Kara’s Blog

It is hard to believe, but in less than two weeks I will be moving away from Canada to teach in England. What started as a possibility in January has swiftly become a solid reality. Over the last few weeks I’ve received my visa, received my Ontario College of Teachers certification, and booked my flights to Toronto and London. I also made a somewhat unwise trip to the library, where I acquired enough…

I’ve been meaning to write this post ever since I bought Mass Effect 3 on the day it came out back in March. Other, arguably more important, matters interfered, such as finishing school and looking for a teaching position for the fall. I was wildly successful in both endeavours, however, and now I am reaping the benefits by enjoying a restful summer (thus far). One thing I want to do this summer is write some…

My computer is a Dell Inspiron 6400, and it turned five years old last month. It’s been good to me. I replaced the battery once, about two years ago, and the keyboard twice, once under warranty because I broke a key—er, it snapped off—and once because the space bar was getting worn out. Sometime in the past few year years, the left corner of the white trim on the palm rest cracked. Otherwise, this computer…

Two days after I got back from England, we took our cat Kaylee into the vet in the evening. I had noticed something was off—she seemed jaundiced, and when she started having trouble balancing, I knew there was a problem.

The following Thursday, we received the news: Kaylee had cancer, in the liver, and it wasn’t going to get better.

We said goodbye on Saturday.

Unlike Marble’s decline, Kaylee’s was sudden and unexpected. She had…

I don’t always make videos, but when I do, they are long and have quirky music.

This is my last iday diary entry. It is short, on purpose. Only so much of interest can happen in seven-hour plane ride over the Atlantic, and this is going to be short on introspection because I’m still processing a lot about my time over there.

We awoke early for a 7 am drive to London Gatwick, a trip that took about 2 hours. This was a time of goodbyes: Jodie was staying in Bury,…

Last full day in England! This time we left very early to drive to the school I was visiting. It was one of the more distant schools, plus my driver was dropping someone else off at another school. So at 7 am we left the hotel and began the long drive down to Werrington, near Peterborough, so I could see Ken Stimpson Community School. It’s interesting that this school and Thetford were my first and…

Another early day for me—this is starting to become a pattern. Breakfast at 7:30, followed by a seminar-kind of training session with a head teacher. He covered some of the terminology in the UK curriculum that we might not be familiar with, and then offered guidance for those of us who had to plan lessons in the next two hours before going out to visit schools. The school I was visiting today did not ask…

Interview day. I woke up early—I think around 5:30—to make sure I had enough time to prepare before breakfast at 6:30. In particular, I was worried about my tie, which up until now I had only practised. Now it was time for the real thing. Doing up the top button on my shirt was tricky too, and as I went down to breakfast I felt quite self-conscious. All this fancy dress is foreign to me,…

The customs line at London Gatwick grew quickly. There must not have been an international flight for few hours, because few stations were open when we arrived, and several of them were being staffed by trainees. We stood in line, dead tired and late to meet our drivers, waiting to be processed. Karianne advised us not to say that we were “looking for work” (because apparently that’s code for “I’m a shiftless migrant trying to…