Clearing out the Coconut

Hello friends, I'm back in Mysore and feeling less assaulted from all sides by noise and pollution and stuff.
I found a lot of my old thought patterns came back while I was away from here. It surprised me. I realized it's going to be much harder to maintain the mental tranquility when I'm in the real world. Some of you may be saying "duh" to yourselves. It seems so obvious, but I didn't think about it till now. So now I know that I'm going to have to find a way to make real life and meditation merge.
Someone here asked me if I came here to clear out the coconut. Yes. I'm attempting to clear out the coconut.
George, sometimes I really can't motivate to move from a horizontal position. I justify it by stretching and reading while lying down. That means I'm multitasking, right?
Shopping here is a different experience than at home. There always seem to be more sales people than customers and they follow you around while you shop. I mean they are ON TOP of you while you browse. I think in the malls it means good customer service. In the grocery store in Mysore they follow me around so I don't steal anything. It's annoying, but I'm trying to be culturally sensitive about it.
I went to a movie yesterday, which was fun.
I got back here around 9:30 last night. Practice wasn't that great this morning. I think I'm sleep deprived from my couple nights of no sleeping and I didn't eat that well in Bangalore. It's nice to really be able to feel how those things affect my practice. There are so few variables that it's easier to isolate which ones might be making me feel icky. On the plus side, my knee felt better this morning. I've decided I have 5 lbs in the way of Mari D.
In other news, the U of M wrote me an email saying they're trying to contact me with their decision on my application, but my cell phone is disconnected. I can only assume this means I've been accepted, otherwise I don't think they'd bother to call. Of course, I had to briefly revisit my decision in my mind, but I think I made the right choice. I will stay the course. I tried to make the decision assuming I would be accepted to the U. It's still hard to leave home, but the hard part is already out of the way, right? Again, that's the only tough thing about the choice.
Shesh, thanks for the clarification on the bullock. Now, I'll have to admit my ignorance and say I don't even know what the BPO industry is, so I probably won't be pursuing a career in it.
Here's the email I got from a lady at a yoga studio in Nashville I asked about Ashtanga:
"We are laid back here in the south. Ashtanga seems to be a bit too intense for the masses." There you have it.
I'm going to spend the rest of the day continuing to clear out the coconut and convincing myself I made the right choice about school.
TTFN,
Lauren