My Continuing Edumacation

I've been on the road now for a little over a month and have gained three pounds.  When I started on my diet/exercise regimen in February, I weighed in at a whopping 249 pounds.  Looking at the pictures now, I don't know how people could even stand being around me.  I was Gargantuant.  I certainly cringe to look at those photos now.   I guess they liked my personality or something.  In just three months, I was able, through diligence and hard work, to shed 43 pounds and get down to a more respectable 206.  Admittedly, the rigors of the road and traveling with an even more enthusiastic eater, have been a bad influence on my regimen.  It seems almost every time I want to eat more healthy, the man is stressing cheese.  Despite that fact, I'm happy traveling with Dhrits because he's such an easy-going, interesting and entertaining person.  I just need to be more personally willful.  Weighing in at 209 pounds is all right for now but it is not something I am happy with long-term.

Now, if you have looked at my daily pictures, with all the restaurants documented that we have visited as posted on Facebook, you would probably be surprised that I have only gained three pounds.  I certainly was when I stepped on the scale this morning.  I seriously thought that perhaps I had gained somewhere in the vicinity of 15 or 20.  But considering the fact that I was hitting the treadmill semi-regularly in the first two weeks and I still do my fair share of walking, I have been able to slow my growth-poundage-rate down.  Also, I think my metabolism has sped up from all the regular running and weight-lifting I was doing before this trip commenced.

I am now determined to get more serious again.  All is not lost and I am a man who has been always able to bounce back from adversity.  Double Garga-Power!

This coming Monday, I will finish my Meteorology online class and be only one more class away from being able to graduate from Santa Fe College.  Hopefully, by August I will be done with my Genetics class and clear the way to enter Journalism College at UF in the fall.  I was not able to register for classes in time to take a Photo Journalism class this coming fall but I'll be sure to be on my toes to get into one in the Spring of 2010.  I love carrying the camera with me and plan to buy a digital SLR before I go to L.A. in late July for Kuli Mela and Ratha Yatra.  All work and no play makes Gargs a bored boy so I have decided to go to the West Coast for a week's vacation or so.  You know, see some old friends, good for the soul.  I'll be traveling with Glani, Govinda, Shyam, Radha and Vrn at various times during the trip.  Shyam, Radha and Vrn have never been there before so it will be fun to see their happy faces taking in new places.  To take a few days off and hang out at the Ratha Yatra after-party and walk around Manhattan was also good for my soul.  I have to say, I'm much more of a city person than a country person.  I mean, I appreciate the country but I really like social and cultural stimulation.  

I'm trying to strike a balance between work and play.  Actually, I'm one of those guys who shoots for work being a pleasure.  In mu mind I'm always pulling for pleasure.  After all, that's the natural state of the soul.  Hopefully, that will become a reality for me more and more in the upcoming chapters of my life.  I think my continuing edumacation is key.

Temple Gargectdotes Part 1

Once in the mid-80's, I was reading synonyms for the word stupid out loud from a thesaurus to Dheera and Rom Roy while sitting in the temple president's office.  We were in a giddy mood and my friends started laughing hysterically.  For some reason, words like lame-brain, imbecilic, out-to-lunch, nincompoop and moron seemed particularly funny that day, I don't know why.  Anyway, as I kept reading, they kept laughing louder and louder.  Finally, Dheera fell off his chair, and rolled on the floor holding his side and screaming with water coming out of his eyes.  It was therefore sobering when Vijitatma appeared at the threshold, Bhagatavatam volume in hand and a grave look in his eyes.  "What's all the noise about?" he asked.  "Gargs is reading from the thesaurus for the word stupid," Dheera said, his laugh petering off.  "You should hear some of these."  "Do you Prabhus realize that I'm trying to read the Bhagavatam in there?" Vijitatma said pointing to the guest room, "And you guys are in here making nonsense noise like frogs simply attracting the snake of death."  Surprised, Rom Roy meekly responded "I thought we were just having some good clean fun."

