When I last posted, I was sitting in Starbucks enjoying an afternoon of leisure before my course began. It's been so busy and so much has happened between now and then it feels an awful lot longer than just five days!
First of all, Friday was my wee sister's birthday!! I couldn't be home to spend time with Emtastic, sadly, but instead we skyped until Starbucks kicked me off the application, and then we chatted on the phone. She also sent me photos of her bday festivities (which I loved because I felt like I was there too!) and a pic of her in the snowboard stuff I sent.
Friday was also the day of the Team Diabetes dinner in London. I got updates throughout the night from my friend Trevor, and I'm happy to report an awesome success that looked and sounded like it was a ton of fun for everyone involved. I must admit for some of the course that particular evening I was looking at the clock a lot and wishing I could be there. But we raised over $2500 for diabetes research, which is terrific news in my books :) Thanks to everyone who supported our cause...and a special thanks to Trev for being a fabulous fundraising partner!
The course itself was complicated. Not the learning, but the atmosphere and method of learning was something very different than I'm used to, and at first I was pretty surprised by it. There was definitely a lot of interesting things to do and see and discuss. I'm thrilled to have done it and I loved getting to meet some new people with interesting travel stories and plans for adventures. There were truly some awesome people in the course that I was very inspired by. Plus, I got to practice my teaching skills - and of course I taught a lesson about fitness and demonstrated some running and boxing. Fun stuff!! Technically though, I'm only half-way through. There's an online component to the final certification that I'm going to get started on tomorrow. Most astonishing of all was getting a job offer! I'm looking at a contract right now, and it still seems sort of surreal. I'll tell you more about it when my ink on the dotted line makes it real.
I also got to spend some quality time with Em. We managed to sneak off to a yoga class when neither of us were at school and it was AWESOME! I hadn't done hot yoga for two months, and this class put my body and mind in a phenomenal place and made me realize how much I miss it. Even better was spending time with a lovely lady that I don't get to see very often. We did a lot of chatting in the wee hours of the morning and it was fabulous.
Are there pictures of the yoga? The course perhaps? My chilling with Em? Of course not, as I seem to be incapable of busting out the iCam when other people are around. (Can we pretend this is a good thing and doesn't make me look like I don't have any friends? Let's call it being too engaged in real life when I'm offline.) Instead, here are some still-life pics of my time in the city, plus some mirror photos as per usual:
Of course I had to take this picture. I had
Many of these during my stay. I know you've
seen this beverage on my blog before....
but look how beautiful in a mug! I'd actually
never had it that way.
I am barely containing my excitement here because
I am about to go have one of the best runs ever,
and certainly the best of the year so far. Five fast
miles with not a single stop or ounce of
pain. This occurred moments later on the
treadmill in Em's building in front of an
awesome glass window. Oh yeah, and the sun
was shining too!!
A Gould star for my BFF! Six years ago
I stood in the same spot and did the low-tech
version of this - I borrowed a crayon and paper
from the conference room of my hotel and took an
etching!
At Em's, just before leaving for class day two.
I don't know why I took this picture. I was down
on the floor tying my shoes and it seemed like a good
idea at the time.
This picture is truly awesome for my ability
to frame the subject. I may have to strike photographer
off of my list of potential careers. I sadly did not
go to this exhibition because it was open
when I was in class and closed when I was not.
But I needed to take at least one pic for Emtastic.
A photo to prove that I did not eat
Starbucks for every meal of every day
while I was in the city. Nor did I survive
on Clif and Fruit-to-go's. See?
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