Exercise

  • Exercise, Uncategorized

    The Mane Attraction

    As a continuation of my guest post on Black Girl Does Grad School, I wanted to share a little more practical reflections on what it’s like to have locs and a live an active lifestyle in graduate school.  Now that I think about it, three years ago when I started my locs, I was under a lot of stress (professionally and personally), so it really was an ideal time for me to start a major overhaul in my life generally.

    loccrush locd perfection
    This is Loc Crush.  She is my actual loc crush.  When I started my locs, I bought a picture of her to the salon. #goals

    Things I love about having locs

    They’re low maintenance. I don’t have a lot of free time and when I do, I don’t want to spend it on hair–sorry, I’m just not that person.  I wash my hair about every two weeksI spray my hair with ‘distilled’ water aka I boiled it in my tea kettle and oil my scalp about every other day.  When I workout, I put it in a ponytail and go about my business.  That’s it.

    I can do it myself. I’m a relatively crafty person, and I like making things with my hands.  When I do my retwists, it never looks as sleek as  the salon, but its decent.  Admittedly, I worry that I’m messing up my parts especially in the back where I can’t see, but overall, I can feel my way through.  I like to catch up on This is Us or How to Get Away With Murder while I do my hair, so it’s not a miserable 1.5 hours.

    They’re affordable.  I  get my hair done professionally about once a quarter because it’s nice to know that I got a good wash. I would do it more, but I pay about $135 for a wash, retwist, style and tip.  It’s a really nice salon and they do exceptional work, but my pockets can’t handle anymore.  Other than that, the products I use are super cheap–coconut oil, olive oil, Sheamoisture shampoo and (deep) conditioner and Talia Waajid retwist gel.

    I’m not going to lie, having locs is not all coconut oil and lavender.  There are some things about my hair that make me dream about cutting it all off and getting a weave.  

    Lint. Apparently, I didn’t get the memo about not wearing light colored scarves and hats when I first started my locs because the bottom inch of almost all of my locs are FULL OF LINT. It’s not build up, so it doesn’t smell, but its annoying because I am already anticipating that I will have to cut it off with time.  It’s also a bit unsightly, and it seems to be the most visible after I steam my hair.  This Q-Renew hair steamer will change your life by the way whether you have locs or not.

    Life between retwists- blurred boundaries. About two week after I get my hair retwisted, I can’t find my parts, and I don’t know where my scalp is.  I’m learning to embrace the fuzz and get creative with styles like two strand twists that maintain my retwist or curls which actually look better with volume.  I also like to use accessories like headbands that cover up the frizz all together.

    Lastly, I want to say that the “ugly” stage doesn’t have to be as rough as I made it out to be.   I know that this is a concern of many people who want to start their loc journey.  In my case  I just didn’t know what the hell I was doing and relied on my previous loctitian to style my hair before it matured.  Needless to say, there’s a reason I don’t go to her anymore.  You can wear headwraps, put kinky twists in, wear wigs, etc. You have options.

    There are so many things I would do differently, if I were to start over, but like this blog, like school, like most things, just start and you’ll figure it out as you go.

    How do you all wear your hair for working out?  Do you have any particular styles that work best?  How do you find the time to maintain your mane?

  • Exercise

    My Fall Workout Regimen

    selective focus photography of woman in white sports brassiere standing near woman sitting on pink yoga mat
    Photo by bruce mars on Pexels.com

    In the past few months, I’ve been extremely consistent with working out. This week alone, I worked out four times, but it didn’t feel exhausting or like overkill because I’m doing things that I: 1) really enjoy 2) find relatively easy to fit into my schedule 3) have people who I look forward to seeing 4) paid in advance lol.

    At the beginning of the semester, I was a bit disappointed that I couldn’t continue my Thursday morning yoga class  because of my new teaching schedule.  A part of me thought that I could try to fit it in by packing my work clothes, taking a shower at the gym and then heading straight to campus, but that would just require way to much from me in terms of planning, and if anything happened with the trains, I would be pretty much out of luck.  I’m learning to be content and realistic about with what I can manage.  I can’t do everything whether it be in terms of working out or school, so it’s more about figuring what my priorities are and making it work as best as I can.

    Mondays and Wednesdays I do an early morning workout class at the gym.  I have to leave my house a around 6: 45 am to make it in time, but it’s worth it. It’s starting to get darker and colder outside so prayers are appreciated to help me keep this up.  I have the most control of my schedule in the morning because there’s no one sending me a time sensitive email, trying to come to office hours or asking if I can grab drinks etc.  Admittedly, I’m pretty tired after these workouts, so I’ve definitely increased my coffee intake on these days especially.

