Monday, Monday

Today was another busy Monday. I'm fortunate, though, because my first class is at 10 so I actually got to sleep in more this morning than I did all weekend. My morning class is always great. They're an Intermediate II conversation class and it doesn't take much effort to get them to talk. My afternoon class, however, is a different story. It's an Advanced II conversation class and it's like pulling teeth to get them to say anything. I usually give them some open-ended statements or questions and unfortunately, they tend to give minimalist answers and refuse to expand on them. Today, things got off to a slow start, as usual. But, after one of my students made a few risque but amusing comments, the conversation really started to take off, but unfortunately not in time. Just as things really started to get interesting, it was 3:00 and class was over. Hopefully, we'll be able to pick up where we left off next week. I've been working on my progress reports over lunch for the last few weeks and it's slow-going. I've discovered it takes about 45min to write one, so 45min x 80 students = a lot of work.
This evening, we also had Taureaux practice. We only had 5 of 9 players present, so our practice plan went completely out the window. There were a lot of issues from yesterday's game that we wanted to address, but there weren't enough people to do it. We did a lot of tackling and pass drills, but we weren't able to practice any team offence or defense. Tomorrow night is the practice in La Baie and hopefully we'll find out what's going on soon.

After practice, we hit the gym. I had a 5km hill run to do (4 hill repeats of 50sec each). I was actually supposed to do this run back at the end of March, but I had to skip it for some reason (my knee, perhaps?). Anyways, it went well for the most part, but my knee started acting up again during the last km. After I got off the treadmill, I could barely walk, but I did manage to stretch it out. Just as my knee started to feel better, my back started spasming (previous injury). Walking out of the gym, I was a mess, but once in the shower, everything seemed to relax. In addition to my running, I'm also doing some weight training and I'm actively trying to lose weight. I've been religiously counting calories and tracking my weight and body composition - I'll keep you posted on all that too. To date, I've lost over 10 pounds since January and I'm aiming to lose at least 5 more. As of today, I'm down to 121.6.

Presently, we're watching election coverage, even though we should probably get to bed. I know many people will disagree with me, but I'm happy that the Conservatives are winning. My decision on who to vote for came down to one issue: the F-35 jets. Living on one of Canada's two fighter bases and having a husband who's hoping to become a fighter pilot one day, it's made me acutely aware of the need for safer, more reliable (read: newer) planes. I researched all the party platforms and the Conservatives seemed to be the only ones who supported the purchase of the jets, so they got my vote. Now we'll just have to see if they follow through on it.