Living Away From Home for the First Time

Leaves are falling, there's a chill in the air, the lineup at the bookstore is 45 minutes long which means that school is well on it's way for University students.  For first years the beginning of the school year can also mean living away from home for the first time and that can be both intimidating and scary.  I've been living apart from my parents for four years now and these are some things I've learned along the way.

Budget Your Groceries

I didn't realize until I was in charge of my own food just how expensive groceries can be; that paired with the sudden ability to buy whatever you want can be dangerous.  To avoid getting overwhelmed plan what you're going to eat beforehand so you know what you need to buy before you get to the store.  Check what's on special to save money as well especially when it comes to meat!

Don't Be a Hermit

Living on your own for the first time (or even with roommates) can be scary and it can also be lonely especially if you've moved away from your hometown.  As lonely as it can be I've found that loneliness is only amplified by staying inside all the time.  Even if you don't have a lot of people to hang out with just going for a walk outside or to the mall or something can make it all feel a little bit better.  I can't count the number of times that one small outing (even if I was still alone) turned my day around but sitting alone on the couch has almost never made me feel better.

Clean Up After Yourself

You will never appreciate all the work your mom does to keep the house neat and clean until suddenly you have to do it all yourself.  Hard as it is I've found that I do feel better when things are neater.  At the very least do the dishes, do your laundry, and don't forget to wash your sheets every so often.

Most of all I would say enjoy it; it can be fun to figure everything out on your own and to decorate a new place, it's a new adventure that you get to do on your own for the first time and if you need help your parents are only a phone call away (seriously call you parents, they miss you).

Summer in Pictures

It seems like overnight the weather has turned for the worst, it's cold, I wore a jacket and a hat the other day, and now it's September and I guess summer is officially over.  I took two mini trips this summer; one to the cottage with the famjam and one to visit my parents in BC.

Our family cottage is my happy place, unfortunately during that trip I had a concussion so I couldn't do a lot other than sit on the dock (on the warm days) and read in short bursts.

A month later I travelled to BC to hang out with my parents and luckily I was recovered from the concussion at that point so I was able to go on a fun hike with the mom and the sister; there's nothing like those BC forests.

The Summer ended on a high when me and the roomies roadtripped down to Edmonton to see Taylor Swift in concert!  I won't go into too much detail but it was incredible, I could post a full review if anyone wanted because I have SO MANY THOUGHTS about Taylor Swift.

Why Losing is Hard

When you watch the Olympics on TV and you see an athlete win that elusive gold medal the commentators always say how hard it is, how hard that athlete had to work, what hardships they had to overcome to stand on top of that podium.  When you join an elite sport and go to training camps you hear that talk from coaches, the one where they tell you how hard it is to be the best and that it's not easy, that the best become the best in the world because they put in the work.  What they don't tell you is how hard it is to lose.  What you can't see while the cameras are focused on the winner is the numerous other athletes behind them who on a different day, under different circumstances could have been on the podium or the athlete sitting at home who didn't even make the Olympic team because of one mistake during the Olympic trials.  There are so many athletes who do the same training and work just as hard as the medalists but at the end of the day they don't win, they lose.

I've been training in Calgary for about four years.  After a year and a half I started doing well enough that I got moved from group 2 into group 1; the same group that the National Team athletes train in.  I also went from being one of the fastest in my group to the slowest.  It was a lot easier to be one of the fastest than the slowest both mentally and physically.  Obviously I want to be in the top group and I need to be in that group to improve to where I want to be but some days it's hard to always be at the back of the pack especially when I can see exactly where I want to be.  I've recently realized there are more athletes who don't achieve their ultimate goal than there are who do even if they work their absolute hardest.