Blog summery 3

Looking over the blogs I have posted in the past I talk about what had been going on in my life which I considered to be leisure. Most of my blogs consist of stories about my friends and family and the activities or lack of activity we did together. Looking back to my first blog summery I see that I have evolved as both a leisure educator as well as becoming more leisure educated. There are some areas that I am proud to say that I improved, and unfortunately there are also some areas I had hoped to improve in, however I am still in the same place I was when I started this blog.
Many times I would write about my constraints. I would complain about how school and work and other day to day duties would get in the way of me and my leisure. I have come to realize however that perhaps it is not these constraints which are the real problem; it is my lack of motivation to try new things and force myself out of my comfort zone. I always tell myself that I was so busy in high school and while I was growing up all I want to do now is take it easy. But it should be the opposite; I should stay active now more than ever so I do not lose all that I worked hard for before. Right now I enjoy staying in with firends, shopping and relazing because they are easy and available to me. I need some motivation! I may be busy now but I used to train 20 hours a week in gymnastics how could I have time to do that then but now find time for a hobby or pastime. My new constraint is now motivation.
But let’s not make me out to be a complete lazy person, there are a few things which I am proud that I accomplished this year. I played intermural basket ball and I went and did something that I had never done before, trapezing. I would like to take full credit for participating in these activities however one I was needed because my guy friends had to have at least one girl on their team, and the other was an assignment given as an assignment. Although I was in a way forced to participate in these activities once I was started with them I really enjoyed myself, and that I did all on my own.
What have I learned then from all of this?
I learnt that I learned a lot about how being leisure educated can help you enjoy life and help others enjoy their lives that much more. I learned that my biggest constraint is a lack of motivation, I learned that I really like trapezing, and most importantly I learned that in order to be leisure educated you must be organized. Find a way to make time to do things, the more organized someone is the easier it will be for them once they have a moment for some free time they will be able to jump right into the activity. Because I know I have a lot of free time coming up I’m making plans to go back to trapeze and spend a lot more time doing things for myself!

Finally its over!

As quick as the semester started it is over! Well i have one class left on monday but all i need to do for that is hand in a paper which is already written, corrected and printed, n its folder and ready to be handed in. Few, i made it through another semester, i am now more or less finsished an entire year of university. Yes i still have 2 exams but those seem like they are far far away.
This weekend was the first weekend in a long time that i had no plans to do any work and i loved it. I came home to my parents place with my boyfriend and dog to spend a nice relaxing weekend all together. Seeing as it was Thanksgiving somewhere in the world my family would pass up no opportunity to have another turkey. So saturday night my mother prepared a huge turkey dinner and it was delicious. We spent the day decorating the house for Christmas which was fun because we got to do it together and spend sometime outside. Unlike downtown there is about 4 inches of snow in St. Lazare, this was fun because it was our dogs first time in this much snow. I spent the weekend doing what i love best, nothing. Well maybe not nothing but doing things that i had the freedom to choose and it was wonderful.

Trapeze

For this class you all know that we were assigned to participate in a new leisure activity which we had never done before. I had a hard time coming up with something that was possible for me to do and at the same time something new. I have a friend who is always telling me the new things she is doing at her trapeze class and suggested that one day i should go with her, then it hit me! yes i should join her and that can be my activity, plus it was something that i would have loved to try regardless. I told my friend Margaux about it and suggested that she come with me. i also invited my room mate to come with us because i felt as though this might be something she could enjoy with me. We went to the sports complexe in saint Eustache where the Trapeze classes are held. We were to be there at 1:30 for our 2 hour session, they asked that we come 15 mintes early to watch a video that would tell us what we were going to be doing and some safety tips for the session. Once we started i was getting very nervous as the big trapeze was very intimidating but once i started swining i felt evry comefortable. Because i used to do gymnastics i felt very at ease up there swining. I believe that a sport such as gymnastics teaches you to be comfortable in your body and lets you be aware of where you are. Thats why i belive i enjoyed and felt so at ease while going through the steps. It was a very enjoyable experience and i cant wait until i get to do it again.

The best kind of leisure!

Ever since i have moved out from my parents house my mother and i have kept a tradition that anytime we both have some free time on the weekend she comes down to Montreal and we go shopping togther! This is something that i have always loved doing ever since i can remember and my mom would push me around the malls in my stroller.
Our day consists of an early morning to be in the stores at a good hour so we do not run out of time. We usally start in one area of downtown and see where we end up. We take a lunch break, lately we have been favoring Anton and James on Stanley, yummy pizzas! Also later in the day a coffee break is a must. Some of our favorite places to shop are, Bannana Republic, Club Monaco, Simons (we spent 3 hours there this weekend!), Holt renfrew, Olgilveys, Browns and H&M.
As much as i love to shop i think it is the time that i get to spend with my mother, we both love fashion and its always fun to go and see what new fashions we find nice and which ones we find awful. This will always be a tradition of ours because it has such a strong meaning to us. I love you mom!

