Kara’s Blog

A friend decided we are going to have a Buffy the Vampire Slayer marathon this weekend with two other like-minded teachers at my school. I suggested that, in order to select which episodes we watch, we should all come up with a short list of our favourite episodes. Obviously there will be considerable overlap—who isn’t going to put “Once More, with Feeling” on their top 10? We can watch the ones we all agree are…

At the beginning of the month, I moved. I was quite happy with my current roommate and living arrangements at the time, but for reasons beyond my control, I needed a new place to stay. So on my first weekend off in the Easter break, I packed up the kipple of my life here in the UK and moved to a different place in Bury St Edmunds. Happily, the experience has been a positive one—I…

Last Thursday my Twitter feed erupted with people talking about Amazon buying Goodreads. As I read the first few, sporadic tweets, I blinked incredulously. Was I reading that right? I scrolled down and saw that I had missed a tweet from the official Goodreads account making the announcement. I followed some links and landed in the feedback forum’s official announcement topic. Two days and more than 800 posts later, a particularly vocal portion of…

It’s been over four years since my previous major redesign, and two years since any major tweaks to my website’s layout. This latest redesign began life as a series of minor tweaks designed—it always seems like there are rough edges. As I got a better grasp of what I didn’t like about the design and what I wanted to do with it, the project grew slightly more in scope. Still, I’m pleased with how quickly…

It started the weekend before last. I woke up with my right eye slightly swollen and a little irritated. I groaned and worried I was developing conjunctivitis. Every since the half-term, I had been battling an epic cold that just wouldn’t go away, and a few times before, the toll such a cold takes on my hygiene has resulted in a bout of conjunctivitis at the tail end of the illness. I sighed and booked…

It’s weird how my blog works. I should post another “update type” entry focusing on my half-term shenanigans (warning: shenanigans in the mirror may sound cooler than they later appear). And I will. But I have to get this out of my head first.

I walk into town for the market every Saturday, and almost every week I spend that walk listening to The Vinyl Cafe, with Stuart McLean. I love this show. I…

For the last two weeks, I took the bus between Bury and Thetford to get to work, since the teacher who normally gives me a ride was off on paternity leave. The bus ride itself is pleasant and not that long (nor is it ever crowded), although the twenty-minute walk to and from the bus station can be inconvenient when you’re half-awake in the morning or tired at the end of the day! I would…

Last week I got a Facebook message from my sister: “Grandma died this morning. Mom is OK. She just wanted you to know.”

My maternal grandmother was 78 years old. Her death was not a surprise but rather the conclusion to a slow decline that had begun a year prior. My grandmother had diabetes, and had coped with it for decades. Until a few years ago, she had also seemed to be reasonably healthy given…

I’ve spent the past eleven days back home in Thunder Bay, enjoying my break and catching up with friends and family. It has been good. I have reconnected with our cats, who began merrily disassembling the Christmas tree one ornament at a time approximately an hour after we put it up. I saw my 3.5-year-old nephew and gave him some gifts courtesy Scotland. I hung out with my mom, watching movies and drinking tea and…

As I’ve done for the past four years, I now present my top 10 best and worst books that I read last year. This was a good year for reading. Although I’m not quite back up to where I want to be, at around 150 books per year, I beat last year’s total by ten books. And once again, I read only four 1-star books—though I gave up on four books, the most I’ve ever…