First Day of Spring 2019

Hey everyone!

In case you didn't know, today is the first day of Spring in 2019. I can absolutely say that I'm super happy for Spring to finally be here with all the warming up and melting that comes with it. I have great hopes of getting out more this year with the family; especially the dogs who didn't get out too much over the Winter. Really the whole family deserves to be able to get outside more and enjoy the nice weather. I'm hoping for much more trips to the park, the beach, and perhaps we'll be able to find some time to get out on some adventures to other places as well.

Don't get me wrong, Winter is great, and the coming warmer weather wouldn't be as awesome without the long drawn-out cold to really make you miss how nice it is to be able to go outside in shorts and a t-shirt. Without this warming and cooling cycle throughout the year, I absolutely wouldn't appreciate the changes in weather as much as I do now. I do enjoy going out for walks in the cold weather when the snow is out, but now that the temperatures are rising... though I'm not looking forward to all the mud that comes with it, I'm super excited to be able to get outside with a dog or two in the evening for a walk or a run 

For me, Spring is the real beginning of the year with new growth and warm weather. I'm thinking now is a great time to start a new thing of updating my goals with each season and I'll try to give a summary of how I feel I did at the end of the season.

SPRING GOALS

Family - I want to spend more time with my family doing engaging things together. I'm getting rather tired of TV and movies, so I'm wanting to play more games together whether that's board games, video games, or outside activities.

Health - Enough is enough! Time to get into shape and be more healthy than I have been in the past. My chosen type of work often has me sitting anywhere from 4 - 12 hours on a work day, so I definitely need to be doing some sort of extra type of activities to keep myself in good health. What a great excuse to get one or both of the dogs out for a walk as often as possible. Perhaps I should also mention that I have a brand new bicycle to get a ton of use out of this year; maybe I can even work on building some muscle this year as well, wouldn't that be great?

Work - I hate to say it, but money is an important factor this season. My goal will be a little bit mixed I think. Right now I'm quite happy with my job and it definitely has a lot of potential room for making extra money and even advancing through the system, but now that I'm done with my Office Administration Certificate, I may want to start looking for a higher-grade job.

Hobbies - Other goals while I'm considering what exactly I want to do on the work front include other options such as continuing to work on this here blog and my other content production avenues which may provide a secondary stream of income in the future. Definitely a bit of a dream there, but I wouldn't mind hitting something big one day and making the best of it... though I'm not BANKING on that happening. I'll definitely continue streaming and try to get on top of taking and posting pictures more regularly whenever we do fun things. I also may use some of my time to get back into playing my violin and try to do some writing and drawing as well... I have more than enough materials to work with on all of that. Most of all, I would actually really like to start reading more books again. I have a lot of books I would love to read again and a bunch of new books I would like to start reading as well... I'll work on that.

Projects - My other goals for the season are quite simple: clean up the house, and get some things done. This sort of covers everything because I have a really bad habit of procrastinating on things, but the most important part of this area is that I finally get the house back in order not only upstairs, but also in the porch, out in the backyard, and down in the basement. Things are a mess and there are also many house projects that we've talked about that I would like to finally get done.

So there we go, there's a lot to work on. I think it may be because I'm feeling behind on many things, but that's definitely something that I know I can catch up on... as soon as I stop procrastinating on, like... everything. So with that, wish me luck and let me know about your goals for the Spring season. As always, I'm always accepting of any ideas you guys may have and love hearing from you.

~ Kyle Welykholowa

Some Of My Thoughts On Sports

     Okay, so I've been thinking recently about how I feel about hockey. Maybe this will blow your mind, but I'm pretty sure I'm the only Canadian who doesn't like hockey. Or well... I don't MIND it, but it's just not very interesting to me. I guess if I'm being honest, I don't really like many sports in general other than curling. So in reality, I'm sure I'm not the only person who doesn't like hockey... but why don't I like hockey?