Bhakta Steve Pitts was frequently seen around the Boston temple in the early 80's.  Steve was a nice enough guy from Derry, New Hampshire who had a bit of a hunch back and talked out of the side of his mouth.  People thought he looked a lot like Popeye.  He had been around ISKCON since the mid-seventies and regularly reminded the new devotees about it.  "Prabhu, I've been around this movement a lonnggg time," he often said.  "Way back to the days of Nityananda in New Talavan."  Then he would look into your eyes quite seriously, pause and say, "I've got some free advice for guys just starting out like yourself:  You keep your mouth closed and your ears open and you'll find out who your friends are."  On another occasion, I heard him giving some similar advice to week-long member Bhakta Breton after his usual New Talavan preamble, "Don't do any service for the senior devotees.  You're in this for yourself."

Steve, in case you haven't figured it out by now, wasn't exactly all there.  He had drank paint-thinner recreationally before he joined, albeit in low doses.  "I knew what I was doing," he said.

Once, during japa period, my brother Kesi and I were sitting against the temple wall chanting as Steve paced by us, walking around the temple room floor again and again.  When he was almost in front of us, he stopped and shook his head violently, vibrating his lips and making a high-pitched wailing noise.  Kesi and I looked at each other and tried our best to contain our laughter.  When he came around again and did it for the second time my brother asked him.  "What was that, Steve?"  "Symptoms of ecstasy, Prabhu," he answered in a most serious manner. "Symp-toms of ecs-tasy."  

My Current Funk

The road has the potential of making an animal out of you.  Long distance driving, followed by work and then figuring out the basic necessities of life.   Solving the food problem everyday, for example, is one such dilemma.  Where should we go today?  Not pizza again.  Chinese sounds okay.  Italian would be cool but all that bread at night.  It gets Garg-xhausting. Life has also been an endless stream of checking in and out of hotels, packing and unpacking, and missing my life lately.  I have school work to do and I'm often so tired that I put it off to the last minute.  It takes me a while to wind down at night and my brain is not functioning properly enough to do any real challenging thinking.  In the morning, I vegetate in bed for some time until I finally get the ball rolling and do something productive.  The most disappointing thing for me has been my lack of hitting the gym out here.  I've only done it about four times in ten days.  I have to get back on the ball and not let things spiral out of control.  I do get exercise when I'm working but all the stopping and going is not the same.  I've been only out here for ten days, man but it feels like it's been months.

As I eluded to before, one problem is, after I work hard all day, I want some kind of reward in the form of eating.  It is not easy to not eat at night out here.  There are a lot of good veggie-restaurants for sure.  The formula is one for potential disaster.  A possible reversal of all these months that I've worked hard to attain- namely my loss of 43 pounds prior to this trip looms in the precarious future.  So far, I haven't gained any weight out here but I know I am losing my momentum a little.  I can't let an occasional fall off the wagon make me discouraged and give up my goals in this connection, though.  Intermittent lack of strictness has to be factored into my life and I have to allow myself failure sometimes.  Two steps forward and one step back is perfectly acceptable.  Even one step forward and one step back is passable when you are trying to survive out on the road.

Today, we are in the Philadelphia area.  Sunday we were in Hartford.  Before that we were in Baltimore, D.C. , Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Baltimore and D.C., in that order.  Dhrits and I get along fine.  I do the driving because I feel comfortable with it.  I know my way around up here and I've driven a few million miles in my life.  I'm very good at it.  Dhrits is older. He'll be 58 in a few days but he still has a lot of energy, considering his age and girth.  He is pretty funny too.  For the most part he is easy-going and laid back.  He is content if he gets the remote in the hotel room.  I'm not interested in it.  I will be interested when the new episodes of True Blood start in mid-June, though.  He watches the NBA playoffs, which I am happy with on in the background while I write.  I would be just as happy with classic movies but I don't care so much what's on.  I adjust myself according to who I'm with.  He makes a lot of political commentary.  He is very anti-Republican, which is a-okay with me.  Every time he starts watching Fox News for a second he says, "I'm not going to watch this and increase their ratings," and then suddenly changes the channel.  When I told him we have to be part of the Nielson ratings to matter, he just shrugs it off.  By the way, I am in love with the Democratic party by any means,  but hey, nothing is perfect in the material world.

