Tommy, Uni, and Work

Been slacking on the blog.

Saturday: So Tommy got his teeth done Friday afternoon, and apparently they were kind of nasty. Which is actually a surprise, he had them done less than a year ago. (I don't actually know how often they should be done, but based on what my coach said, it's an annual thing?). He did really well in the arena though, but at the canter he was doing this weird puffing breathing. It happened last year too, but then he stopped and we thought he was just getting in better shape. So I'm not to sure why he was breathing that weird, but I was a bit worried so that was the end of the ride. Before that, we worked on our trotting transitions, he's got a good working and collected/sitting trot, but we need to work on our extended trot. Instead of keeping a nice rhythm, it gets really quick. Lots of figure eights, some trot poles and practice halting straight.

Monday: Since it's exam break I got to go see Tom during the day. Thank god for no crazy breathing today! More figure eights, this time we tried them at the canter and using the hole arena, didn't go to well, so need to work on those. But the small ones at the trot were good. Did more work on the trot and practiced some turns on the forehand, just for something different. There's dressage letters stapled to the walls of the arena, so at each one we changed gait. Walk-trot-canter-trot-walk, but we only did that for a couple laps because he gets annoyed if we do it for to long. He had some trouble with the right lead by dropping it and not wanting to pick it up. He kept trying to rush it and would just get this crazy trot, normally he's pretty good and this only happens every once in a while. He also and a weird "cut" on his back left heel. It wasn't really a cut, it was a little patch of rough, scaly skin, but it was cracked and dark red were it was open. Although it looked like it was healing, I mentioned it to my trainer and she put some stuff on it to keep in clean. Keeping an eye on it, it's location makes me nervous, I don't want it to get infected or something and have him go lame.

Tuesday: Jumping lesson! No weird breathing, and little trouble with the right lead. Two bounces and a vertical.

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Haha, that's my terrible rendition of the course. So we started on the left lead over the outside bounce to the vertical, around to the diagonal bounce and back over the first bounce. He did okay after the first bounce, but no matter what we changed, whether it was the approach or the  pace of the canter. Other than that he did okay. He's been a bit flat for most of the winter so my coach suggested carrying a small crop with me when jumping. Not even to use, but if he knows it's there, he may pick it up a bit. Especially on days like today, it seems like no matter what I try with him, he's still flatter than normal.

Now I have a bit of a break from riding for a week or so because I'm getting my wisdom teeth out. Yay, fun stuff.

As for uni and work, I need a job. I'm going to try and find a full time job in the city over the summer, this way there is loads more options and I can hopefully stay with my grandma. Which is also the plan so far for the actual school year. She lives about a 20 minute walk away from the campus and there's a LRT station a couple blocks away too. So really, it's almost the ideal place to be living. However, I need a car and my parents refuse to help my get one. Which is why it would be nice to get a decent and flexible part time job now.  Especially since if I do get a car, I'm going to need to pay for its insurance, gas, and maintenance, though I guess I could do some of that myself.
Has anyone worked part time and gone to full time university? If you have, how was it?

It's sad though, because when I get a job, I won't get to go on holidays this summer, which sucks 'cause I love camping. We (me and my family) usually go for about 3 weeks, but seems like this year I'll be lucky to get away for a couple days to camp and hike. But we'll see.