Last week, I started my skating class at Varsity Centre. I LOVED it.
In addition to registering for the class, I registered to rent skate – which I’ll have access to every week for the hour I spend in class. I haven’t put on a pair of my own skates in a long time, so I imagined any pair I could dig up at home would be four sizes too small. I really appreciate the option to rent because not only is it inexpensive ($20 for the duration of the class) but it also means I’m not lugging skates to and from campus on top of my course materials.
When I got to Varsity Centre, I swiped my TCard and made my way to the arena (a familiar route, having attended a couple of MoveU skating events there already).
This is the entrance to Varsity Centre where you swipe your T-Card.
It wasn’t long before I ran into my coach, whom I identified right away (she was wearing a big headband with the word “SKATE” across the front so… lucky guess). Shannon later explained that what she was wearing was a concussion headband with significant padding to protect her head. “Cool!” I thought.
I’ve realized I’ve done you all a great disservice by not expanding the perspective from which I write. I’ve recently come to appreciate just how easy it may be for me to engage in physical activity on campus compared to some of my peers. So this year, I vow to do my best to step out of my shoes and into some of yours.
To start, I asked what prevents students from participating. With help from my peers and the people of Reddit, I’ve become aware of a few big hurdles…
Nobody likes to be the new kid. Being new at the gym can be incredibly unnerving. I can totally understand that. Gym culture these days is hard to avoid and it seems to be growing increasingly garish.
The community can be a little intense sometimes. Source: goodmorningquote.com
Welcome back everyone! It’s hard to believe it’s September again.
My name is Annette and I’m excited to be a returning contributor to the Life@UofT blog this year. I’ll be continuing to cover all things physical activity and fitness with a weekly post you can expect to be published every Friday.
If you’re new to the blog, hello and welcome! If you like what you find, you can check out the archive to catch up on all the fun we had last year.
A bit about me: I’m a fourth-year student double majoring in Physiology and Biochemistry and minoring in German Studies. I’m absolutely wired right now on account of impending doom (read as: LSAT), but I’m doing my best to be excited about all that will follow for the rest of the year. I’m a peculiar person – half of the time I’m a bit of a grandma who likes to go to sleep early and sleep lots, drink tea under a fuzzy blanket – that sort of thing. The other half of the time, however, I’m curtain climbing and training to be a ninja – I just don’t know an in between.
(I spend a lot of time upside down...)
September is a big month, I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that. Between moving in and out of apartments/residences, shopping for textbooks, starting classes and trying to override a very “Hakuna Matata” lifestyle and/or sleep pattern, there’s a LOT going on. You should see my calendar, it’s absolutely BONKERS.
Usually, I’m a morning person. Usually, I love waking up to the dawn breaking over the horizon. There’s something invigorating about how the smell of fresh coffee curls around the cool and slightly damp morning air. I can’t help but fall in love with it over and over and over again. BUT there are some mornings when just the thought of leaving the soft warmth of my pillow conjures feelings of fear and dread right in the deepest and darkest crevices of my soft heart and fragile mind. Monday morning was one of them.
There's one more week before the school year begins. Around this time, I often have mixed emotions that range from excitably happy to anxiously stressed. I imagine these feelings probably are common to many students. I like to explain my experience of these pre-school-year jitters as my body anticipating and preparing for the pendulum-like emotional rollercoaster that is the school year.
This year these feelings are coming on a little stronger. I think it’s because I’ve finally reached the end of my degree and so I’m putting more pressure on myself to raise my personal bar a lot further than I’ve already raised it. Most likely, I am psyching myself out. The school year will go by just as others have, and at the end of the year I'll have a new bag of mixed emotions to deal with, but it’s hard to not focus on the here and now.
The year when I was a frosh! Photo courtesy of University College Literary and Athletic Society
It’s been one heck of a summer. I feel like I’ve really grown as a person, whether it growing comfortable with my faults and recognizing insecurities as insecurities, or whether it being more confident in who I want to be. As September rolls in and new students start planning their move-ins or their commuting schedules, I find myself comparing freshman me to now; freshman me being not too confident, a little unsure, and a whole lot of nervous. One thing though that helped me get on the right foot was Orientation, which I did with University College. And particularly, my orientation leaders who helped me stumble out of my shell and transition to a new chapter in my life. Fast forward a couple years, and I’m now a frosh head leader for this upcoming University College Orientation, but one feeling from the past still holds strong.
Once again, I’m super nervous – though the reason has changed. I’ve got the pre-Orientation leader jitters.
A summer sunset view.
With August comes the stark realization that summer is almost over.
Alright, there. I’ve said it. There’s no turning back now. How did it breeze by so fast?
For those of you taking Summer courses, you know ALL TOO WELL how quickly the course materials go by and before you know it finals are here (…then again, it feels like that during the Fall/Winter courses but y’all know what I mean!). One of my favourite things to do on-campus is to hit the gym, stressed or not.
Summer is fun; the sun is shining, birds are singing and people on bicycles are ruling the streets in all of their shiny-helmeted glory. I remember looking at the bicyclists of Toronto with envy, noting the wind in their hair, the flushness of their face and their wonderfully sculpted legs. Every time a car-driver cut off a bicyclist in front of me, I would scoff and shrug my shoulders, giving the bicyclist an understanding shake of the head in solidarity (as if I knew all the struggles).
I adored them and I wanted to be them!
Unfortunately, as you all well understand the struggle of being a broke student, I never ended up saving enough money to actually buy a bike. It just never happened. My dream of being one of the cool biker kids never came true.
Until recently. ENTER BIKECHAIN.
