Hindsight

Have been back in Canada for a few days now. Allergies/cold has finally subsided - it's 2 days now with no meds...woohoo. Finally enough clarity of thought to actually do a bit of work (submit journal article review) while family is all at work/daycare.

Trying to assess whether field course running is really my thing. It's a lot harder / more nerve wracking than it sounds. Can my nerves take it again? Perhaps only if I top up what the university pays for airfare to go first class? That has got to make a difference! What was really interesting and special I think was really getting to know the students and have a laugh with them in a way you can't really in regular session. They get to see you as a real person more too, yet one who is intellectually curious and well - just plain curious.

I also think I need to better define how this relates to my own research and teaching. It does, but a bit on the tangential side -- though maybe not when I revise Food Geographies to be more about social-cultural landscapes and foodways. Hmmm.

And next time I'm bringing even less re: clothes and even more re: allergy/cold meds, both pills and lotions/ointments. I don't know what's in those Venetian mosquitoes but AAAHHH. Super-itch and red and nasty. Beware.

Posting from Venice!

Nearly two weeks in Italy, one week total in Venice and I'm actually ready to head home to Canada. This is a great adventure but there is something to be said for being 'home'. :) The course time went really well all things considered. All things include: one student being hospitalized in Venice for 3 days due to a stomach hernia/ulcer condition that saw him whisked to Ospedale de S. Giovanni e Paulo by water ambulance. Thanks Chris for warning me that there would be a crisis - this was it. Luckily with meds and rest the student was able to join us before we left for Valle de Belluno and while a bit weak was ok to do the course activities. The hospital is well - across some 4 buildings including a church which all date to the 14th and 16th centuries. Never been in a hospital with a treed courtyard in the centre before...a therapeutic landscape?

Have seen SOOO much it is hard to relate in a quick blog entry from a wifi spot where I'm paying 5 euros for a half hour time. I did manage to get a cold/develop allergies which some great drugs from a 'farmacia' has made liveable bu man oh man up early and tromping around the countryside is exhausting!

The best thing by far, so far, has been seeing all the amazing art in the Accademia here in Venice, and visiting the lagoon islands of Burano, and especially Torcello. Torcello was the first place settled by the Veneti people escaping the Huns in the 9th century. The basilica there is approaching 1,000 yrs old, full of amazing Byzantine religious art. Just awe-inspiring. Apparently plague etc, wiped out many of the people, the rest relocated to the Rialto area of what is now Venice. Oh and also finding this amazing 'legatoria' Rivoaltus again- the family makes all their own paper and books and well - this place is a real find. Find it if you come here. Charming people and they wrap up every purchase like a gift :) Last 'great thing' - being here for the Marriage of the Sea ceremony and seeing a reinactment of the parade of the Doge and dignitaries and then the boats the next day filling the Grand Canal. Very cool!!

The worst thing? Aside from the allergies/cold - after awhile the crowds and constant selling of stuff gets to you. Oh and the mosquitoes in Venice which are a bit bad now after weeks of wet and rain and cool temperatures.

Today is my last day and I still need to pick up a gift for my son and see if I can find sandals. I'm too cheap I think - saw great shoes but can't stomach 260 euros! Going to S. Stae on the vaporetto and check out Ca'Pesaro and the art collection there and then taking it easy. Leave on a water taxi at 5:30AM tomorrow...arrivederci Venezia...

Have to seriously think about whether or not to do this again...the course that is...I would come to Venice again, but with hubby or sister.

Ready for Italy (??)

In just a few days I leave for 2 weeks in NE Italy. Yeah, I know, rough life. Most of this is advance prep (not too much, a group of us went last year for 10 days to do this - hence my own pic from last year included here), and delivering, the first week of a travel field course on 'cultural landscapes'. This is the first time this has been rolled out, and I'm the first of two instructors. My Faculty wants this to be the first of a suite of travel courses we run. So just a wee bit of pressure to do it well. A smidge.

