IIN Weekend 10: G-R-A-D-U-A-T-I-O-N-!-!-!
Well, my final IIN weekend finally has come and gone, and all I can do is sit here and think about how it flew by.
Friday Jon and I went up to NYC in the evening and did a whole lot of nothing, really. Luna was texting me back and forth because her friend that she was supposed to meet up with that night was late and I kept trying to convince her to come and play with me and Jon instead. Earlier in the day I was talking with Luna about meeting me for lunch on Saturday and I'd buy her all the rice balls she wants (more on Luna and rice balls later), and so her and I were able to finalize the details for our plans the following day even though 12pm is "really early" for Luna (:P).
On Saturday everything went pretty much on schedule. We got up at 7am and were out the door by around 7:15, then as always we went to Penn Station to pick up a smoothie (breakfast) at SmoothieKing, and from there we go up to 59th street where our classes are held. Every weekend we would get a red IIN bag with different materials in it; usually this would be a book, an audio cd, and any number of other random items. The school itself almost mimics a health counseling session, ironically enough. This weekend we got some nutrition magazine-newsletter-thing and a very nice IIN cd case with audio cds of all of our lectures; which is fantastic. I plan on relistening to the ones with David Wolfe, Dr. Neal Barnard, Dr. Barry Sears, Dr. John Douillard, and Paul Pitchford, and maybe a few others and basically re-take all my notes so that they're cleaner, full, and less scattered (I can't find half my notes cause they were in another notebook).
Luna had messaged me while I was in class (and amazingly I got it; for the longest time I was getting no reception at all) telling me that she may be late for lunch... like 30 mins late.. It figures that this was an issue on the day that we got out early for lunch! Well, when I got out, Luna was pretty close and I think that we ended up finding eachother at about 15 minutes after 12 and proceeded to go to East Japanese for lunch. All Luna was saying was "I want Rice Balls"... she lives off of them like a mexican and a burrito a car and gasoline, I swear. I have now concluded that Luna's favorite phrases are "I want" and "Rice Balls", thus making her favorite sentence "I want Rice Balls". Luna got her Rice Balls, and some sushi, and a bowl of rice (lots of rice!), and I got my usual of chicken teriyaki and 2 salmon rice balls ^_____^. Lunch was a lot of fun, and I'm really glad that Luna was able to come out "early" and have lunch with me. I was supposed to eat lunch with my health counselor and the other students she was working with, but, she made reservations at the very place that was a problem for me last time.... So, I said screw it because I'm not going to eat somewhere I don't like; I'd rather eat alone. Thankfully, Luna was able to keep me company.
While I went back to class, Luna waited at the Borders that was on the lower level of where my school is at (the Time Warner Center). In the second part of class, Andrew Weil spoke with us. He's pretty big name in the alternative health and medicine circles, but I really have no respect for him. On one hand he tries to attach his image to the holistic circles, but then on the other he tells people that they should avoid sunlight (bullshit), that mercury vaccines aren't bad for you (double bullshit), that ecstacy isn't all that bad (uh....?), makes side-swipes at Dr. Gary Null (probably the biggest health expert in the country), and well, the dude looks like Santa Claus. Weil talked about integrative medicine and left it at that, not touching upon his more controversial topics that are blatant bullshit and show everyone how much of a shill he is... erm..
Class came and went and then me and Jon got together with the trouble maker (Luna), and we went back to the hotel to drop off our materials from class. Luna wanted to go to Union Square Park, but it was raining, so we really couldn't do that. Instead, we headed over to where the school was having a party, over at a place called Zanzibar. It took us a while, but we did make it there. We took the bus most of the way and that's good because it intoduced me to taking the bus in NYC (growing up in Yardley for 17 years made me mass-transit stupid due to a lack of it ever being around). When we got there, me and Luna sat down and thought "man, this is beat", and Jon of course went off to socialize. I brought my friend Simeon over to sit with me and Luna and he remarked on I guess the physical chemistry between Luna and I and how we are very comfortable around eachother (he should see me and Lindsey, whoo boy). Simeon and I came up with a joke that I think we're gonna run with and hopefully turn into a spoof website: Jew-jitsu. See, Simeon was raised as an orthodox jew, and that is where the source of the joke runs from. I figure that we'll dress him up in a japanese gi with a belt and photoshop some hebrew letters on the belt (instead of the usual japanese). It'll be great; you all will laugh.
