I’m Baaack

July 1. Canada Day. Day that my sabbatical ends. Day I decide to re-emerge in the virtual world.

In honour of it all, I’m changing the name of my blog.

Sorry to have been silent so long, frankly, it’s been nice being away. I do wish that I would have stayed better connected to you all through the blog while I was living in Mexico, but it was either you or the beach in my free time. No offense meant.

I feel that limiting my time at the Internet cafe while in paradise kept me off the news sites and because of that, I didn’t get as bummed out as I usually can. Believe me, now that we’re back and I’m reading the news, I can tell you that not much changes in six months. There are still the same amount of wars, murders and elicit love affairs.

So, Brent and I are back in the “real” world. And, today I’m officially back to the Mount. (Yay, full salary!) In many ways, I’m excited to be back and that’s a good thing. I think. I’ve been easing back to full-time duties with gusto, and look forward to teaching this fall. I’ve spent the past week with really smart and fun people at the annual Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing conference in Oxford. This coming week I’m in Birmingham. Hard to believe, but our project is coming to an end. We had our last team meeting yesterday, and this Friday, we’ll have our last advisory meeting.

In so many ways, I feel blessed.

This research leave, or sabbatical as we call them in North America, really makes all of the hard work and academy-specific bullshit worth it. I was finally able to get inside the copious amounts of data we have collected. I drafted chapters. I wrote and published articles. I fell in love with Mexico. I lived. I hope I remember how to do that in the days ahead.