A Beautiful University and a Historical Gathering Place
Saturday morning found me boarding yet another bus, this time with about 30 students, the Illinois mentor, and a tour guide — all of us bound for Oxford to visit Oxford University. Our tour guide was wonderful. Throughout our journey, she shared interesting...
A Gorgeous Seaside Village . . .
Originally, I had planned to write about the entire past weekend in one post, but I simply couldn’t get the post short enough to make that feasible; my internal editor couldn’t convince the writer in me to cut much of anything. Instead, I’ll be...
The Prince and the Pea
I am not stiff-necked, and I don’t mind apologizing when I have wronged someone. So here you go, Rich. I apologize for inwardly doubting you. Let me explain. Rich is one of my colleagues (from another of my college’s four campuses), and he served as the...
Introducing the ????? Ten . . . “My” Canterbury Group
As I explained in an earlier post (or 2 — I tend to repeat myself), I am here in Canterbury as the mentor to 10 students who come from either the community college at which I teach or the community college in a neighbouring city. I made a conscious decision...
Living with Less . . . and Living Well
44 – 9 = 35. That equation indicates the number of pounds — 35 — of stuff (other than my laptop and ipad) I brought with me to England for a 3-month stay. The airline allows one checked bag of no more than 50 pounds; to play it safe, and because...
A Castle, a Fort, and the Largest 2nd-hand Bookstore in England
We ventured out on our first group excursion on Friday with a trip to Rochester, Kent, a town (formerly, a city, but more on that later) about 3o miles this side of London (northwest of Canterbury, southeast of London). A little background information about these...
An Archbishop and Oh, What a Choir!
I’ve been in Canterbury for just over a week now — eight busy, and sometimes bewildering, days. It’s impossible (for me, at least) to share everything I’d like to say about the past four or five of those days in one blog entry, so I’ll...
We’re Here!
The past week has certainly been an interesting one! After a 2-day delay (due to the foot of snow we received or issues with the airport in Chicago, I’m not sure); “my” students and I finally departed St. Louis for our 3-month stay in Canterbury...
Mom Was Right
“When you have children of your own, you’ll understand.” That was a common refrain from my mother when my sister or I would express disagreement or frustration with her actions. In fact, that phrase had come out of her mouth so often before I was...
The Importance of Gut Responses
When I fell asleep Friday night, the streets outside my home had a very light dusting of snow after an afternoon and evening of rain. The forecast for my area had been for 4-5″ of snow, and I was so relieved that it hadn’t materialized. I had a...