I am really loving university. I love my program and the social life even more.
He said
This week really started to settle into university life for Emelia. There was talk of upcoming papers due this week, a proper workload of reading and course prep, and she is already starting to map out for exams and midterms. And then, of course, there is Cheer two times a week, her job at Silver City, as well as the one we weren’t sure where she was with the coaching job at GymWorld, which all of a sudden came back onto her dance card (more on that later). And then, on top of all of that, of course, there is still her busy social life that now includes going to frat parties! But, the great news is she is absolutely loving her classes and Kings. Especially, her favourites are the classes that are directly linked to her degree: Childhood and Youth Studies.
As for the job at GymWorld… we had all but cast that off, thinking maybe they didn’t have enough enrolment and maybe didn’t need her, but out of the blue about a week ago, she got an email to come back for some more training by the owner so they could work her back into the schedule. So, added to an already very busy calendar for Emelia, she now had her second job! She’s going to wait and see what this ends up being like–if she ends up getting enough hours and liking it, she will make a decision about whether she’s going to carry on with two, which might be too much for her considering all the other stuff she had on her calendar.
Thursday this week marked the 37th anniversary of Danielle and me dating and, coincidentally, our 26th wedding anniversary to boot. In true ‘us‘ fashion, we didn’t really make a big deal of it because we make a big deal of our relationship every other day of the year. But, we did manage to go out for dinner this evening to celebrate at one of our favourite restaurants in the city, Under The Volcano, for some amazing Mexican food. It was a nice, quiet meal, at a much slower pace than we are used to, and the bonus was that at the end of it all, the dishes we dirtied were not for us to clean!
This morning I was able to make it out for my third club ride of the month with my London Cycling Club peeps for the Fall Fondo. The group that signed up for the shortest 50km route was only 3, including myself—likely because of the later start time. But all 3 showed up, so we worked out what a reasonable average speed was for everyone, and then because there was no ride leader assigned to it, I became the de facto unofficial ride leader elect. We worked well together, and even though at times we got a bit stretched out at different speeds, I always made sure to hold up when needed to let the group reconnect and ride together. The “highlight” of the ride was a climb at the very end, lovingly referred to as Heartbreak Hill on Gideon Drive, where you climb 120ft in a distance of a kilometre at almost 7% uphill grade at one point. But then the bonus gift for me was that at the end of the 55km route, I had another 20km to ride home on the TVP from Boler Mountain, where the ride started and ended. In the end, I put down a 75km ride!
She said
Things are really starting to get in a groove for Emelia in university. She is getting in a good groove, keeping on top of all her class readings, making study notes as she goes through each class and even has a couple small papers due this coming week. She has so far adjusted quickly to the groove of school. She has a VERY full calendar, between her now two jobs, cheer, school and a growing social life she is balancing it all. In the summer Emelia wasn’t getting a ton of hours at the movie theatre and now out of the blue with school returning when she would like less hours she is getting about 24 hours a week, plus gymnastic coaching once a week and two days a week training for cheer it is a lot. She is hoping that her shifts at the movie theatre doesn’t keep up at this pace because she would like a lot less to have a better balance of having more free time on the weekends to go out with her friends.
Emelia is really starting to embrace the social side of university. With all the access through social media Emelia is part of a group of first years at Western and they can see where the parties are. After last weekends fun for the girls at the frat party last weekend the girls are hooked. Emelia, Belle and Bri on Thursday were off again to a party. I drove them downtown again and off the girls were. They hung out for a few hours and Emelia had the best time. She has really started to come more and more out of her shell and being much more comfortable heading out with the girls as a pack and meeting a lot of new people. Emelia had a VERY late night, even when I got her home at 2:00 she was chatting away to one person she met until almost 4:00 in the morning. Needless to say Emelia was VERY tired the next morning when she had to drag her butt out of bed to get to her Friday class. For the rest of the weekend Emelia wasn’t really able to go out since she was working all weekend. Needless to say the girls are so excited for next weekend which is Western’s homecoming.
The weekend was a busy one, Emelia worked a ton and I spent a lot of time at the cheer gym. As we have talked about Emelia and her World’s team have been training hard to get their routine so they have a chance at a bid to compete at Disney at Cheerleading World’s. With the high cost of the competition the parents and athletes have been doing a ton of fundraising. This weekend was the second campaign of a World’s pancake breakfast. The event started on Saturday morning and continued through today to sell pancakes to support the kids costs to travel. The event was a hit and was so much fun. I love how much the parents have come together to work as a group to raise funds to help send these girls to their dream competition.
After a very busy weekend John and I wrapped up with a dinner out together as a belated celebration of our 26th wedding anniversary. We headed out to one of our favourite Mexican restaurants and enjoyed an amazing dinner, some yummy drinks and great company. It really was the perfect end of a busy week. Next week will be prove to be another busy one. Life is always busy and we wouldn’t change it for anything.