Irish Setter

Its safe to say that running and painting are the only things that have kept me sane the last few months. Its a long story, but until December I was doing a very stressful internship at the Cancer Agency in a very difficult academic program, having recently been diagnosed with a learning disability that I've had all my life. Well not exactly learning disability, but a mild form of autism called Asperger's syndrome. This program is not particularly accomodating of any students who think or learn differently from the norm - I need to stick to routines, need to be given clearly exactly what is expected of me, and I have odd behavioral and facial tics. And because I tend to get "tunnel visioned" on a particular aspect of the procedure I had people purposefully creating situations in which I would mess up or make mistakes. Needless to say, I was incredibly stressed for those months. I dreaded getting up and I hated going to the cancer agency even more. There has been something very positive to come out of this though - every day we would see people who thought they had their whole lives ahead of them to be what they wanted to be, but then with the results of one test it was all over.

All my life up to this point I have let the naysayers get me down, I was told "Art is not a real job, try healthcare, its more of a steady paycheck." Or my least favourite phrase in the world "Its something to fall back on" - I think this is a detestable phrase for a young person to have to hear. But from what I have seen...we do not always have a lifetime ahead of us to make something of ourselves, sometimes there won't even be another tomorrow. So I made the decision to take some time off school to focus on drawing and painting - and lately that hasn't been easy either. I've been second guessing myself like crazy, times are tough and it saddens me that people in our culture do not value the arts.

So....now the source of my stresses is a financial one. I'm trying to decided when to go back to school and what I want to study because as sad as it is its very difficult to survive if you are not in school and have not completed a university education. Right now I just need to stick with the running and regular posting, this is the only way I can keep from going stir crazy. I've been running 25-30km a week and I plan to gradually increase that to 40km per week over the next month. Then sooner than I can blink it will be summer racing season, lots of redemption to be had for being injured for the last half-marathon in the fall.