August 17 – 25, 2014
Monday
August 18, 2014 – Day 2:
Today, I concentrated on settling into
my hotel, the Holiday Inn Express. This
hotel, which used to be called the Days Inn, has been my chosen hotel for the
last 7 or 8 years. I love vacationing in
the “Soo” – so far, I haven’t found a better place to vacation at in
Canada. Of course, in the future, I’ll
probably be doing more vacationing outside of Ontario, especially once I’ve
retired from teaching. My retirement
date is planned for June 30, 2017. At
that point, I’ll have to see how I feel about coming to the “Soo” in the
summertime because there are a lot of other places I still need to visit in
Canada and elsewhere.
I started doing some writing. It’s based on an excerpt (chapter) from a
book I borrowed from my school library called “Breaking Through My Limits: An Olympian Uncovered”, by Alexandra Orlando,
a top-level Canadian rhythmic gymnast.
She has competed in several international competitions, but this book
concentrates mainly on her struggle to finally make it as an Olympic rhythmic
gymnast – not an easy task when the best gymnasts in the world are from Eastern
Europe. Her book has everything to do
with the topics I am currently interested in researching and writing about.
I’ve been writing a book of my own
called “Acrobatic & Artistic Sports & Dance”, which was begun earlier
this year. However, it won’t be
published until early-to-mid 2016. I will
have to save the money first to cover the publishing and publicizing costs. This book will cover sports like artistic and
rhythmic gymnastics, trampoline, diving, figure skating, aerial and mogul
skiing, the snowboarding sports (slopestyle and halfpipe), as well as various
Extreme sports, among others. I want to
make this book as comprehensive as possible and cover as much relevant material
as possible. So, it is a work in
progress at this moment.
Today, I went over to the Station Mall
across the street from the hotel and got something to eat for lunch (or brunch,
if you like). Then, I went over to the
boardwalk by the shore of the St. Mary’s River (which connects Lakes Huron and
Superior). This boardwalk is right
behind the mall where the river is. It is
a beautiful and sunny day today, so I stayed there a while and read my
book. This boardwalk has lots of benches
to sit on or you can just walk for miles.
I know this because I’ve done a lot of walking on it in the past. However, today, I just read my book and
didn’t do any real walking.
I also went to
get some personal photos taken of myself in one of the mall’s photo kiosks. You would not believe how nice these photos
turn out. For just $5.00, you can get
two photos, each 2 inches by 2 inches approximately. They can be done in colour or black and
white, but I usually get them done in colour.
I plan to get two sets of photos done – one set today and the other set
tomorrow. This first set turned out
really nice. They are good for using as
my author photo on my book cover.
Later, I had a
takeout dinner (from KFC) which I took back to my hotel and ate. Then, I watched some TV-DVDs – first “Private
Practice”, then “Desperate Housewives”.
I’m sure that, by now, I’m completely addicted to both TV-DVD series –
all seasons. I also watched another
TV-DVD (season 2) called “Law and Order – Special Victims Unit”, but I only saw
the first disk of three from this season.
I went to sleep
after midnight, but this time, I did not play any DVDs overnight. I am trying to get some quality sleep this
week for a change without any background sound.
Tomorrow and the rest of my stay, I plan to eat breakfast in the hotel’s
breakfast room, available between 6:30 am and 10:00 am. Tomorrow will be my first experience with having
breakfast at the Holiday Inn Express, although I did eat breakfast here when
this place was still known as the Days Inn.
It’s free for guests, so I really should be taking advantage of it.
Tomorrow, I am
planning on doing more writing from Alexandra Orlando’s book (only from chapter
4, so far). Her writing, though not
expert, is insightful and it gives me a chance to compare my own experiences in
sports and life with hers.
copyright 2014, Anne Shier. All rights reserved.
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