Let's get the facts about exercise: Americans spend more time sitting, and sitting with poor posture, staring into our devices, than most descendants of apes do. We're famous for this statistic. But that doesn't mean we can't find sneaky, critical ways to do better and fit in stress-alleviating exercise-- even while we're shackled to our computers, our desks, our homework and, in this case, our college applications (if you still haven't finished yours. In which case, o baby, you better get a move on!). Can you really exercise while sitting? This excellent article by fierce yoga teacher Ana Forrest (read: hardest ab work I've ever done in my life, and a great physical antidote to fear and stagnation) details great ways to keep moving even when you're stuck sitting. Try Ana's suggestions at your desk-- or, if you're a jet-setter, on the airplane (you know you want to be that person on the plane who everyone stares at, don't you?). Generally, long stretches spent sitting should be punctuated by breaks so you can increase blood flow and give your brain a boost. Also, you'll feel less busted and more bionic. Exercise stirs up your circulation, your joie d'vivre and your efficiency. It makes you feel better, period, during and after. So why not optimize how you feel while you're doing what you gotta do? If you missed that first link because you were distracted by your numb butt and throbbing neck, read how here. How Exercise Helped Me When I was in grad school getting my MFA in writing, I spent long hours staring at my computer, writing or, um, pretending to write. Once per hour, I would jump up and get my freak on by faux jump-roping (I had a basement office), wall-push-ups, and low back stretches (many taught to me by NYC master yoga teacher, Alison West). I made sure to inflate my lungs all the way, and breathe out as deeply as I could, shake out my hands and roll out my neck (poor, poor neck!). And, BAM! The muse (or call her the Continue Reading …
Wisdom
Gratitude Glasses
Why put a limit on gratitude? One day each year we're told by the calendar to feel grateful. But this shortchanges what gratitude can do for you, if you practice it beyond the national holiday. In short, gratitude gives everything in your life an upgrade. It makes you a bad-ass in the face of set-backs; It makes you not an ass in the face of great good fortune. And you can make it part of your daily routine, if you're hoping to live a rich existence. And of course we're going to say it has benefits for your college essay (it really does) and your appeal to admissions officers (positivity is attractive). But that is just the beginning of how this feeling and virtue can alter your perspective and prospects for the better. Gratitude's brag sheet Gratitude opens you to what is, rather than what isn't. Gratitude allows you to appreciate, rather than depreciate, your life as it is. Gratitude is anti-consumerism-- it doesn't need more, it always has enough. Gratitude is knowing even the chance to apply to college, the know-how to get through even the simplest application, spells opportunity and privilege. Compare this with the education models available elsewhere in the world and you'll resent the effort a little less. Gratitude is simple-- you can exercise is towards anything. You can be grateful you can read these words, breathe, drink water, pee...no, really, the list never runs out. It's actually inexhaustible. Gratitude gives you a second chance when there is a shit-storm. When things don't go "your way." When you-- if you-- get rejected. When you-- if you---get accepted. Gratitude gains you positivity The chain works like this: Gratitude induces positive feelings where more are needed or where there aren't any. Positive feelings set your nervous system at ease. Positive feelings lower baseline stress. A nervous system at ease is solution-oriented. A nervous system at ease believes things can or will be OK. There is science to Continue Reading …
The real secret value hiding in your college application
Best chance at college application success = Give your perspective a tune-up! Adjusting how you see the enormous, time-consuming college application process-- from writing your name on a million forms to submitting your last supplemental essay-- will add positive value as fast as neurons can fire. Which is pretty fast. Here's why we're all about doing this. The status quo when our Hero begins to question things: For too many students, the college application process is something to just "get through." Does this sound like you? Do you see its value only as a means to a coveted end-- Higher Ed, baby!? Well, guess what? For too many adults, life is a string of things you just have to "get through." It's a means to an end, too. What end? Don't ask. Ugh! Junior year, standardized tests are you regular weekend dates, and college applications (and all that writing) loom. By the end of the summer before senior year, you're feeling dread, mixed with some anticipation. Senior year fall, you're clobbered. And, then, finally, after some sucky months, you've submitted everything, and you get temporary relief. That is, until you near the deadline for results, when you're an anxious mess again, your self-worth trashed if you don't get the acceptance letters you wanted or expected. Sounds like the opposite of fun, no? Our hero is feeling a little defeated in advance. His wings are wet. Her magic sandals have broken straps. And what if the results aren't what you hoped for, since we all know it's a big gamble? Since you really can't control the outcome? Isn't there a better way to go through this rite of passage than as a stress-ball? Don't you want even more value out of your college application? Our hero gets a hunch: For a happier you, redefine the work ahead YEP! A happier you-- a more functional, present and energetic you-- will be the result of challenging this paradigm. Start right now. Right. Now. Most students view their college application and Continue Reading …
