I'm just home in Mississauga for the weekend and stocking up on a few items I hadn't bothered to bring down to London, especially a snow brush for the car - we got a couple of inches of 'lake effect' snow on Friday - and winter boots and so on. I'm also going to take some nicer clothes down; now that I know what I'm in for every day I think I can get away with dressing a little nicer. You never know who's going to show up in the workshop. As Don says, 'if you look sharp you just might be'.
I'm afraid my grand plans of riding my bike to school every day have not worked out; I'm finding that I need quite a bit of time to read stuff and taking the bus gives me that extra half hour a day that I don't get on my bike or god forbid driving my car. $12 a day for parking or about $350 a year for a parking pass. Of course being on public transit for the first time in I don't know how long is interesting as well. I leave it to your imagination, but I have been reminded of that unwritten rule that you never take the open seat when there are already people standing - that seat is open for a reason. There's a bit of guilt about missing that exercise I got on the bike but I'm quite active each day - lots of walking - even though it's not 'working out', and I've been going up to the campus community centre to take some fitness classes or go for the occasional swim. Believe it or not, yoga once a week on Wednesdays is saving me. This piano program and I guess working on pianos in general is killer on the lower back and shoulders and the yoga straightens me all out. Plus, the fringe benefits of attending yoga class with university girls are obvious, although sometimes the only view I get from some of the poses is my own arse or something. Not pretty.
I've told Dale that I'm not sure if I can continue to come home every weekend because I'm starting to get a feeling of falling behind a little bit. In fact this weekend I am turning my back on some work that needs to be done and dumping it on my partner. Not much choice about being home this time because tomorrow is a baptism for my niece's daughter and I wouldn't miss that, but I'm going to have to take each weekend as it comes and possibly not decide until Friday afternoon if I stay or go. As it turns out the girls are adjusting just fine to be not being home during the week, and unfortunately the weekends are not the time when Dale needs relief - it's during the week that it's hard for her. Just a few more months. Timing couldn't be worse right now though - Dale is managing an office move of 140 employees from 4 buildings into one and for sure there are a million things going wrong.
Christmas break begins December 15 - hard to believe the first term is nearly gone by already.