Right now I have a B-average in Genetics and an A-average in Meteorology.  I've fallen behind a little in Meteorology but the professor understands and has cut me a little slack.  It is a Summer-A course, so it is jammed packed with work considering it only lasts six weeks. Each exercise lasts several hours. I'm not a science guy, so it is not something I look forward to doing several times a week.  As I said, I'm often very tired after the activities of the day, so surrendering to science exercises is not something I get ramped up about.  I have to catch up on that stuff today, as some papers are due in a day and it looks like we'll either be traveling to the Buffalo area or Saratoga Springs tomorrow.  Either way, it's a long haul.  It's suppose to rain for the next few days, so we bought about 120 ponchos each to sell in case of that eventuality.  

When I was regularly writing this blog, I think it was more interesting because it was filled more with daily anecdotes.  I fear it is becoming a bit of a boring cursory overview about how I feel at any particular moment concerning the last week of activities.  In short, devoid of details, I dread that I'm losing my edge.  I need to re-sharpen myself and shake things up a bit.  I must snap out of my current funk.

Summer Trip Begins

Dhrits and I have been on the road since Friday.  For three nights in a row I only was able to get three hours sleep or so.  On Friday, I drove for about twelve hours and we stayed in Richmond.  On Saturday morning, we arrived at RKF Stadium in Washington D.C. and was able to work about three hours or so.  That day, we ate at one of my favorite vegetarian restaurants located in Rockville, Maryland called the Vegetable Garden.   I got the "Chicken" Curry, some "Chicken" Drumsticks,  wonton soup and a spring roll.  Later that day, we rolled into West Chester, Pennsylvania, where we stayed at a Holiday Inn for two nights.  We almost always stay at Holiday Inn's because we get half-off the normal rates with my iata card.  For example, in Richmond we paid $49, in West Chester we paid $57 and in Pittsburgh we are paying $44 a night.  

We arrived in Camden, N.J. on Sunday morning and got to the show early.  Although we arrived at 9 a.m., people didn't start getting to the concert until around 11.  The good thing about it was we were able to sneak into the lot and park for free.  The bad thing is we had to wait around for a few hours.  It was cold outside, in the 40's early on with a stiff chilly wind from the North. Reminded me of my childhood in Connecticut.   I dozed off in the car and tried to catch up with my sleep for an hour or so.  I woke up and changed into long pants so I didn't chill right to my bones.

With the weight loss has come less cushion on my butt which now starts to hurt after long rides.  I especially felt it on the first day.  One of the few pitfalls of losing weight, I guess.  The first couple of nights I hit the treadmill.  I was so tired Saturday night that I actually dozed off while running five mph, albeit for a split second.  Another split second and I may have been thrown across the room.  Maintaining my exercise regimen is important to me, so I have to keep it up no matter how tired I am.  The problem is so much driving, working and online schooling can keep me from getting into the ambitious mood that is neccessary to amintain my regimen.  I watched the Celtics lose game seven yesterday when I could have been running.  Now that they're out of it, I don't think the television will occupy my time very much anymore.  I generally just let Dhrits have the remote in the hotels and occupy myself with other things, the computer among them.  He seems perfectly content with the remote in his hands.

We rented a full size car at $32 a day.  It's a Hynudai Sonanta.  I didn't want to put so much wear and tear on my car anyway.  It works out for Radha because now she has my Yaris to drive during the summer.  It has good pickup and more room but of course not as good gas mileage.  My Yaris gets almost 40 miles per gallon.  

