Kickboxing

Halfway through October I was feeling really bored with running and doing "The Shred."  My boyfriend suggested something new like kickboxing. It took me another week of looking at the website that I found and an email asking a lot of questions did I gather up enough courage to actually go to my first class. My first class was a lot of fun, and it was hard work! That was about five weeks ago. Since then I have been going at least 3 times per week. I have steadily noticed improvements with my technique, flexibility, and strength. This is my new love! I have made it a goal to go at least three times per week so that I can do this to replace running in winter time. I am now a little bit obsessed. I want to go everyday. I love the mornings when I wake up feeling sore from last night's workout. It's glorious. Running only made me sore because my knees are bad. This is a good, muscle soreness that I cherish. I feel like I am getting fitter, and it actually brightens my mood a lot. My boyfriend has noticed. The website says that kickboxing will help me release my inner frustrations. I didn't know that I had inner anger until I started kickboxing. Now, the problem is keeping in my frustrations when I'm not in kickboxing class! I think before, I was holding in all of my frustrations and anger so no one knew I had them. Now it's all let out in a positive way in class, and sometimes in a negative way at my boyfriend when I haven't been to class in a couple days. I NEED to go to kickboxing. I need that faucet of release.
What I love about the class is that it's run by women and only women attend. It's non-competitive, and it doesn't matter how "good" you are at kickboxing. What does matter is how hard you are working. If you cheat on an exercise, you're only cheating yourself.

Living alone

I grew up in Kelowna. When I was 18, I moved out of my parents' house. The house I moved into belonged to my grandparents who had passed away a few years before. It is old, quirky, and fills me with a lot of good memories of my childhood. It is only 5 minutes' drive away from my parents' house, so it was very convenient for me to go there for dinner (or breakfast or lunch). Living in that old house taught me how to live alone. It taught me how to clean, how to fix something when it wasn't working properly, how to manage money (I had never paid bills before), and how to actually be alone. At first I was messy, ate a lot of frozen dinners, and was scared to turn off the lights at night.
Six years later, I have learned to love living on my own. I love and cherish the independence it gives me, and the control I can have over what happens with the house. I am a perfectionist, so I clean the house in a certain way and often. I like to come and go whenever I please, to have my pets there with me, to listen to music as loud as I like, to walk around in underwear, and not have to talk to anyone.
In this Kamloops house, I have been alone because my landlady has been travelling Europe for a month. She gets home on Wednesday. I am trying to prepare myself for living with another person; a person that is my mother's age and will probably have motherly instincts. My mother is more like my friend than my mother since I have become an adult so I am worried that that will be the biggest challenge. It will also be difficult for me to live in her space, with her there. I don't want to be in her face; I want it to look like I hardly live here. It feels like I'm about to live with an Aunt, we'll see how it goes.

My fight with school

I always fall into the same rotation every year. I go to school for eight months, work for four months. Whenever I get near the end of the school year or semester, I wish I was working. It sounds nice to go to work and not bring it home with you, to make money, to spend that money and have fun. But after working a few months, I wish I was at school. At school I don't have to dress up, I don't have to worry about customer service, people expect me to be poor and therefore expect less of me besides good grades.
This dilemma reminds me of something a friend once said, "humans are hard to please". I get what I want and then I don't want it anymore and want something else. Why can't I be content?
A month into school, I am feeling more friendly towards it. I like to learn new things, to meet people with similar goals, and to have real structure and routine to my days (no matter how monotonous). I don't even mind doing the work, the small accomplishments I get to experience every week makes me feel good about myself. It makes me feel that I have been constructive with my time, that I am helping myself to get somewhere important in life.
We'll see how I feel in another month. I will probably be emotional, sleepy but wired on caffeine, wishing to be on vacation in Hawaii with a drink in my hand and no thoughts in my head and nothing to do.

About me

Hey my name is Kelsey. I live in Kamloops, going to TRU for the RT program, but I am originally from Kelowna.
I am 24 years old, the oldest of three daughters in my family, and have a BSc in Biology. My family is very important to me, including my dog Molly and my two cats. We spend every holiday together, and try to keep well-connected all year round.
For fun I like to go running with Molly, hike, travel, read, do yoga, lay at the beach, and spend time with my family and friends.