Summary #1- here it goes

After looking through my past blogs It seems that I haven't been able to differentiate between leisure and recreational activities. Although I know the difference that leisure is a state of being or mind where one feels free and is experiencing some level of enjoyment and recreation is the specific activity that may or may not even be leisure itself. My problem is not knowing the differences it is a problem with being a leisure educator, I can't explain it in real life terms. I bring this to light because I was asked yesterday what it is I'm studying by a friends parent. I told them I was in Leisure Sciences, as is common practice to tell the truth although I hate it, because per usual the next question asked is almost certainly; "and what exactly is that?". I began trying to explain what it is I do, although there is no concrete correlation between being a shadow/ caregiver I find people always seem to or at least pretend to find this an adequate enough explanation. I stated that I plan leisure programs for my kids where we well try and participate in any such activities be it jewelery making to reading a short story. I then try to find whether or not they found it to be leisure and if so then try to plan more activities based on the same principal, but with a higher level of participation or a better challenge-skill match. Well I explained this and then she said yes well thats all well and good, but what is it that your studdying. So I picked up an idea sorry about this whomever's statement it was but I liked it. I told her I studdied everything that is fun and what makes it fun. This little story was just to show that there are things I need to do in order to become a better leisure educator. I would love to tell you I know the answer and that this and this are what I need to know in order to better educate people, however I don't really know what the problem is.

Leisure in my life concists of the regular student criteria, I love to drink, I love to read, my favorite pasttimes although that would probably be a bad word to use because passing time is not the object of leisure what so ever. My favorite things of which to do that cause me to be at leisure are having a coffee while smoking a ciggarette reading a good book and going to work and being with my boys. I have talked about these things in my blog and I feel that I am quite open with sharing what I do for my leisure.

Yes I do value my leisure. I have yet to find the ballance between work and leisure that we all must find my seccond blog disucusses the issues with trying to juggle school and leisure and how I normally choose to do the latter. Today for instance I have spent quite a long time writing this because knowing myself I need to leisre while I work in order to stay on track, thank you ADD. So I have been taking periodic breaks to go read and have a smoke outside. I am working in the coffee shop down the street as my internet is broken so taking a break has been quite easy. This is one way I have found that I can do my work constant "leisure breaks" in which I can give myself a bit of possitive reinforcement, that is to say that I'll tell myself I can go for a smoke after I finish this paragraph and I'll go read and smoke for ten minuites and then come back to it.

Yes my leisure is constrained. Everyone's leisure is constrained, the qestion is not whether their leisure is constrained, but rather what are the constraints and do they get in the way of ones leisure. The book discusses the three types of constraints; structural, interpersonal, and intrapersonal. I discussed in my last blog what my constraints were and found that most of them after some self reflection are intrapersonal. I am quite stubborn when it comes to my leisure and need to learn how to be more open to leisure differently. I leisure regularly as I have already addressed I normally don't let interpersonal restraints get in the way I have no problem doing things by myself. For instance I well go to the pub regularly by myself, all my friends find this odd, being English this is quite a socially acceptable thing to do as where here it seems that it is a bit of a fau pas. This does not stop me going to the pub and watching the footie or having a read, or just a chat with the other people that call orchard monkland their local. Well I'm not quite sure what else to say other then thank your reading my summary and I hope this suffices for a semi decent mark.