the past two weeks

I’d planned on keeping a pretty regular post once a week, however, that idea hasn’t quite panned out since it’s been two weeks now since my last post. All I can say is that the last two weeks of September have been a bit of a blur for me. There always seems to be so much going on at school, and other housekeeping items to take care of that I don’t have much time for anything else. Even my gym attendance has been down to only three times a week over the past few weeks now. At least I am still making it there.

Here’s a rundown of my typical week thus far:

Monday: online class starts at 8:30 am, finishes just around lunchtime, then I pop over to the gym in the afternoon, evening is for reading and preparing for lab the next day

Tuesday & Wednesday: in the lab 8:30 am to 4:30 pm, crash at home afterwards and try to spend some time with Jasper and Richard, I feel mentally and physically incapable of anything after such intense learning days, I usually fall asleep on the couch watching whatever Netflix show we are on

Thursday: class starts at 9 am, finishes just around lunch, then I try to work on some homework while at school until my next class starts at 1:00 pm, finishing around 4 pm I walk/bike home, then gym time, dinner, shower, bed

Friday: mornings are free so I tend to still wake up early and do whatever research/readings/assignments are a priority, lately it has been working in the photography lab for the class assignments, then I head over to the library for the weekly book pickup time, make it to class for 1 pm, but luckily this one has been ending a bit early, gym time, dinner (we have been treating ourselves to takeout on Fridays and I often have a beer too!), and then a well deserved home-work free evening

Saturday & Sunday: work on homework, readings, reply to emails, and housekeeping items, meal prep for the week ahead

then repeat.

I tallied it up and class/lab time accounts for 28 hours a week. So why do I feel so much more busy than I did when I was working 37 hours a week, taking an online class, going to the gym 5 days a week, and still doing all my other chores/meal preps/volunteer work, etc.? I haven’t been able to figure that out yet, but I think it has something to do with the large learning curve I am on, and the amount of time and mental energy assignments have been taking. I am hoping to get more efficient at these things over the next month, especially my condition reports. Hopefully that will make it feel more manageable.

Richard has been a big help though, he’s been able to take on the personal administrative things that appear from time to time, all of the adult things like insurance and property management. I can’t image having to deal with those things on top of it all.

We did do something fun last weekend though, and on Sunday evening we went to Lemoine Point Conservation Area which is about a 15 minute drive from our place. It’s in Kingston, just on the other side of the airport, and reminds me of Wascana Park, in that it is a very large park area in the city, but in this case the park itself isn’t manicured like Wascana Park is. This is more of a forest to walk through with wide, well cared for paths. There was a lot of wildlife to see such as squirrels and rabbits, and I also got to feed several chickadees and a nuthatch from the palm of my hand. The locals have trained the birds to come to benches and from there you can stick out your hand with some seeds or nuts and the birds will perch and grab a snack. It was a lot of fun and I hope we will go again many times and hopefully next time get some pictures as well.

Here are a few highlights from the last two weeks in some photos:

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

•