Back Again...m

I'm obviously not a very good blogger. I keep forgetting this is here. My life gets so hectic that I just don't have time to blog I guess. Its now the end of another semester. My life is defined by 13 week semesters. I have a final exam to give on Tuesday to 130 students. Then I go on vacation for a week and then I have to grade those exams. Blech. The worst part of my job is grading. Have I said that before? I wouldn't be surprised if I had. That's one reason I like my new job. TA's do a lot of the grading now and I love them for it. I'm still not rid of grading completely. Oh well. You can't have everything.

We have a beautiful new house here in Vancouver. I won't tell you how much it cost because the amount is obscene. We like it and we got lucky with the house market in LA so we can just about afford it. I just hope the market doesn't completely tank in the next few years in case we have to sell and move. We don't plan to move, but you never know.

Well, its time to put the kids to bed. I may read my friends' blogs before I do. They post a lot more than I do.

Bye for Now.

Long Time, No See

Well, I almost forgot about this blog until I decided to make a comment on an old friend's blog. Life is finally beginning to get slightly less hectic. I got all my grades in for last semester, planned and excuted two children's birthday parties and then presented a workshop at a teacher's conference. I'm a senior lecturer in physics BTW. I'm not sure if I mentioned that before. Now I'm teaching summer classes. Luckily both classes are very similar to classes I've taught before so its not so diffficult to prepare. Teaching 150 students at one time is an interesting experience. I think I'll write a long musing about it all once its over. For the time being, I'm keeping my head above water and looking forward to our move this summer. BFN.

Ex-pat, what is that?

Here's a view from the end of a trail we hike near our house. Amazing isn't it?

Well, its taken me forever to get back here. I've been swamped in work and family stuff: house-hunting, loan securing, birthday party planning. Anyway, I've been wanting to write about this topic for a while.

We're renting this great old house in a wonderful neighborhood. The previous tenants had to move out because there just wasn't enough room for themselves and their 4(!) kids. We still keep in touch with them and just the other day one of them refered to us (and themselves) as ex-pats. It really struck me because I've never considered myself an ex-pat. Maybe its because I wasn't born in the US so I've never considered myself a "pat" to begin with, though I did get my US citizenship in 2000. That was just so I could vote, what little good it did me. Also, Canada doesn't seem different enough or far enough away from the US for us to qualify as ex-pats.

I remember visiting Prague in the early 90's and meeting some ex-pats there in a bookshop. They are what I would consider real ex-pats. Living far away from the US in a different culture where they speak a different language. And living in a really cool city to boot. I guess technically we did this, my husband and I, when we lived in Copenhagen, Denmark for a year. That visit was temporary though and to me being an ex-pat means moving somewhere permanently. I was also not a US citizen when we lived in Denmark which was fortutitous. My husband was on a student visa and would not have been able to bring a US wife, but since I am an EC citizen they let me stay (and work). The immigration people said we had a "mixed marriage"??? Both WASPs, but DH's family emmigrated to the US before mine did.

Anyway, I'm getting used to the label of ex-pat. Its growing on me.

What to say?

Well, this is completely new to me so now that I'm here I'm not sure what to say. Hmmmm. Well, maybe I should explain the name of this blog. Just this past summer my husband and I packed up our family and moved from sunny southern California to the Great White North. Why you might ask? Well, it was partly because my husband got this great job up here, but he wouldn't have taken it if I hadn't been more than willing to move. And one of the main reasons I was more than willing to move was that I just couldn't take any more of George W. Bush. The US is headed in a frightening direction and I wanted to get my family and me out of the handbasket before its too late. I also really like the idea that in a way we're getting back at W because we're taking the graduate educations that the US govt pretty much completely paid for (13 years between the two of us) with us and Canada will reap the benefits. Our new homeland is more than deserving of any help it can get and so I'm really happy to give it. Yes, I know, Canadians just elected a conservative PM, but this place is still eons ahead of the US in so many ways. Anyway, more on that later. I want to post this now and see how it looks.