    Fridays For the past 8 weeks or so, I’ve been learning the choreography for a salsa performance class.  At first, I was nervous that my Fridays nights would be taken, and I’d have to turn down all of the enumerable happy hour invites that I was sure to be getting—-that was definitely not the case.  It’s actually been a nice way to end the week, and I enjoy the people for the most part.  There’s also usually an extra practice that I attend on Sundays or Thursdays.  I’m not sure how things will work once my salsa class is over, but I’ll cross that bridge when I get there.

    All in all, I would definitely say that I’m proud of myself for being so consistent with exercise especially given all of my commitments this semester.  Working out in the early morning or in the evening is best and prioritizing enjoyment/pleasure with practicality when figuring out what to do has proven to be a good decision making approach.

    How often are you all working out?  Have you fallen off the wagon or failed to get on?

  • Exercise, Saving Money, The Academy

    Back to School Pt 1: Shopping & Saving

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    brown pencil on black and green book
    Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

    As I prepare for my 22nd year of school, I realize how much the meaning of ‘back to school shopping’ has evolved for me.  When I was younger, it meant a new outfit, a hard cover binder and my mom’s money.  Now, I’m far more selective when deciding on what I actually need because back to school shopping money comes from the same pot as rent and food.  So, in all of my years of back to school season, the most effective tips I’ve learned for saving money are:

    1. Keep your old notebooks.  Instead of buying new notebooks, tear out the used pages and store them in a folder with the course syllabus and other relevant handouts.  Use the older and lighter notebook for the new semester.  This helps with reducing clutter too.
    2. Stock up on supplies at new student programming.  Be humble, take the free pens, post it notes, water bottles, etc. and save your coins.
    3. Try to find a digital copy online or buy it used.  Half of the books I bought in undergrad and a quarter of the ones I bought in grad school are probably sitting in a box somewhere collecting dust.  You don’t have to buy it new.  I actually really enjoy buying gently used books especially when other people leave their (light) comments so I can get a sense of how other people interpreted the text.
    4. Thrift stores and consignment shops for clothes.  This can be time consuming, but if you find some good pieces, it’s totally be worth it.   I don’t buy used workout clothes, but I am a fan of places like Ross and TJ Maxx, which usually have pretty good prices on their athletic clothes and equipment.

    When I taught high school, ‘back to school shopping’ had very little to do with me and everything to do with my classroom.  I had a frequent buyer account at Office Max, and I would literally just buy entire boxes of spiral notebooks and binders.  I wore out my FedExKinkos discount like no other.  I loved my kids.

    Now that I’m a  graduate student, I’m not making nearly as much money, and I don’t have to decorate and provide supplies for my own classroom–teachers don’t get enough credit (literally and figuratively).  This time around, what I’m buying is more about me, which is nice.  I’m teaching 3 days out of the week, and I’m not taking any classes, so I didn’t have very much time to shop.  Here are the few things I did pick up:

    1. Work attire. 3 new shirts from Express, 1 pair of pants from Old Navy, 2 pairs of flats from DSW
    2. 2 folders. the one I repurposed was falling apart.
    3. A nice thermos. I’ve found that having tea or something warm to drink when I have to do public speaking helps calm me down.  I already have one that I keep in my office.
    4. Dance classes. as an act of pre-emptive self care, I signed up for a salsa performance team.  The ten week commitment is a little daunting because I can’t always anticipate my workload even though I’ve tried to plan as much as possible. I think having  forced exercise that I actually enjoy will be a great stress reliever.  If nothing else, I already payed for it, so I plan to be there.
    5. Spanish classes. This is the only way I’ve found to really hold myself accountable for maintaining and improving my fluency.

    All of that pretty much took my first paycheck before I even got it #adulting; however, I trust that the return will be far greater.  I’m proud that I made these purchases with my overall well-being in mind. So, ‘back to school shopping’ is back to being about me, but I definitely have a better understanding of what, as an almost- ABD-grad-student, is going to help me feel confident and comfortable.

    Are you purchasing anything new for the semester?  Are you recycling anything? Is back to school shopping just another capitalist gimmick to get us to spend our coins? Let me know.

  • Exercise

    Sisters of Yoga

     

    This is not an event recap because, while I spend way too much time on Instagram, I conveniently missed the first public event for Sisters of Yoga last Saturday at Prospect Park in Brooklyn.  I would have looooooooooved to met yogi_goddess and hippie-heathen in person .   Needless to say, my notifications are on super alert for their next event. Free + yoga with melanin goddesses + park= supreme happy place.

    So, what happened?

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    Here’s the recap video:

     

    Who are they?  They describe themselves as “A GLOBAL COLLECTIVE OF SISTAS dedicated to empowering and inspiring connection, community, and consciousness through yoga, wellness, and lifestyle.” Sisters of yoga hosted an online challenge earlier this month, so with last weekend’s meetup and the fact that their number of subscribers seems to have sky rocketed in the last few days, they are definitely a group to watch.  Follow them on Instagram and Facebook for more info!

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