Last week, I Facebooked [Faceboked? Well, if my Education prof in first year made “Amazoned” a verb, I suppose I can do the same for Facebooked] about gym game issues. As in, issues finding gym games that don’t suck.
Yeah, there are a lot of gym games that suck out there. It’s ridiculous.
So I got everybody to tell me their favourite gym games. A lot of people really like dodgeball, apparently. I hated dodgeball. The only time I ever sort of liked that game was in middle school that time that Sam and I spun in circles and didn’t get hit until the very end of the game. I think people thought we probably weren’t playing or something.
Anyway, a week or so before I’d met up with my friend Dia when she was here for BUSINESS TRAVEL! Dia and I connected through my blog awhile back [I believe that’s what it was] — she’s got not only a Bachelor’s of Kinesiology, but a MASTERS as well. So we had all kinds of nerdiness to discuss, it was awesome. She works for Special Olympics Ontario, so we share this epic love for adapted physical activity and she’s full of resources and research articles that she sends me sometimes, and stuff like that. We had coffee and it was awesome.
So, back on the subject of gym games, Dia dropped me an e-mail, and the next day, a gigantic package arrived in my mailbox [or maybe in my door. It may have been too big for my mailbox]. Holy amazing.
Seriously. Best title for a book about developmental physical education EVER.
So not only that, but I’m totally spoiled. She also sent me TORONTO CHOCOLATE. To add to that, she also gave me Toronto chocolate when we met up when she was here. How sweet is that?
But not just ANY chocolate:
CHOCOLATE WITH POP ROCKS.
Seriously. If there was ever a food that was a party in your mouth with everyone invited [a la Moe Szyslack] it would be Toronto chocolate with Pop Rocks and hazelnut. Thanks Dia!
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On the subject of kinesiology [okay, the story about chocolate was sort of about kinesiology in a roundabout way], I’m in this class called Physical Activity and Aging. As part of the course requirements, we have to complete an eight-hour practicum with seniors who are exercising.
You know what’s difficult about that? Seniors exercise during the day. Because when do seniors have free time? During the day. During the evening they are full of visiting their kids who work during the day, and hanging out at home, and going to bed early. Or at least that is my understanding. Maybe the people who work with seniors who want to exercise are just all “Hey, they have free time during the day, I can have a 9-5 job now.” and affect the socialization and exercise hours of seniors that way, I don’t know. And what do I do during the day? I go to school and I work and I attempt to get some of that awesome thing called exercise worked into my day myself.
So I finally got my practicum arranged at a senior’s apartment complex. T, the therapeutic recreation coordinator, is awesomesauce helping me figure out when my practicum fits with my schedule AND theirs. She is SO stoked about my practicum, it’s awesome. I’ve met the woman once and she’s officially FULL OF AWESOME.
I went to what the schedule calls Exercise Tape today. Originally i thought that meant Exercise VIDEO Tape.
It didn’t. It meant Exercise CASSETTE tape. It went on for half an hour and I observed and took about five lines of notes, and it was INCREDIBLY boring. It was chair exercises. Which, I mean, that’s awesome. If that’s how the senior exercise boat floats, then that’s cool. They do it every morning. And they are all serious while doing it, or something, because there is no social involved. Which is something I’d like to observe, since apparently having social support helps people adhere to exercise programs. [There were seven people there today. Sometimes there’s two, and sometimes there’s fifteen. Just how the exercise boat floats.]
Here’s the problem though. It was half an hour, which means to make it work into my schedule on the two days a week I can go at 9:30 am . . . I have to do it for eight weeks. And this thing is due November 23rd. So no bueno on that.
T and I sat down and hashed it out. She was determined to make this work for me. Super awesome woman, as I said about three paragraphs ago. We got it set up. I’m going for Ladder Golf the next four Wednesdays and Bocce Ball the next four Saturdays. One O’Clock Games. It’s gonna be awesome. The tenants I met today were super friendly, and I’m sure they’re gonna kick my butt at these target games [TGfU model FTW].
Oh, I’d also like to mention within the span of less than two hours, I went form watching kids play floor hockey to watching seniors work out. I also walked 4K today and am going to the gym tomorrow. I got this kinesiology thing down.