Thank god the TAs are fluent Italian speakers and one is actually from the area. But I'm still freaking out about: 1) will the logistics all work, or will something go terribly wrong? This includes potential Icelandic volcanic activity. Aaaahhh!!; 2) actually having anything scholarly and meaningful to say/add along the way of our planned activities and trips; 3) being 'on' for a week straight, and not seeming too old and slow to the students; 4) actually making it from Marco Polo Airport to the island in the lagoon where we are staying - this involves, in an exhausted state, finding my bag, my way to the HelloVenezia office in the arrivals hall to pick up my VeniceCard (purchased ahead online) that will get me on: a) the Alilaguna boat that will take me from the airport on the mainland to San Marco in Venice, b) on the traghetto from San Zaccaria stop (next to San Marco) to the island of San Servolo, c) checked in at Venice International University on San Servolo. So maybe, just maybe 3 hours after the plane lands after travelling Winnipeg-Toronto-Frankfurt-Venice I will be able to fall down and really sleep / pass out.

OK that sounded like whining but I've done this before and have never been so tired. Childbirth was less wearing. At least then I got to lie down and put my feet up.

So I'm excited and eager to be there but also am just a bit freaked out and already a little sad at being away for awhile, because I'm off for a month -- also spending time in Ontario and then Saskatchewan for a conference. Such is the life of the scholar I guess :)

They never teach you anything about travel study and conference travel in grad school. You are expected to just naturally travel well and to not tire easily. I think I do travel well, but I know I get physically tired now at 45 in a way that the 20-something students just don't. Aaah well, it is Italy where the pace of life is more leisurely. Frequent stops for espresso and/or gelato are the ticket I think. So while it is an adventure that I'm very lucky to get to take, it is just a tad bit scary - very 'putting yourself out there'. I'm sure it will be all great and I just need to calm myself. Calm. Hmmm....pass the prosecco? Gelato anyone?

Empty-Nest / Middle Age - Day 2

It's been two days now since our son and his girlfriend moved out, and one day since I turned 45. So far, so good. Had an amazing dinner out with my hubby and well, it was just nice to be Us. :)

Felt really weird today though buying so little at the grocery store. Actually skipped an entire aisle, and saved about $100! We have plans to meet with 'the kids' on Wed. (they don't work that night) to have a bday/Mother's day get together - should be nice but maybe a little weird? Have to see. I think it's a good thing I'm going away soon and will be too too busy to miss them too much.

Trying hard to avoid going in to the university these days. This time between regular session and summer session the place feels like a ghost town. Do have to take care of last details for the field course I'm doing. A week today I'm in Venice! I'm quite nervous actually about running this first week of the first cultural landscapes field course - ever. So much could go wrong; and I'm sooo detail oriented. Just have to remember to relax and enjoy and roll with it as things unfold. Basically be more Italian than Canadian :) Thank God I had the foresight to travel a couple of days ahead. I should be acclimated by then. Hopefully the weather improves. The current 5-day forecast is rain, rain, rain, rain, and more rain. Yippee. I mean yes, there is a lot of water in Venice. I would prefer however that it not all be falling on our heads :(

So here's to the next adventure, soggy as it may be.

Trying to focus on work - but my mother *thinks* she has a SuperBug.

So here I am trying to focus on learning objectives for an imminent field course (yeah there is a reason I follow the LiveVenice blog - commence hating me), but I'm distracted. Distracted by worry mixed with a soucon of 'WHAAAAT!!'. Seems my mother (who has legitimately been ill) is now convinced she has 'fungal pneumonia' and not the usual viral sort. Except she lives in Ontario, spends way too much time alone / watching TV since losing her job last summer (this may be an important explanatory variable)- and all the cases of the so-called 'killer fungus' pneumonia being sensationalized in the media are in BC and a few in the Pacific NW states. My mother hasn't been west of Winnipeg in over 10 years. She and a friend have cooked up the notion that the fungus travelled in the boxes that move through the port of Vancouver from China to the store where said friend works (who was also ill). Except the fungus is likely from Australia and/or natural to Vancouver Island according to reputable online news sources. Neither of them have been hospitalized no matter how often they see a doctor, btw. Hmmm.

So - should I be worried a) that this is true, but somehow mishandled, b) that my mother is delusional and a now a hypochondriac, c) that she is so alone and depressed, now that she can't work and is turning 65 that she makes stuff up to make her life more interesting, or d) that this is taking up too much of my own energy as I'm just a bit pissed off at her for being like this. - i.e., crazy. There may be other possible scenarios here but so far that is all I have.