Today we drove to Pittsburgh.  I always liked the look of this working-class city.  It is very hilly with three rivers going through it.  It looks old and industrial but not overly dirty, with brick and stone buildings interspersed with sky scrapers from decades past.  The streets are narrow downtown.  One section of the area that I like and remember from about five years ago is an area called Shady Side, which has some half-way decent restaurants and historic buildings.  Glani, Vinode, Mahananada and I ate at a nice Thai, Indian and Middle Eastern restaurants when we were there then.   Dhrits and I are going to the Bruce Springsteen concert tomorrow and then driving to D.C. on Wednesday for the Coldplay concert on Thursday.  The drive is about 250 miles.  

I have some interesting, and in my mind humorous stories to tell in my upcoming blogs but am too tired now to relate them sufficiently now.  Stay tuned.

Northeast Here I Come, Diving Through Glass, and Peter Parker and Mary Jane

I leave for the Northeast on Friday.  That leaves me basically four days to get my act together.  I signed up for my fall classes at UF last night and tweaked it this morning.  Because I didn't get notice of my acceptance until late in the game, there were many classes I wanted to take that I couldn't due to them being all filled up.  Oh, well.  I'll be on the ball next time.  I chose core classes for Journalism plus a mandatory Economics class.  I'm pondering the idea of going for a double major.  I'm interested in English but may go for Political Science or History along with Journalism so I will not be perceived as a one-trick pony when I go looking for a decent job.  

I'm now down to 206 pounds, which means I lost another pound in the last four or five days.  I want to keep the weight loss going throughout the summer even if it is at a slightly slower pace. I plan to drive to D.C. all day on Friday and then hit Philadelphia on Saturday.  After that, I may go to Pittsburgh, then back to the Baltimore-D.C. area and then on up to my home state of Connecticut.  And so the zig-zagging will go on for the better part of three months.  Dhrits told me today he's pumped.  I don't want to go but in life you have to do what you have to do and you might as well make the best of it while you do it. 

I'm starting two summer online classes to finish up my AA degree at Santa Fe tomorrow. Animal Behavior and Meteorology- it should be a blast to study in-between long hours of driving and hard work in the summer sun.  Every day, I try to smile and laugh at least once every waking hour.  Otherwise, I'm wasting my time.  No matter what I must go through in life, I have found that one gesture to myself makes life inexorably better than it would be otherwise. Generally, I also find that things I dread are unfailingly never as bad as my mind makes them out to be.  That's why I find Nike's motto of "Just do it," not only corny but incredibly true.  I have a scar on my arm in the shape of the Nike symbol.  Once, when my brother was seven and I was eight, he ran out in the rain to get something from our Dad's truck in his underwear.  "That was really fast," our father said.  "Oh yeah," I said, also in my white briefs, "I'm faster."  "Why don't you guys race?" our father said.  And so we did, to the stone wall across the lawn and back to the door.  The race was tight, so I dove head first through the glass window at the end in an attempt to win.  The dive didn't win it for me but it was a tie and that's when I cut my arm into the Nike symbol.  In my mind, I wanted a rematch but I was bleeding too much.

I just got sucked into watching Spiderman while flipping around the channels. I have to admit, it's a good movie.  I always hated when girls like Mary Jane went out with losers like Harry Osborn instead of someone like Peter Parker, who is so much the better man.  Similarly, in school as a teenager, it never ceased to amaze me when girls I liked were interested in certain other boys instead of me.  I knew who the boys they were interested in really were and felt like Joe Jackson in the song, "Is she really going out with him?" Then I would think, well if they're that stupid, then maybe I don't want to go out with them anyway. Perhaps, I thought, girls wanted boys to compete for them.  For me, that was a big turn-off.  I had an ego and felt if I wasn't recognized as being obviously superior, then the prospective girl wasn't worth my time.  "You never made a move," Harry later said to Peter.  Peter felt bad but accepted his fate of a lost opportunity.  Whatever the case, I like Peter's attitude when he finds out about Mary Jane and Harry in the first Spiderman movie- he's a little sad but keeps his head up with a positive attitude.  Neither does he judge her like I probably would have at his age. 