Jon later came back to where Luna and I were and we decided to blow that popsickle stand in favor of getting pizza (which I had been craving since reading about one of Brooklyn's best pizza places getting closed down) and maybe seeing a movie. Ironically, we went to this one place that me and Jon went to before randomly and I remember not liking the pizza... Well, too late now, cause by the time I realized this, Luna started ordering. I couldn't decide between white pizza or regular, so I got one of each to satisfy my ricotta craving and my baked olive oil and mozarella craving ^____^. The pizza was pretty good, thankfully! After we left, Luna got an odd message from her father, so she checked with him to see if everything was ko, but it wasn't so she had to go home :(. After saying goodbye to Luna, we decided to just go back to the party because we had nothing else better to do.
When we got back to the party, I figured that Jon would find some large group to talk to, and I would do my usual thing of sit in a corner and read because I'm anti-social with everyone but my friends. Ironically I saw my friend Shara, so I sat and talked with her for a little while about differing things. Later on, this girl Julie came by to say a few things to Shara and it got interesting from there. See, Julie is this girl I've been checking out since early in the school year, and while we have shared a few words, I kinda just came to the conclusion that she didn't exactly notice me and figured whatever. Jon has talked to her in the past, but amazingly she remembered my name and forgot Jon's.... wow! Her and I actually ended up talking with eachother for the rest of the night which was great! Apparently Julie works as a professional dancer and travels between philly and NYC. She told me how she is often concerned for her safety when going to philly, so this got us on the subject of self defense: a subject I am an incredible dork with! Basically, it boiled down to Julie and I discussing the possibility of her learning "womens self defense" from me any time she's in philly; whoo! Later on, she was itching to go dance, so we went and joined the crowd of other folks that were dancing out in the middle of the floor there. It was a lot of fun, and I'm glad that I got a chance to talk more with Julie. I hope that her and I will atleast be able to stay within contact of eachother. After it started to get close to 11:30, me and Jon left for the hotel and crashed.
Sunday was graduation day! In the morning we had a talk by some dude (ha!), and then for lunch me and Jon tried finding Simeon so we could possibly join him for lunch, but we couldn't locate him. Shara was over at East Japanese, so we decided to go and join her. After lunch, we were to sit in a specific section with our health counselor. I found mine and since Shara and I both worked with Chelsea, she saved me a seat next to her. There were some talks by Robert (my business coach, and also the guy who leads the vocational aspect of the school), Joshua (Rosenthal) (basically, our mentor and the head of IIN), and IIN's head of law (who basically said that if anyone tries to fuck with us legally as a health counselor, she'll kick their ass). Finally it was time for our health counselors to give us our certificates ^_^. Now, I have 5 certifications. WTF you ask? I'll elaborate:
We all danced for a bit and then we headed out into the hallway... all like 7-or8-hundred of us.. I said goodbye to some of the folks that I knew, and then of course I hip nudged Julie and gave her a hug (:P). Me and Jon headed outside and then Shara wanted us to meet her daughter, and after that we headed home.
The school was a wonderful experience, and I'm really glad I decided to go there. I have a lot of memmories from it all; like the night Luna had a sleep over with me and Jon at the hotel, and making activist friends at Union Square Park. I really wish the school was during the warmer months so we could have visited a lot more places, but most of the time it was too damned cold to do anything so we stayed inside.