     It's too slow for me. Many people would say otherwise, but I get bored of only seeing 2-3 points scored in a whole game. And yeah, sure, they skate back and forth across the ice from one side to the other, but then they sit there... passing the puck... over and over and over again. I realize they're looking for the right opportunity for someone to slip up and give that opening where they're able to shoot the puck through the throng of people and into the goal; it takes so long though. Unlike in basketball where there are points being scored all the time; tons and tons of points over and over again! Wow! Look at all those points! They scored again! And again! Wow! And... they scored... again... and again.... oh.... again.

     Okay, so I'm not a huge fan of basketball either. Yeah, it takes a lot of skill to be able to accurately and consistently shoot a ball into a basket, but come on... they score way too much! To me, this means there isn't a good enough way to play defense in this game. You're not really allowed to touch anybody, and there isn't really anything stopping you from doing a layup into the basket over and over except when you miss; I just don't really get it. And once again, this is a game where people go back and forth across the court from one side to the other again and again and again. What am I missing here? Why is this so much fun?

     These are two sports where (to me) they either score not enough, or way too much. And all the action seems very repetitive to me. That's not to say I don't support anybody who plays these sports, I just don't personally understand the appeal to either watching or playing these games. Maybe it's because I view these games as a little bit less skill-based, and more fitness-based. Hockey, basketball, and football (which I enjoy watching a little bit more) are all games which seem predominantly endurance games. They play for a long time and have to have a very high fitness level to be able to continue to play throughout the entire game. I'll say, that is pretty cool that people are able to have that sort of level of fitness that they can do such a thing. My type of game is a little bit different though.

     My sport of choice Curling. Now, if you really want to be the very best at curling, yes, you do need to actually be fit and able to last for a long time. But there is also so much strategy and thinking that goes into this game that I just don't find anywhere else; though I'm sure it exists in other games as well. Curling for me is like playing a game of chess where you not only have to decide on the best play possible, you also have to throw your piece with the correct amount of power that you get there. It's an amazing combination of strategic thinking, muscle memory, and fitness that all gets put to work at the same time. Just thinking about this makes me miss being able to curl; this year with school, a family on the way, and having to budget our money a little tighter than previously, I just wasn't able to participate.

Even as a nerd, some sports are still fun to me.

~ Kyle Welykholowa

Midterms February 2017 - Part 2

     I haven't received the marks for my midterms yet, but I'm sure I've done really well. It feels great to be able to do so well on my tests with everything else going on at the same time. I haven't been able to put as much work into studying as I would have liked, but I'm confident that I've managed to pull through anyways. One of the advantages I have is that a lot of this work I have already learned through high school, or previous courses I've attempted to take, or just from being proficient with computer programs in general. I think this semester is going very well for me and hopefully next semester will continue like this as well.

     One of my goals in this year of my life is to learn to do some things so well that it's all muscle memory. So much so, that I'm comfortable doing things without having to think about it, but just doing it at a comfortable pace. Then, once I'm able to do that will come the speed of being able to do those things without having to think so much but still pushing myself to continue doing so just a little bit faster each time.

     Typing is a great example of what I mean. Previously, I have proven myself to be capable of typing at a very fast rate, but I get slowed down by having to use backspace a lot. So what I'm hoping to be able to do is have a much higher accuracy rate by slowing down a little bit and getting used to hitting things right the first time. It's honestly a little bit tough to force myself to slow down rather than going as fast as I can and performing the same as always. It takes a little bit of change to be able to improve. Sometimes that means doing something a little bit worse than before; in the end, you do better than before.

     This is something I would like to do better at with other things as well. Obviously I would like to have this amazing muscle memory when it comes to video games, but perhaps I could put enough practice into my violin to do so, or making crafts, or writing, or even just thinking in a certain way. I have noticed that I lose a lot of productivity to getting sidetracked or taking time to think about things for a while... but what if I was able to think and keep going at the same time? There's a lot of thoughts I've had about this sort of thing; knowing I can do better and be more productive in a lot of things. It's so easy to just sit and watch a show and not do anything of value in that time, but what if I could keep myself going instead of falling into that rut of non-thinking? Strange how some midterm tests make me think of these things.

Just something to think about. ^_^

~ Kyle Welykholowa