It’s about time I wrote again! I spent the first week of the year, from New Year’s Eve at about midday until Monday or so, with that cold that seems to have made the rounds, not just in St, John’s, but everywhere. Now I can think about some of the good things this year may hold in store.

Pilates. I will be teaching a class at Pony Locale on Fridays at five o’clock and I’ll be helping with another class for people with neurological issues. I will also be volunteer teaching Pilates at the local YMCA. None of these classes have happened yet, but I am confident they’ll be good and I’m looking forward to the experiences!

I will continue my Pilates education and training at Body Harmonics later this month when I will go to Toronto to do a course geared toward swimming mechanics! This should be very interesting, since water polo, and swimming for triathlons were such a big part of my life before my brain injury (I still swim), and Pilates has become such a big part since.

Speaking. As I’ve mentioned previously, I want to get out there and talk more about brain injury, trauma and how I’ve interpreted my situation. In 2011, I spoke at an event held by the Newfoundland and Labrador Brain Injury Association (NLBIA) and I think it went well. I not only feel better about public speaking now, but I feel better about my ability to speak clearly and with confidence.

NLBIA. The Newfoundland and Labrador Brain Injury Association has a new Coordinator of Prograns and Services and it feels like the NLBIA is on a good track to be able to help more people who have been affected by brain injury in this province.

Mandarin. It’s not going to be easy and it’s going to take a long time, but I have begun learning Mandarin with Rosetta Stone and I feel good about the whole process of learning a language. Mandarin is so interesting to me because it is so different. French and Spanish have many similarities. English borrows from those, and almost every other western language. Mandarin is another story altogether. The important difference for me is that it’s tonal, many words vary based on the rising or falling pitch of a tone, and since my brain injury initially effected my speech and flatness of my voice, something that has gotten better with time and practice, it is a task that is challenging, valuable, and fun.

As for this blog, I’m once again going to try to post on a more regular basis. In the past, I wouldn’t post until I had a bigger point I wanted to make. That’s certainly not to say that now I will post frivolous blogs, but simply that I will keep a more regular schedule of blog posting, hence writing blogs that are more current, and hopefully more engaging.