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.

Camp Kinkora

This last weekend for my leadership class we headed off on a mandatory weekend retreat in Saint Agathe to spend a couple of days in the great outdoors. Did i enjoy this experience? Not particularly. I liked the relationships i started with many of the people in my program, i enjoyed some of the games that we played, but all in all i did not have that good of a time. Was this supposed to be leisure? In a way yes but at no point did i feel like i was having a leisure time. I suppose with some of the games i learned that I could apply them to leisure education but they were a different sort of leisure. It would be more leisure that i would introduce to kids at a day camp them to an older crowd. All of this to say that i was very happy to be home as i was not very comfortable in the camp facilities. I made some good friends and learned some important leadership skills which i am sure will come in handy in my day to day life from now on.

Recently i have been being asked by some old friends from high school to come and play intermeral basketball on Tuesday evenings. I have been reluctant for a few weeks and used excuses so that i did not have to go. I had to much work, i had group meetings, i pulled a muscle. But last tuesday i figured i had no reason not to go so i pulled out my sportiest outfit and running shoes and tried to convice myself that i remerbered how to play basketball. When i got there i was very intimidated because there were a bunch of really big guys dubking and pulling all sorts of crazy moves and i barley remembered how to dribble. Once the game strated i felt very uncomfortable, i didnt know where to run to, didnt know where to stand on penalty shots and just felt all together out of place. I had a few moments of me feeling as though i was doing alright and thats what kept me motivated. After the game ended we lost by thirty some points but i felt a little more at ease and felt like i was something that i could do again.Tonight will be my second game and im actually looking forward to it and i think that it is something that i will try to keep up and attend every week.

Thanksgivin!

Thanksgiving is always one of my favorite holidays and this year was no different! Every year my family goes to Brockville Ontario on the St. Laurence river to visit my granny and spend time with my uncles, aunts and cousin. This year i went down with my parents for 3 days of family fun and relaxation. My uncle lives on the water so every year we all get in his boat and drive down to the marina where he keeps his boat, its always such a treat because you can see all the changing colors from the water along with all the magnificent houses that line the shore. Other traditions which my family does are things like playing the annual football game which always means good times. I love to this because it allows me to get some excercise, be outside and get a little competative with the family. We also go on a nice walk through the park where my mother and her brothers grew up and took all their swimming lessons. These walks are always fun because there very peaceful and my mom and uncles always have funny stories to tell from their past. Also we always carve pumpkins! this year we tried something new, instead of carving it all the way thro we just kind of shaved the image of a turkey into and it turned out pretty well. And lastly the best part was the Thanksgiving Dinner! My granny is an excelleto cook and its always nice to sit down with everyone altogether. All in all my weekend was really fun and relaxing, a perfect weekend for doing my favorite leisure activities. ( would have been even better if i had not been studyting for a specific midterm i had on the tuesday back... just kidding!)