Halloween

This Halloween i told myself that i was gonna go all out, have a party (or go to one), dress up a something that looked like it took some careful planning and enjoy the Halloween spirit which i have not been a part of for far to long. What really ended up happening? Not exactly what i had in mind but something that i enjoyed just the same. I love entertaining people! I love getting decorations, figuring out a menu, and creating an atmosphere appropriate to the occasion and watching it unfold. Therefore i decided to have a little dinner party in honor of Halloween night (seeing as my bf did not seem as keen about the whole dress up and party idea). What actually happened was just as good though and i got to go into happy home maker mode! Pablo's (my Boyfriend) best friend was in from Ottawa for the weekend so we had him and his girlfriend over for dinner. We do a lot of couple activities together and his girlfriend veronica, are good friends so it is always a good time.
I went out and bought Halloween decorations and turned the apartment in to a very enchanting place. I had cob webs and spiders and lots of fall colored leafs and wreaths. I decided to try cooking something i had never cooked, i wanted a meal that reminded me of the fall. Therefore i made stuffed pork chops, rice, baked sqaush with a lovely apple nut salad provided by Veronica. Everyone enjoyed the meal, this made me very happy as stuffed pork chops arent as easy as thet look. We theb broke out some alcohool and decided to watch a scary movie. The boys had the choice of I am Legend, and teh girls the classic hocus pocus. We came to a conclusion by playing the only real way to solve such a disagreement. Rock, Paper, Scissors! Of course the ladys one and Hocus Pocus it was. After the movie ended the rest of the night consisted of drinks and quality time spent with good friends.
Although my initial Halloween plan did not pull through, i was still able to have an amazing Halloween. And that is what being leisure educated is all about, when one door closes another opens as there are endless possibilities to find something you can do and keep everyone happy.

Blog Summary #2

I think that in the blogs which i have written since the last blog summery was due i have been able to incorporate a but more leisure related activities in my schedule. I used to write about how i liked to do a bunch of things but very rarely had the opportunity to do them. Maybe because of the thanksgiving holiday i found time to participate in leisure activities such as spending time with family, going boating and carving pumpkins but i think also that this blog has made me more aware of the importance leisure can have on someones life. I also found myself going out and trying a new sport that normally i probably would have passed up. But i gave it more consideration because i saw other people trying new things in our class or that they wrote about in there blog and it made me want to have a similar experience. I used to be a very active person and have lots of things i could say that i managed in my spare time, and this blog helped me realize that i really do miss doing them. However i am still finding myself suffering from time constraints. I did get to have a nice weekend full of leisure on thanksgiving but then latter paid for it by falling behind in my school work. So this is still the question of how am i suposed to be truley happy with my leisure time when i know that on my list of priorities it has to take the back seat?
I even found that time contraint was what held me back from becoming a leisure educator. I tried to get my boyfriend and my room mate to participate in some more leisure activities with me and they to were unable to because they had no time. So this is when me being the lesiure educator should have shown them how to make time and be able to incorparte both into their lives, right? I would say yes as i believe that that is what a leisure educator would do. But how am i supposed to show them how when i can not figure out myself? I would say i would make time and try and rearrange my priorities but i have to study a lot to do well in school, i have to go to work to make money (so when i do leisure i dont have to worry about money being anoher constraint), and i have to keep up my apratment and othe living responsabilities. And once all that is taken care of im left with very little time for myself. My blog has turned very negagtive but i am still trying to keep a positive attitude about leisure! i do enjoy feeling happy and a leisure experience and i am not going to give up on it that easy. I feel now that i acknowledged my contsraint and i acknowledged that i want to do something about it. I also know that i want to help lesiure educate the people in my life and when we have time i am definetly going to make sure we do them together. This blog is a good way for me to reflect on a certain aspect of my life which is important to me and evaluate how i am doing at it, after this blog i realise i am not doing so well but i also realised that i want to do better and that i am sure i will.

Getting somone to leisure with me

So recently i have felt the need to pay closer attention to my leisure and recreation repertoire as it is a little pitiful for a girl majoring in leisure sciences. But i have also realized that i rather doing that kind of thing with people i love. So i began to think who would want to leisure with me and naturally i picked my boyfriend. We spend a lot of time together so i figured this would be easy to try and do some new activities together. Little did i know this was going to prove harder than i anticipated. I tried to make plans to get into the halloween spirit and bought pumpkins, suggested walks in the nice fall leaves, go to the Andy warhol exobition because we had just watched facory girl not to long ago, but i had no luck. So than i figured i would ask my roomate the same things, again no luck. Than i realised that i wouldnt have time to do any of this either because we are all in the middle of exams! Once again my biggest time constraint has come back to time, i just cant seem to get away from that even when im trying to help others to participate in leisure as well.