past decade I have been celebrating nature cycles marked by sun positions in the sky: namely solstices and equinoxes. My celebration is quite simple: wherever I am in the world I go outside with my camera and take photographs of the sun rising and setting, to record these special marking of the sun in the sky. So far my sun recordings have always been in the northern hemisphere and I was referring to December 21 as the winter solstice day and June 21 was the summer solstice. Now that I am in the southern hemisphere I am learning to call June 21 the northern solstice, and December 21 the southern solstice. Everything is relative and now June 21 has become the shortest day of the day announced by the northward equinox, which once for me was the spring equinox.

This morning I woke up with the sense of depression which has become almost constant in the past two months —a cocktail of stress, anxiety, sadness, nostalgia and regret; but I decided to greet this important day of the year, even if for me was announcing the second winter in six month. I was rewarded, as the sense of heaviness lifted while I was witnessing the sun rising from across the Corio Bay. It was not really a spectacular sunrise, yet it brought a sense of calm and feeling of connection with this foreign land.

Walking back to my accommodation, I looked at low sun light from a different viewpoint, which offered one of the sought after sunrise compositions.  I had an epiphany that sometimes the same object of observation is more interesting and can become beautiful is seen from a different perspective point. Perhaps I should apply it to my troubled academic journey and embrace this change, although quite different from expectations.