Category Archives: Wellness

Shovelling Snow

Yesterday I came home to find one of my neighbours’ sidewalk shovelled beautifully clean of snow. Determined not to be outbeat, I tried my hand at shovelling for the first time.

While my technique probably leaves something to be desired (having never seen anyone shovel snow before, I’m just making this up as I go along), I still managed to clear a path from the door to the garden stairs. A friend slipped on the stairs recently; I cleared that up as well, worked on clearing some parking space in front of our house, and chipped away a square metre of ice from the pavement before it started to get dark and I got tired.

I was planning on working on the rest of the pavement today, but thank goodness it’s raining and I don’t want to get soaked (my excuse) — my body is aching all over from shovelling for over an hour yesterday while running on two hours’ of sleep. I slept like a babe last night and could’ve slept for way, way more than nine hours if I didn’t have a morning meeting to consider…

Conversations with Strangers

I was on the packed bus from school today when a kindly gentleman asked me a question about a button I pineed onto my schoolbag. (The question, I couldn’t answer; one of my friends gave me that pin for my 18th birthday and I display it as a reminder of her.)

Anyway, he struck up a conversation with me after that and I found out that he’s a professor at the School of Music, so all you music students out there have at least one very nice man as a teacher! And so we talked a little bit about music and I was very delighted to find someone who knows the UK Associated Board system as well as Canada’s Royal Conservatory of Music, and I told him that I’m in English lit, and yes I’d like to do a Master’s, and I’m in the Co-op program to help me think about what I’ll do after that. All in all, it was a very nice conversation and I give him full credit for beginning it; I’ve decided that all my first-year friendliness was a face I put on or a phase I went through and that actually I’m as shy of strangers as I was when I was three. (I have a clear memory of hiding behind my mother’s legs when one of my soon-to-be kindergarten teachers bent down to greet me.)

That said, I found myself grinning at another lady who smiled straight back at me after we managed to run and catch another bus; I guess running for a bus and making it creates a common bond of sorts.

Now that finals and papers are upon us all, I am on the ready to attack! Except, of course, for this raging migraine I’ve had all day which has been sending mayday calls for bed, and the fact that I seem to be coming down with something. Dreadful timing to get sick; I mean, what is my body thinking?!

15 Hour Flight, Here I Come

I know when I’m going home now.

MSP Success!

After wrangling with tinny “thank you for continuining to be on hold” music for several minutes and mailing out many forms (only a couple, actually), I’ve successfully applied for the Medical Services Plan premiums assistance program and no longer need to pay my sad little $54 per month! That ate into my budget last year (because for some reason you have to be resident in B.C. for the last 12 months to be eligible for assistance, even though I was even poorer in 2007 than in 2008…).

How I hate the phrase: Your account is in arrears. Instead of having to make up for those several dollars in my latest bill, I am now going to receive a cheque. To show how happy I am, I’m going to insert a smiley face: 🙂

See, that’s how happy I am!

Today

I watched a bird hop around my garden.

What is your today?