Hello, hello. Anyone out there ??????

Meet the new addition, Gatsby! He’s a black labrador/pointer mix, 1.5 years old. We adopted him from the Cleveland Animal Shelter and today is his first day home.

• Don't worry about coming alone, you will make friends easily as long as you are friendly

• The food is very good, you won't go back emaciated, and you are unlikely to get dysentry or something like that as long as you stick to the good eating stops.

• Don't bring loads of stuff, you can find pretty much everything in Mysore.
  

• Tell someone if you have a problem, Ganesh can take you to a docs or sort out most things for you, and other students usually have a lot of good advice.

• If this is your first time abroad you may well feel a little rattled by the experience at first, it takes a few days sometimes to get over the culture shock. You might feel unsettled for a few days but this is quite normal. It's not a mystical "Mysore thing", it would happen anywhere.

• Don't recreate the busy schedule you left behind at home by filling your days with classes. Leave yourself some time to chill out and do nothing. It's ok to do nothing, you're not at work or having to deal with the responsabilities you have at home.

• There is no such thing as "being ready for Mysore". You go and bring your practice to the shala wherever and however it is whether you have been practising 20 years or 2 weeks. Beginners are warmly welcomed, what a great place to begin.

• Don't even start to think about where you will be stopped or if you will be stopped. You came to learn and they will take care of it, at the end of the day you pay the institute to teach you so you don't need to worry about it, let them do that for you.
  

• Don't even begin to try to understand why some people get stopped at different places. If you can't bind in Mari D and get stopped there and someone else can't either and can go on...that's just the way it is. They have their reasons.
  

• You don't need to be able to do everything perfectly.

• Don't come to Mysore as a "Yoga tourist", come with a deep respect of the shala and the teaching which you recieve there.
  

• It can be hard if you're not used to practising 6 days a week but it gets easier. The early start also becomes a habit, you might even start to enjoy it.

• Ladies cover your shoulders and legs or you'll get some unwanted attention.

• It's good to respect ladies holiday (Guruji advocates it and you're in his shala after all, so even if you don't usually respect it maybe give it a chance). It's also good to miss practice if you are injured or unwell.

• It's ok to stop your practice early if you need to for whatever reason, just let Sharath, Saraswathi ot Guruji know. It's not a crime!
  

• Take the time to chat to the locals, like your rickshaw driver for example, they are very friendly people. Guru who owns the coconut stand is one of my favorite people for example, and Lokesh my rickshaw man.
  

• It can be hard but the best thing is to come with no expectations.

• Smile. If you can't laugh at yourself you're taking your practice too seriously. It's meant to enrich your life.

• Don't obsess about the yoga.

WASHINGTON - A Republican gubernatorial candidate's call for creation of a forced labor camp for illegal immigrants drew rebukes Friday from two GOP lawmakers, who labeled it a low point in the immigration debate.
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Don Goldwater, nephew of the late Sen. Barry Goldwater, caused an international stir this week when EFE, a national news agency of Spain, quoted him as saying he wanted to hold undocumented immigrants in camps to use them "as labor in the construction of a wall and to clean the areas of the Arizona desert that they're polluting."

The article described Goldwater's plan as a "concentration camp" for migrants.

Goldwater, a candidate for governor in Arizona, said in a statement Friday that his comments were taken out of context. He said he was calling for a work program for convicted nonviolent felons, similar to "tried and tested, effective and accepted practices" used by state and local jails.

But two Republicans, Arizona Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record) and Rep. Jim Kolbe (news, bio, voting record), called Goldwater's comments "deeply offensive" and asked state Republicans to reject his candidacy in the Sept. 12 primary.

"That Mr. Goldwater is either unaware of or indifferent to the loaded symbolism, injustice and un-Americanism of his 'plan' to address the many serious issues caused by illegal immigration reveals his flaws as a candidate and a stunning lack of respect for the basic values of a generous and decent society," McCain said in a statement.

Kolbe said that if the comments are true, Goldwater "has demonstrated his complete unworthiness for public office, and I am confident he will be soundly rejected by Republicans from the party of Barry Goldwater, who consistently demonstrated his compassion and respect for all people. This is a sad day in the national debate on immigration policy."

McCain and Kolbe favor a guest-worker program for illegal immigrants.

Goldwater made a similar comment at an April anti-immigration rally.

"Build us that wall — now!" Goldwater said, referring to a proposal to add 700 miles of fences along the U.S.-Mexico border. He promised then that if elected, he would put illegal immigrants in a tent city on the border and use their labor to build the wall.

Barry Goldwater, the former Arizona senator, was the Republican presidential nominee in 1964.