One Quarter Done!

I'm done with my first quarter of Massage Therapy School!!!

This last week was totally crazy getting ready for finals. We had a new teacher come down Sunday and started teaching Hollistic Studies on Monday. Her name is Hillari, and she's a firecracker. She brought her 8 year old son Kaia, who's awesome. Hillari is going to be our teacher for Bodywork Experiential this next quarter. Don't ask what that title means - I have no idea what to expect from that class.
 With the new quarter comes a new wave of teachers, which is cool and sad at the same time. Maura, my Anatomy and Phisiology teacher is leaving early tomorrow morning, and Jill is leaving for a couple weeks sometime this weekend. Jill will be back, but Maura is going back to Portland to stay :(

Speaking of Maura the Magnificent, I paid to have a massage with her this week. I think I mentioned earlier that we get one massage from an instructor per quarter for free (included in tuition) but if we want to experience the work of other teachers or if we want additional sessions, we have to set them up. A couple weeks ago when I had my massage with Jill, she told me that I have great potential in this field and that I need to experience as much bodywork as possible. It's expensive, but if it helps me learn and gets me to move into the path I'm destined to follow, I'm up for it. Plus, why would I turn down more bodywork?
 So I managed to snag a session with Maura last night. Which was good, because Finals were today, and I needed a break from studying. She had asked me to wear yoga clothes, so I went in to the massage completely baffled. In my past experiences with massage, you always undress and get on the table - but Maura does her work with her clients totally clothed, which is cool. So we went in to the massage room and talked about what I wanted her to work on, and then she had me stand against a wall so she could to a postural assessment. It was really cool because she talked me through her entire thought process and actually told me everything that was going on in the entire massage. Anyway, what she noticed was that my head was tilted a little to the right, my right arm was rotated in, my hips were out of alignment, my feet turned way out, and my feet had very small arches. So that's what she went to work on. I also asked her to work on my rib that keeps popping out of place.
 I layed down on the table and she went to work on my feet. It was really interesting, because she didn't do anything even remotely close to a 'typical' massage. There was no oil or cream, there were no fluid relaxing strokes...no. Maura WORKS on you. And it hurts. She literally picked some of my muscles up off the bones completely, she went totally underneath my pec muscles (in the chest), she used her elbows, her fingertips, her palms, her forearms...it was crazy. There were a couple things that hurt really bad, but it was always a 'good' pain and felt great after the session was over. I think I might like to explore more of her style of bodywork - deep tissue restructuring. Anyway, after the session was over, she gave me a big hug and told me that I have to come to Portland and take some of her classes, which was cool. She also said that she sees great focus in me and good attention to detail, and also an eagerness to learn and to achieve, and she said that she also expects me to go far in this career path, so I'm really stoked about that. And then when I gave her a hug today after the final (which I got a 97% on, by the way) she said that she wouldn't say goodbye to me, because she had a feeling that she'd be seeing me in Portland for a class within the next 6 months. =)

Alright, let's talk about Finals. We had 3 finals, one in Anatomy, one in Hollistic Studies, and one in Swedish Massage. For Anatomy, we had a multiple choice, 70 question test that covered every thing we've learned in the last 15 days. For Hollistic Studies, we made a feast, and for Swedish, we had 15 minutes to massage Jill Berkana.
 The Anatomy test was pretty easy. I got a 97% and should have gotten a 100, but I didn't read the answer all the way on the one that I circled, and then the other question I got wrong, I simply blanked. Still, I only missed 2 questions, which is pretty damn good.
 Hollistic Studies has been basically about nutrition this week, so for our final, each house was assigned 2 dishes to prepare and were given money with which to purchase ingredients. There were a bunch of dishes - Vegan, Vegetable, Fruit, Grain, Fish, and Animal Protein. My house got both of the meat dishes, so we split it up by room - Larissa and I were in charge of Fish, and the boys (Chris and Steve) did the meat dish. It was a definite challenge, trying to cook for 16 people in a tiny kitchen with very limited resources, but the ingredients were super fresh, so it ended up working out really well. Larissa and I made Tequila Fish with a Salsa Trio for our dish, and it was really well recieved! We're not allowed to have alcohol on campus, so it wasn't realyl Tequila fish, but it was baked with salt and lime, so you get the picture.. For the salsas, we had a black bean and corn salsa, an avocado salsa, and a watermelon pineapple salsa. We had really mild catfish, so we had lots of flavors in the salsa to compliment it. The black bean salsa was pretty good, though we made WAY too much and will probably be eating it for the next few days at least. The avocado salsa was basically just chunky guacamole, but "tequila fish with a salsa duo and guacamole" doesn't sound as good, so we were creative. It was actually a really good recipe - avocado, tomato, chile, garlic, onion, lime..basic guac ingredients - but it turned out really well. The star of our show though, was by far the watermelon pineapple salsa. Holy cow it was GOOD! Watermelon, pineapple, cucumber, onion, chile, lime...oh my god it was wonderful! After it was made, Larissa and I just sat at the counter eating it by the spoonful. It's a new favorite recipe.
 Other people made chicken enchiladas, roasted root veggies, fruit salad, tabouli, a really good beet/cabbage/ginger slaw, banana potato latkes, veggie jumbalaya...it was an awesome feast! And don't worry, part of our assignment was to write up all the recipes and Hillari is going to make us all feast cookbooks! So I'll be able to share info with anyone who wants it!
 