This is really throwing off my elusive 'work-family balance'. It can't be the fungal illnesses in BC or she'd be hospitalized as it would mean the spread had 'leapfrogged'. That really freaks out public health types so there is no way this can be. So she's spinning this to explain her apparent lack of an immune system or something. She does this 'create her own reality' in odd and freaky ways A LOT. Which makes me think - is her mental health really this fragile? aaahhh there goes my hopes for much concentration again...

Time to get outta here and head to campus. Perhaps I can find some focus in my office there. 'Cause I'm not sure I can do anything for Fungus Woman at this point. Which really I think is what eats me up. I'm a 'do-er' and want to help her feel better about herself and not be so gosh-durn crazy and depressed.

If I can trust my 18-year old son to live his own life and make his own choices, why is it so hard to do the same for my almost 65-year old mother?

If I'm suffering from empty-nest syndrome/mid-life - why do I feel so good?

In exactly one week my son and girlfriend are moving out of our house, and I turn 45. According to most of my family and many of my colleagues and friends - apparently I should be a puddle of emotion and hormones.

But I'm not - at least not in the way they expect. Is there something wrong with me? Am I a heartless, terrible mother because I'm actually happy my son is moving on to the next stage? Isn't moving out, healthy and sober (there were some dark times when he was 16 and 17) in a good relationship, gainfully employed, making plans for the future - isn't that what we want them to be doing? Hell, we even all get along really well!! If I'm weepy next week it will be tears of happiness running down my face because there was a time we weren't sure we'd be here - because we didn't know where he was or what he was doing - other than something scary bad. I hear about other so-called 'helicopter parents' and think "what is wrong with you people?" Have some faith in your kids. Recognize there comes a time you have to, if not let go, loosen the grip!

On top of this - I keep getting comments - even a card from my own dad!- that expect that I am having a tough time turning 45. Yeah. Middle Age. Well you know I always liked studying about the Middle Ages so maybe I'll take up Gregorian Chanting to mark the event. But seriously - is everyone else really that age-obsessed? Do you need to remind me of my own mortality to make yourself feel better?? I just don't get it. I feel more myself now, more clear on who I am and what I'm not than I ever have. I don't take crap, I don't stifle myself, I do all I can to keep positive. Negative Nellies - so long. Oh I should understand you and listen to you because you are related to me? Sorry - don't have the time or energy to wallow in the negativity with you. Ciao. Call me when you want to do something good and positive. 

Not that I'm some vibrating, glowing ball of positive energy. Far from it. I get overwhelmed and exhausted on an all too regular basis. But I refuse to let that win. Sometimes I have to literally talk myself up and out, however I try very hard to be gentle with myself about those times. Try.

So - fellow bloggers/bloggees - Am I missing something? Am I some sort of anomaly? Or have I hit upon another one of those cultural narratives that says that these transition points are something women should fear and be saddened by, rather than celebrate?

Apparently my twin is a 5'6" English woman

This really happened today - again! There are two tenured women in my department (yeah...2!...we are sooo progressive!). I am one of them. I am above average height for a woman (6') and well --- not even close to petite. I wear glasses, and I'm REALLY Canadian. I wear multiple rings and regularly change the colour of my hair. My colleague, research partner and friend is the aforementioned Englishwomen of normal height, complete with plummy English public school accent. No glasses. Wears suits regularly. Me, not so much. And we are regularly called by each other's names. When we are apart, AND when we are both there together.

Happened today in a department council meeting - for the millionth time. We were on opposite sides of the conference table. No way you could not tell us apart, unless you are frikkin' Helen Keller. Or - apparently - a male academic.

Now I suppose I should be understanding - I mean really. Female. Associate Professor. Same discipline. Clearly interchangeable. Why should I expect more? (grrrrrrrr)

At the meeting we both laughed  - after an audible groan and knowing look at each other (the "Can you believe one of the boys did it AGAIN!" look). One of our more aware male colleagues picked up on our mood right away and kept the joke going with a lovely note of sarcasm in his voice ..."Yeah, they are twins - like Twins, the movie. Not that you look like them...but...".

 I decided to announce that for the remainder of the meeting I would speak in a bad Austrian accent.