Posts Under Guest Posts Category

Every year, 20SB has a blog swap, which is basically what it sounds like: if you’re interested, you get partnered up with someone else and do a guest post for each other’s blogs.

This year, the theme for the swap was “summer”. My partner is the lovely (and fellow Canuck!) Krista from  Krista Does Life. She’s written an awesome post about her summer, and what she’s done to combat boredom and loneliness from working shift work, aka a different schedule from her friends (I hear ya on that one, Krista! Been there and done that!)

If you’re so inclined, you can head over to Krista’s blog and check out my post, “Summer Music Mix Tape“. So without further adieu… I’ll let Krista take over :)

As a student having to pay my own way through school (and life in general), my summers over the years have consisted of work. Lots of work with little life. As I’ve been trying to make it my mantra to do more life-living, this year has been different. Very different.

I started my spring semester in school (May till the end of June) overseas in Ghana studying African Women’s Literature and Post Colonialism. As well, I did research on people with disabilities in a third world country (as I work with people with disabilities during the school year here in Canada). It was probably the best trip I’ve ever had and will have for many years.

But I digress.

Upon coming back home, I’m pretty sure I was experiencing “reverse culture shock,” as I was terribly upset about many things. I felt lonely. To add to the loneliness, I work nights at a restaurant, Friday-Tuesday, so it seemed as though most of my friends didn’t have time for me on the days I had off. Instead of continuing to wallow in such misery, I decided to do something about it. I took up lots of activities that I’ve always enjoyed in an attempt to fill the various voids I was feeling.

The first thing I did was I bought a bike. I love to bike and have since I was a child. My boyfriend, John, also bought a bike, and since then, he has been biking to and from work and bikes with me on my weekends before work. Biking in the sunshine and pumping my body full of happy endorphins really does wonders to any situation, especially working in a restaurant.

I’ve also taken up various crafts and gotten back into my artwork. While many of my wares look simple and elementary compared to some of the other pieces I’ve seen, I’m happy with them. They were inspired by love and geekery. I also started up a craft blog to document my progress, which can be found here for those interested.

Finally, I’ve been doing yoga in a park close to where I work and where I grew up in my city about 3 times a week. This activity… I can’t even begin to describe how wonderful the benefits of yoga are in general, but in a place with such beautiful scenery, it makes it that much more enjoyable. I do yoga in front of a lagoon with a water fountain, with the occasional paddleboat or goose crossing our path. The sounds of the wind in the trees and children’s laughter coupled with the gentle kisses of sunbeams through the leaves make for such a relaxing and rewarding experience, each and every time. For anyone who can take part in such an activity, I highly recommend it. There’s something wonderful about becoming one with yourself and nature.

It seems as though most of my summer has been a recovery process of sorts. Which is fine. I mean, given what I usually do with my summers (work, play video games when not working), I think this summer has shaped up for me quite nicely. I’m much happier than I was at the beginning of summer. With 3 weeks left before the start of another fall semester, I have “going to the west coast of Canada (Kelowna, Vancouver) to visit John’s family” to look forward to.

And peach picking. There will be peach picking if I have a say in things (and I do).

How has your summer been? What exciting things have you been up to? Vacations? New experiences?