Say what you mean & mean what you say
Ever read something so convoluted that you can't even get the gist of what the writer is trying to say-- never mind the point of their words? The destination for a personal essay like that in the hands of an admissions team is... the recycle bin or garbage-- whichever is closer. I see this a lot in college essays, where students are so convinced their admissions audience needs them to sound a certain way-- over-educated, with a bloated vocabulary and complex syntax-- that they don't think about how their audience actually prefers them to be: natural, relaxed, and forthright. A telltale (but not the only) sign that you are reading or writing a convoluted, pretentious (yep!) essay is when a deluge of SAT words adroitly manifests in the plethora of language the text pitches aberrantly at the reader's perusal. If you know what I mean. No, forget that. We all know that writing is always "prepared" speech. It is not simply spontaneous expression, as the squeals of someone opening the front door to win a Publishers Clearing House check the size of Clifford the Dog (does that actually happen to anyone?). But still, there is a range worth respecting: I can write more or less like I speak, when I am actually paying attention to my words and thoughts. OR I can write like a rambling drunk person (that's not the kind of natural we mean, either). OR I can write so that even I find the text indecipherable. That last option does not make me sound smarter, nor like the kind of person you'd want to hang out with. There is a simple solution to overwriting your college essay that works wonders. Ask yourself (or your student), "What are you really saying?" If you don't know, then neither does your reader, nor will the reader ever. It is not the reader's job to untangle the writer's messes meant to impress. But if you know, and can say earnestly, "I'm trying to talk about how bad it felt to fail the declamation contest when I was assumed to be champion," the just Continue Reading …
Coming & Going, A Lizard Death
Today, to mix it up, I wrote my own personal essay-- no more than 650 words (the magic number). You can decide if this passes muster as a personal statement. While you read, play the all-powerful admissions officer, not the humble applicant. What, if anything, do you learn about the essay's writer? What, if you had to guess, might the writer be like to hang out with? And so on... * This morning, my husband John went to feed our two adult bearded dragons, and the big, beefy lizard, Drako, the one I called "fat old man"-- though he was really only a middle-aged lizard, if that-- the one who lazed around with his belly spreading out over his driftwood-- was dead. (Please hang in there, ye non-empathetic to the reptilian plight). LIke we say of dead people (some of them), he "looked asleep", but a little too stiff. There is something in our veins that recognizes our fate in that "little too stiff", no matter the creature. I admit I recoiled from his frozen body even as my heart leapt forward like a hopeful medic. The weight of any death, however reptilean, conjures every death I have been through-- every death, even that of our little plants that inexplicably and stubbornly failed to thrive, giving me the existential middle finger. Because John had to run to work, and because we did not know the cause of death, and because there was a second bearded dragon in the tank to worry about, John picked up Drako and put him hastily in our oversized planter, where our corn plant faltered and grew asymmetrically. In that dirt was the long-since-decomposed body of another baby beardie, the runt of our clutch. We'd introduced the fertile and lithe Sunny to Drako's tank last fall. After some awkward co-habitation, Drako had found (from his deep biological recesses) his ne'er-before-aired male swag and done the species-typical head-bobbing dominance dance atop her. He looked smug, not knowing Sunny was already pregnant from another male. Lizards don't make a Continue Reading …
Being Somebody
Strain does not equal gain Feel like you're straining to look like Somebody Special in your college essay? Are you "Being somebody" in your writing that feels removed from the truth-- and rubs (even you) wrong? I am always looking to help students find ways to claim who they are in their work. Nonetheless, I did not expect a zen talk on non-separateness and compassion would teach me about how we can try too hard in our college essay, strain futilely, and, by so doing, miss the point entirely. They tell you what's up at the zendo At the inclusive, radically spare Brooklyn Zen Center zendo, Rev angel Kyodo william Sensei takes a well-earned sip of tea after a long talk on healing what separates us from each other. She lifts her face with a confessional smile and light laugh; a framed iconic, black-and-white of MLK Jr. on the altar across the room looks openly back. Her body is solid as a stone buddha: "My students say to me, why do you teach if you hate people?" She chuckles, touche, and the community members laugh with her-- what else can we do? She nods: "It's true. I do hate people. But it's not because I hate people. It's because I'm so tired of everyone trying to be somebody, and somebody they are not." angel looks around, as if to catch us in this very (common) act. Don't we all want to be a tad more awesome, together, memorable, attractive, something? Suddenly it's as if our subconscious intentions-- to Be Somebody Other Than Who We Are At This Uncomfortable Moment-- are on nanny-cam. And keeping us miles apart from each other. But Your pen prefers You! You can see this urge run rampant once a student picks up a pen to write The College Essay. Angst, however subconscious, directs the composition, just as it can direct our self-perception, and the background noise is something like: To get into XXX school, I have to be Special, who looks and sounds better than I am. Who I Really Am couldn't possibly suffice. But, actually, as angel Continue Reading …