Okay, onto the Swedish Massage final. We all drew numbers out of a hat that determined the order in which we were to perform our massage. We were allotted 15 minutes to demonstrate at least 6 techniques. We had to have hands off at the 15 minute mark, and then Jill graded us immediately. Let me remind you that Jill Berkana is the Academic Dean and one of the founders of this school. So guess how nervewracking this whole experience was?!
 Anyway, so I got to the clinic 10 minutes early, as instructed, to set up my table and make the room look nice. Jill went in after she was done grading the student before me. (There were 2 massage rooms set up, so nothing overlapped. Just saying) I went in at my assigned time and started. We could massage whatever body part we wanted, except face and abdomen, and we had to do everything bilaterally, which means on both sides. No one likes a lopsided massage. During the 15 minutes we also had to flip her over, which takes precious time.
 Ok, so I went in and started. I made sure she was comfortable and connected with her, and then I flipped her over because I had decided to do my whole remaining 14 minutes on the backs of her legs. This is a scary thing to do, because it also involves massaging the hip, which means you have to drape the client perfectly in order to not expose them and to keep them secure and comfortable. So i figured that no one else would do it, and I just took a deep breath and went for it. I checked in on pressure, to make sure I wasn't going to deep or too light, and when I asked, she just grunted at me, which can either be a great or horrible sign. I kept watching the clock and was freaking myself out, so I finally had to just look away and trust that my hands would do the right thing. So I did both of her legs and then I still had 2 minutes left! So I flipped her back over so she was face up and proceeded to do a closing like we would in a normal hour-long massage, where you rock specific parts of their body, hold their head to connect with them, move back down to their feet, hold their ankles, and thank them. As soon as I let go of her feet, she sat straight up! the first words she said were, and I quote, "wow Rika, you just slayed that thing."
  AAHHHHH!!! THAT'S AWESOME!!!!! She told me to have a seat, and then looked at her clipboard for a second and threw it onto the table and said "I have no feedback for you", which is crazy! Jill Berkana had nothing to say about my massage?!?! She has something to say about EVERYTHING! And THEN!!! Get this - she picked up her clipboard again and said "I'm giving you a hundred. That was amazing. Keep doing what you're doing." And the whole time I was sitting on the edge of the chair smiling so big you could see it from Space asking if she was serious. And then she said "I'm so proud of you. And I'm so excited for your future." And she gave me a hug! (One of Jill's cardinal rules is not to initiate hugs). I JUST GOT A HUNDRED PERCENT ON MY FINAL WITH JILL BERKANA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And I told her I was trying to make Valedictorian, and she said "Yes you are" with this huge smile.
   I'm totally freaking out about this!!!!!!!!!!

On a totally different note, we have a 3 day weekend starting tomorrow, and I have another surf lesson at noon =)  I took my first lesson this past Sunday, and totally loved it. It took a while to get the hang of it, and I definitely ended up with some bruises, but it's so cool. I had an hour long lesson, and I caught 8 waves and rode 3 of them all of the way in. The very last wave I caught, I was riding it in, and it was curling beautifully under me, and I accidentally dropped perfectly in to the wave and kept my balance! Rachel and Christina were watching from shore and they said it looked awesome. It felt awesome! Larissa and I are going back out tomorrow to hopefully catch some more. I think we might try learning how to surf on a short board. We used long boards with soft tops last time because they're good learner boards, but apparently if you learn only using a long board, it's really hard to get yourself to be able to use a short board. They're supposed to be harder, but I think we can do it.

Anyway, I've written a complete novel for you guys to read, so I'll sign off and call it good for now.

(I just aced 2 out of 3 classes - how cool is that?!?!?!?)
~Erika~