I got attracted to taking a class in drawing the Female Buddha. It turned out to be a quite rigid approach–complete with grids and even a sequence of when to draw what part (which I ignored completely). I was amazed at how many people were happy to follow this. I guess they liked the result. For my part I wondered whether to continue, but it was fun drawing for so many hours and being told to slow down by the teacher–which was something my Ashtanga yoga teacher had been telling me as well. I was so far ahead of the rest of the class that the woman next to me asked if I was a Ninja. I assured her I am. Meanwhile, it had only been months before I was asking the boyfriend what the heck a Ninja is anyway. The next day I received a package from the International House of Ninjas! Is that synchronicity or what? I also opened a magazine and the first article I came to was one about thangka painting–with the author defending against those who say most are the work of copiests with no originality. So even though it seemed like I was there for no reason, hmmm?