Category: Notes and Confessions
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Sometimes… Sometimes I just HATE travel: Notes on, er, just that (with cute cat pics!)
Note: this one is long. If you’re not up for a long one, I’ve added cute cat photos from Morocco. Enjoy. Sitting in a pleasant little organic cafe at Charles de Gaulle airport, with a lovely mini bottle of quite decent white wine and a proper plastic wine glass (it even has a stem! Oh,…
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On Ramadan, Tummy Bugs and Food Porn: Notes from Chefchaouen
I’m not even going to bother writing an impractical guide to Chefchaouen. It would consist wholly of stifling hot bedrooms, baking hot terraces, rumbling tummies, fevered brows, the same stretches of empty and well-trodden lane, closed doors, silence. You’d have to be floored with a ferocious tummy bug and exhaustion to truly retrace my footsteps.…
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Notes on Travelling in Fes, Morocco During the First Few Days of Ramadan
This was going to be two posts originally, one about Ramadan in Fes and one about trying (note the emphasis on trying) to be an independent traveller in Fes. The more I made notes (I couldn’t do my usual silver-shovel unedited, quickly posted word-dump as we were without internet for 4 days), the more…
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Oh, hey, Canada! Notes on National Holidays for the Globally-Wired Brain
As some of you may have gleaned through recent subtext in my posts, I am secretly Canadian. Secretly in the sense that unless my status as a Canadian actually comes up directly in conversation, I don’t tend to talk about it or write about it or even think about it really. It’s not in any…
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On Identity and Decontextualization: Notes on Going Home (again)
I’m home again. As a travelling sage once said, if it’s Tuesday, I must be in Belgium. Or in my case, if it’s somewhere near the end of June, I must be in Canada. Vancouver Island, to be precise. I’m in a much better mood coming home this year. I feel more grounded, more…
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Notes on working in China (the bossing-teachers-around edition)
As you may have heard, I have changed jobs. By this, I mean I am no longer unemployed. Or at least, unemployed in the technical sense. I have a day job now, and it isn’t teaching. Nope, I’m back in the director’s chair again. The last time I did this gig was about…
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Saying Goodbye AGAIN: The annoying heartbreak of being a teacher that nobody warns you about*
*I was going to title this post Apostrophe to the End of Term (or, Isn’t it Byronic, don’t you think?) but decided it would be way too obscure and nerdy and not even all that clever. The cleverness factor would have been bumped up several notches, however, if only I had still been working at Shanghai Ocean…
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I May Have Just A Wee Bit Too Much on My Plate
It’s just after 7:30am on an inexplicably cool morning. Shanghai is invisible under the fog. It’s just as well as I’m still in bed, under several layers of duvet, strong, lightly milked coffee in hand. I may or may not be staring at the wall opposite . I’m freaking tired. I just spent four days…
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What Does it Take For a Girl to Get a Passport Around Here? Adventures in Being Canadian Abroad
I’m still Canadian. I say this with a certain degree of relief because, well, until yesterday my passport had been in the hands of the Canadian Consulate in Shanghai and I was getting a very strong impression that they were on the verge of revoking my citizenship because… because… well, do they even need a…
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Confessions of a Fauxmad: Notes on Really, Really Wanting a Home
In the past few decades, I’ve lived in approximately 8 cities in 6 countries on four continents. That tally doesn’t include the hundreds of hostels, sofas and floors I called home for most of my early 20s. In the past decade alone- my more settled, grown-up 30s- I’ve lived in 3 cities in two countries…
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Notes on Scuba Diving in Thailand (and Elsewhere) for the Non-Amphibious
When I was about five years old I had a dream. It was one of the very few I ever remembered after waking up and is probably the only one I still remember vividly 30 or so years after it was dreamt. I’ll spare you the details, as dreams are generally of little interest to…
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Notes on Memory and Context (and the Decontextualization of Travel)
I have a terrible memory. When I actually stop to think back on my life, to specific moments or sequences of time and events, I often draw a blank. Or if not a blank then a whole bunch of fuzzy blotches punctuated by non sequential images or impressions that may or may not be…