And life continues at home...

It's not easy getting around to writing in here once at home and back to my regular routines. Except for a 3-day STLHE conference in Saskatoon mid-June, I have been mostly sticking close to home since returning from NB. I've been busy, busy though... watching the mosquitos grow in number and size as I wait for the rain to stop falling; wrenching my back while planting flowers and cleaning pine cones off the deck; going to a chiropractor for shock wave therapy and other sorted painful treatments for my plantar fasciitis; attending my stepson, Aaron's high school graduation; putting in my two cents worth at Riders' training camp; meeting with my interns to get ready for our (virtual and real) work together this coming fall; listening to my friend Paul talk Art and I into visiting him in China next June (which just so happens to be around the same time that two key mathematics education conferences are being held in that part of the world); studying my SSHRC application very carefully to decide if it's worth submitting again this year; and the list goes on. But it's all taking place in my own backyard...

While I do not have ground-breaking news to share (and so why write, you might ask), this entry is an important one. Today is officially the last day of my six-month sabbatical... and what a six months it has been! No need for a retrospective review entry though. This blog has 33 entries to convey all the events of the sabbatical journey. And I still have one more official sabbatical event: the Mathematics Education and Contemporary Theory (MECT) conference in Manchester in July. So stay tuned for stories of that event... it will most certainly be a grand finale!

Academic Confessions

“Hello, my name is Kathy and I'm a traveholic.”

That’s the first line of a recent e-mail message from Art. Can’t blame him really. In fact, I just did a quick count of the number of days already passed in 2011—5 months, or about 150 days—and I have been away for 80 of those days so far. Hmmmm. Perhaps traveholic is apt after all.

But those are the confessions of a traveholic.

Academic confessions are quite different. They go something like the following:

Sometimes, while at a conference, I would rather eat a donair platter at a downtown mall food court than dine with 26 other teacher educators who (while all well-intentioned) want to chat with me about university, students, research, etc. And so, on Tuesday evening, when I was supposed to attend an ‘official’ CATE dinner, I chose the food court option.

Also, while at a conference, I would rather stick needles in my eyes than wait in a large empty room for an audience to show up on the last day of the conference when everyone I know flew home that morning. I didn’t stick needles in my eyes but I did the next best thing: I went to the conference beer tent— a much more productive place for networking anyway.

Traveholic Tip of the Day:

If you get tired of eating out while “on the road,” check out your local grocery store for ready-made salads. I just couldn’t bear to eat another Mr. Sub sandwich or Tim Horton’s chili (or food court donair platter!) so my big insight of the day was to visit Superstore and pick up a yummy Californian salad with spring lettuce, green peppers, raisons, mandarins, and strawberries. This was followed by a bowl of strawberries, blueberries, and granola in vanilla yoghurt. This Saint John Superstore even had a little dining area so I didn’t have to chow down while sitting at my steering wheel. Why didn’t I think of this before?!

So yes, I’m now in Saint John visiting family for a few days. My dad is doing well, but he anxiously awaits sunny spring weather for his favourite activity: sitting outdoors under the warmth of the sun pondering life! Like father, like daughter.