Hello my loyal blog followers! So my blog posts are getting a tiny bit more frequent! At this point, it looks like I am posting about once every two weeks, but I will try to continue to shorten the time lapses between blogs until I hit the once-a-week milestone.
Anyway, on to the blog proper...
Over the last couple weeks I have been trying to work out a schedule for my fall term at Carleton University. This process has, among other things, opened up old wounds related to discontent with our glorious nation’s amazing co-operation between high level sport associations and post-secondary educational institutions.
Last Winter I had the unfortunate experience of registering for a course who’s Prof. told me I should be able to work Labs around my race schedule, only to be told three weeks into the course by the same prof, that his previous statement regarding Labs had been retracted. I am not the only one who has had problems fitting together sport and school schedules either.
All of my ski friends have had to, or will have to, make the big choice eventually: continue with skiing at a high level or complete your undergraduate degree in a timely fashion. For example, my ski team lost a number of high performing athletes going from the 2011/12 season into this one, athletes who might not have chosen to quit competitive skiing if there had been some way to integrate it more smoothly with school.
One the other side of the spectrum, I have friends who have abandoned their post-secondary educations, for the time being, and headed off to National Training Centres. The fact is, all but one of Canada’s Training Centres do not have any post-secondary institution within reasonable driving distance.
Now, I don’t want to sound completely delusional. I am fully aware that one must make a choice to either focus on skiing or school--but I don’t think that it should be so black and white. I hope that some day Canadian Universities will be able to work in collaboration with CCC’s National Training Centres--to allow athletes who want to continue skiing at a high level to do so--but still be able to keep working away at their degree without having to be in a continuous fight against the system.
Anyway, if you have any questions, disagreements, or comments regarding my nice little rant today, please feel free to leave them in the comment section.
Finally, in other news 1) BATMAN IS AWESOME, and 2) I’m sure you all know that the Olympics are starting today, so go watch the opening ceremony RIGHT NOW!
*Because I had two songs in the last blog I’ve neglected to add one in today’s post.
Dream big, people!!
amen to that
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