Shyam went to New Vrndavana for the Festival of Inspiration.  Radha is not staying over here for the first time in months.  She visited her mother for Mother's Day.  I watched the Celtics win on a last second shot by Big baby Glenn Davis with Govinda while he typed his resume for an internship in architecture.  The house now seems empty now but soon I'll be out on the road and miss even the luxury of this emptiness.  

No More Science and Math... At Least Relatively Soon

It's Wednesday but it feels like Sunday.  Such is life during vacation.  Vacation, what vacation?  I can't relate very much.  But hey, I got into UF Journalism College.  Ho-rah! I just found out yesterday.  It felt good for a few minutes.  I yelled rather loudly when I saw it online.  My daughter came in annoyed as usual but then actually smiled when she heard the news.  I have orientation on Friday.  I still have to pass my CLAST test for Math in order to get my AA, as well as take two online Science classes over the summer.  I'm taking Animal Behavior and Meteorology.  They sound interesting enough.  One of the classes I know the teacher but the other, God help me.  It's all a crap shoot.  He didn't get very good ratemyprofessor.com ratings but I didn't have much choice.  It's all academic now, though... at least I hope.  Imagine if I had failed one of my classes.  I came pretty close on two of them.  Still, my GPA remains at a respectable 3.61 and I am in.  After this CLAST test, no more Math in this lifetime except for the only thing I'll ever need anyway- day to day arithmetic.  You know, like how many seconds do I have before this avalanche buries me or will I have enough cash to pay for this stuff when I get to the cash register and shit like that.  After these two science classes, no more science this lifetime either.  Thank the good Lord of everything that is holy, unholy, in-between, attractive and repulsive.  No more Science and Math.  Good bye, good riddance and good luck.

Yeah, what vacation?  I've got to study for this CLAST test and I set sail for the green pastures of the Northeast on May 13th.  I'll be working my ass off and I won't be back until school starts on my birthday- August 24th.  I've got some more things to do in-between-time like a ton of paperwork.  I'm going to have to work for two days also during this upcoming weeklong "vacation."  Yippe.  

Shyam is showing me his poems every day and voraciously reading astrology books.  Sounds like he takes after someone I know, at least a little bit.  His poems are pretty good.  Very thoughtful.

I am still at 207 pounds.  Keep hitting the gym but have ate at night a couple of times.  My body doesn't like this eating at night stuff.  It feels dysfunctional when it does.  Must curb this habit before it's too late.

Turning Another Transitional Corner

Over the last nine days or so, I have only managed to lose one or two pounds.  My weight is now down to 207.  As I have been lifting weights right along, though, I think more muscle has been gained and more fat has fallen.  It's going slow right now but I think I'm doing all right, even if is at a slower pace.  Forty-two pounds lost altogether is not too shabby.  Playing basketball with Kesi at the gym has certainly made my exercise more interesting. Now, I'm getting a lot of comments from people that I look better.  It feels good but I must forge ahead. I'm going to buy some eight-pound weights to take with me on the road.  I will just have to do many more repetitions in the hotel rooms in order to keep the muscle mass from decreasing. I hope I don't make the places smell like a gymnasium.  Although, I don't think Dhrits will mind that much.  He's pretty easy-going, especially if I let him have the remote control.  Hitting the treadmills will be no problem but what I'm really afraid of is the calling of the veggie restaurants at night after a long day's work.  I'm going to bring a scale with me and keep my eyes on my weight like a boxer in training.

It now appears I will be leaving for the summer on the morning of May 13th.  I talked to Dhrits yesterday and he says he will be ready by then.  I think Nrshmadeva's appearance is on May 7th, and he really wants to stay for that.  He predicts a big feast.  That will give me time to get my books for the two classes I'm taking online during the summer and tie up whatever loose ends are still left dangling.  I have always become a little sentimental during this time, especially when the kids were younger.  A few tears would fall and then when the wheels started to roll I would adjust my consciousness.  I've had so many crazy adventures out on the road but hope that things will be relatively calm this time.  Either way, I will be blogging about my experiences.