Friday Jon and I went up to NYC in the evening and did a whole lot of nothing, really. Luna was texting me back and forth because her friend that she was supposed to meet up with that night was late and I kept trying to convince her to come and play with me and Jon instead. Earlier in the day I was talking with Luna about meeting me for lunch on Saturday and I'd buy her all the rice balls she wants (more on Luna and rice balls later), and so her and I were able to finalize the details for our plans the following day even though 12pm is "really early" for Luna (:P).
On Saturday everything went pretty much on schedule. We got up at 7am and were out the door by around 7:15, then as always we went to Penn Station to pick up a smoothie (breakfast) at SmoothieKing, and from there we go up to 59th street where our classes are held. Every weekend we would get a red IIN bag with different materials in it; usually this would be a book, an audio cd, and any number of other random items. The school itself almost mimics a health counseling session, ironically enough. This weekend we got some nutrition magazine-newsletter-thing and a very nice IIN cd case with audio cds of all of our lectures; which is fantastic. I plan on relistening to the ones with David Wolfe, Dr. Neal Barnard, Dr. Barry Sears, Dr. John Douillard, and Paul Pitchford, and maybe a few others and basically re-take all my notes so that they're cleaner, full, and less scattered (I can't find half my notes cause they were in another notebook).
Luna had messaged me while I was in class (and amazingly I got it; for the longest time I was getting no reception at all) telling me that she may be late for lunch... like 30 mins late.. It figures that this was an issue on the day that we got out early for lunch! Well, when I got out, Luna was pretty close and I think that we ended up finding eachother at about 15 minutes after 12 and proceeded to go to East Japanese for lunch. All Luna was saying was "I want Rice Balls"... she lives off of them like a mexican and a burrito a car and gasoline, I swear. I have now concluded that Luna's favorite phrases are "I want" and "Rice Balls", thus making her favorite sentence "I want Rice Balls". Luna got her Rice Balls, and some sushi, and a bowl of rice (lots of rice!), and I got my usual of chicken teriyaki and 2 salmon rice balls ^_____^. Lunch was a lot of fun, and I'm really glad that Luna was able to come out "early" and have lunch with me. I was supposed to eat lunch with my health counselor and the other students she was working with, but, she made reservations at the very place that was a problem for me last time.... So, I said screw it because I'm not going to eat somewhere I don't like; I'd rather eat alone. Thankfully, Luna was able to keep me company.
While I went back to class, Luna waited at the Borders that was on the lower level of where my school is at (the Time Warner Center). In the second part of class, Andrew Weil spoke with us. He's pretty big name in the alternative health and medicine circles, but I really have no respect for him. On one hand he tries to attach his image to the holistic circles, but then on the other he tells people that they should avoid sunlight (bullshit), that mercury vaccines aren't bad for you (double bullshit), that ecstacy isn't all that bad (uh....?), makes side-swipes at Dr. Gary Null (probably the biggest health expert in the country), and well, the dude looks like Santa Claus. Weil talked about integrative medicine and left it at that, not touching upon his more controversial topics that are blatant bullshit and show everyone how much of a shill he is... erm..
Class came and went and then me and Jon got together with the trouble maker (Luna), and we went back to the hotel to drop off our materials from class. Luna wanted to go to Union Square Park, but it was raining, so we really couldn't do that. Instead, we headed over to where the school was having a party, over at a place called Zanzibar. It took us a while, but we did make it there. We took the bus most of the way and that's good because it intoduced me to taking the bus in NYC (growing up in Yardley for 17 years made me mass-transit stupid due to a lack of it ever being around). When we got there, me and Luna sat down and thought "man, this is beat", and Jon of course went off to socialize. I brought my friend Simeon over to sit with me and Luna and he remarked on I guess the physical chemistry between Luna and I and how we are very comfortable around eachother (he should see me and Lindsey, whoo boy). Simeon and I came up with a joke that I think we're gonna run with and hopefully turn into a spoof website: Jew-jitsu. See, Simeon was raised as an orthodox jew, and that is where the source of the joke runs from. I figure that we'll dress him up in a japanese gi with a belt and photoshop some hebrew letters on the belt (instead of the usual japanese). It'll be great; you all will laugh.
