HI!

As many of my friends and family know, I have begun the journey through acupuncture school with the Oregon College Of Oriental Medicine.  I am going to try and post a weekly reflection, and thought this would be a fun way to keep everyone informed as to my progress, as well as being a good tool for me to look back on.  So here it goes, my experience up to this point:

School officially begins on the 19th of September. I am very excited, and am looking forward to getting this much anticipated ball rolling.  I was able to meet the entire incoming class this week at our new student orientation at Menucha in the Columbia Gorge.  This was an overnight retreat stay in which we listened to many people talk about "how hard" OCOM is going to be.  By the end of the first day I felt a little weary of hearing about how hard it all is, and how tired I am going to be, but I was encouraged by the idea of it being an over all transformative and uplifiting experience. 

In conjunction with all the information that was given to us, we also got to participate in some fun practices.  We had a small hands on shiatsu demonstration where we got to pair up and practice a little Shiatsu massage.  This reminded me that part of my experience at OCOM will be giving and receiving an array of wonderful treatments. We also had a brief lesson on Qi Gong.  It was fun to be able to partner up with a complete stranger, and play with each others energy.  During the practice I could feel the magnetic pull of her energy on my palm,  and it will be fun to expand my knowledge of this practice. At the end of the day we got to receive a little auricular acupuncture after which I took in the amazing sunset, and finally retired to my bed.  

Menucha was such a beautiful atmosphere to begin this new journey, and I was impressed that OCOM invested in this retreat style experience for us to begin with.  I am nervous to begin this new chapter in my life, as it is so different from the world of restaurants and corporate ladders that I have up to now been engrossed in, but I am also so excited and optimistic.  I feel that my future is so bright.  I just have to send a little gratitude out to my father Perry Dominic Reghi, who passed away in 2007.  He was at times a hard man to know, but he helped to teach me one of the greatest lessons in life: that life is a precious gift and we are really the only ones who can dictate our own happiness regardless of all the external factors.  And that compassion is not always easy, but always necessary for peace.

So here are some pictures:
                                               This is what I ended my day with:

and this: 

                       And this is what I began my second day with, as I held hot tea in hand: