Finding Balance

I've now attended 8 Thai language classes and already I'm forming basic sentences. Dichan poot paasaa thai nitnoi. I try to use the vocabulary I've learned whenever possible but I definitely need more practice. My sweet tutor speaks so slowly during our 90 minutes together Tuesday and Thursday mornings. Sometimes I feel badly for making her start our lessons at 7 AM but mornings are the only part of my day I feel I have control over. I now know basic family members, several adjectives and verbs, question words, some professions, foods and such. My flash card collection is growing and I love adding new words to the stack. In a meeting with staff the other day I tried out a few phrases and wowed them all. :-) It sure feels good to be challenging my brain like this! It's a great brain work out.

I'm also working out physically. On the mornings when I'm not at language classes I'm at Bootcamp. That's what they call it and that's what it feels like! It's a strength building workout that involves lots of pushups of various kinds, squats, jumping, running and all sorts of crazy exercises. Boy was I sore after the first week!!! It's exciting that after just a few weeks I'm making lots of progress and while I can definitely feel my muscles after an intense work out, I'm nowhere near as sore as that first week! On Saturday we had time trials where we were timed running about 2 kilometers. I was so sad to see how slow I've become after not running as much as I used to while living in Utah. Not having Cheri, my running partner, to get me up every morning coupled with the intense heat that makes running so uncomfortable here has diminished my desire. But I'm growing strong in other ways, using different muscles now, and it feels so good.

I'm up by 5 every morning which is an exercise of self control for sure! And if I'm not in bed by 9:00 each night that self control is really tested!! I've changed my work hours to 9-6 to allow me to have the mornings to focus on my physical, mental and spiritual strengthening. Having the balance of physical, mental and spiritual workouts makes me feel complete.