My son Shyam wants me to leave the guitar so he can play during the summer, therefore I plan to buy another one to take with me out on the road.  Maybe I'll write enough songs to record an album worth of demos and have AV on vocals when I get back.  I think Shyam plans to visit Connecticut in the summer and I hope to see him there.  He played so great in the helping Alachua Real win the Division I Gainesville Adult Soccer League Final last week.  His skills are so refined, that when he has the ball, it is almost impossible to take it away from him.  He has such ease and confidence in his eyes when he plays and excels against grown men.  He likes soccer but I don't think he loves it.  If he loved it, then he could very well make a stab at the pros but that would take a ton of dedication.  Right now, he's too absorbed in reading all Prabhupada's books and getting at the meaning of life.  Also, he is writing poems everyday and showing them to me for feedback.  

Govinda finished his semester at UF architecture school and I haven't seen that much of him lately as he's been spending a lot of time with his girl friend.  He plans to continue his studies in Italy in the Fall of 2010.

Before I go out on the road, I have piles of paperwork to get through that I have been neglecting during the last semester.  Hridayananda Maharaja was kind enough to give us a few things from his house before he left, including a fax machine and bookshelves, which I now have in my office.  I bought a really cool-looking painting from Vrn that she finished only in half-an-hour and had in a school art show and hung it in the office also. She's multi-talented at art, design, acting and singing.  She's moving to the Big Apple in June to go to school and I think the painting will help me to remember all the good times we had with her over the years.  It's sad but life goes on and I'm sure she will do well in New York.  Radha is probably flying up with her for Ratha Yatra.  Radha is blossoming into such an awesome young woman.  She has a lot in common with me but would be hard pressed to admit it.  I love her attitude of fly-in-the -face rebellious attitude toward injustice and hypocrisy.  We generally go out somewhere together every day.  I have bonded with her more than ever these past couple of years.  She's also a talented artist but won't let me have any of her stuff.   I hope I can catch the Rath this year. There will be a big show to work on that day, so it will be a tough decision.  Kavi just flew up to Boston for a week.  That kid is always going somewhere.

Glani is taking Summer A classes through most of June.  She has two more semesters before she officially becomes a R.N.  She has completely recovered from the endometrial cancer of two years ago and has forged on with her aspirations.  

This last semester has been the hardest one yet for me.  I started out the semester with a 3.85 g.p.a. but know that will take a dip.  My main mistake was taking six classes.  I took them all so I could graduate after this semester but I splayed myself out in all of them and only managed one A, in American National Government.   For a guy used to getting straight A's,  this semester has given my false ego a big hit. I dropped Geology and Geology Lab because it was just way too much work.  More work than all my other classes combined.   That's why I'm taking two science classes online during the summer.  My College Algebra professor, Shelly Russell, told me I needed a 70 on my Final just to pass the course.  I was really slacking in that class and didn't study at all for the exam until about 10 p.m. the night before.  Radha, Vrn, Shyam and I all sat in the living room until about 3 a.m. cramming for our various tests the next day.  All of us were ramped up on caffeine except Shyam, who would study a little and then play guitar intermittently.  There was so much caffeine flowing that there was almost more talking than studying going on.  Fortunately, I was able to study the next day and somehow pulled off a 75 on the Final for a C in the class.  It was the most joyous C  I have ever received in my life. I was hootin' and hollering and bouncing off the walls when Radha read the email with the results to me. No more Algebra ever again, at least in this lifetime!  Radha got a 79 on the same Final and was able to pull off a B overall in the class.  I am still unaware as to what my final grades will be in Topics of Math and International Relations.  I will find out on Tuesday, supposedly.  I am on the border of passing or failing each of them as well.  I'm not proud of my procrastination this last semester but I guess it's an opportunity to live and learn.