Jon later came back to where Luna and I were and we decided to blow that popsickle stand in favor of getting pizza (which I had been craving since reading about one of Brooklyn's best pizza places getting closed down) and maybe seeing a movie. Ironically, we went to this one place that me and Jon went to before randomly and I remember not liking the pizza... Well, too late now, cause by the time I realized this, Luna started ordering. I couldn't decide between white pizza or regular, so I got one of each to satisfy my ricotta craving and my baked olive oil and mozarella craving ^____^. The pizza was pretty good, thankfully! After we left, Luna got an odd message from her father, so she checked with him to see if everything was ko, but it wasn't so she had to go home :(. After saying goodbye to Luna, we decided to just go back to the party because we had nothing else better to do.
When we got back to the party, I figured that Jon would find some large group to talk to, and I would do my usual thing of sit in a corner and read because I'm anti-social with everyone but my friends. Ironically I saw my friend Shara, so I sat and talked with her for a little while about differing things. Later on, this girl Julie came by to say a few things to Shara and it got interesting from there. See, Julie is this girl I've been checking out since early in the school year, and while we have shared a few words, I kinda just came to the conclusion that she didn't exactly notice me and figured whatever. Jon has talked to her in the past, but amazingly she remembered my name and forgot Jon's.... wow! Her and I actually ended up talking with eachother for the rest of the night which was great! Apparently Julie works as a professional dancer and travels between philly and NYC. She told me how she is often concerned for her safety when going to philly, so this got us on the subject of self defense: a subject I am an incredible dork with! Basically, it boiled down to Julie and I discussing the possibility of her learning "womens self defense" from me any time she's in philly; whoo! Later on, she was itching to go dance, so we went and joined the crowd of other folks that were dancing out in the middle of the floor there. It was a lot of fun, and I'm glad that I got a chance to talk more with Julie. I hope that her and I will atleast be able to stay within contact of eachother. After it started to get close to 11:30, me and Jon left for the hotel and crashed.
Sunday was graduation day! In the morning we had a talk by some dude (ha!), and then for lunch me and Jon tried finding Simeon so we could possibly join him for lunch, but we couldn't locate him. Shara was over at East Japanese, so we decided to go and join her. After lunch, we were to sit in a specific section with our health counselor. I found mine and since Shara and I both worked with Chelsea, she saved me a seat next to her. There were some talks by Robert (my business coach, and also the guy who leads the vocational aspect of the school), Joshua (Rosenthal) (basically, our mentor and the head of IIN), and IIN's head of law (who basically said that if anyone tries to fuck with us legally as a health counselor, she'll kick their ass). Finally it was time for our health counselors to give us our certificates ^_^. Now, I have 5 certifications. WTF you ask? I'll elaborate:
- Certified Massage Therapist; National Massage Therapy Institute
- Certified Medical Terminology; Brain Bench
- Certified Health Counselor; Institute For Integrative Nutrition
- Certified Holistic Nutrition; American Association of Drugless Practitioners
- Certified Integrative Nutrition; Columbia University
We all danced for a bit and then we headed out into the hallway... all like 7-or8-hundred of us.. I said goodbye to some of the folks that I knew, and then of course I hip nudged Julie and gave her a hug (:P). Me and Jon headed outside and then Shara wanted us to meet her daughter, and after that we headed home.
The school was a wonderful experience, and I'm really glad I decided to go there. I have a lot of memmories from it all; like the night Luna had a sleep over with me and Jon at the hotel, and making activist friends at Union Square Park. I really wish the school was during the warmer months so we could have visited a lot more places, but most of the time it was too damned cold to do anything so we stayed inside.