The semester flew by too fast. I feel like I just got to know students’ names. A few men — only two — eventually joined the travel writing course. One guy was a complete spark plug — he was either falling asleep (I brought him a red bull to wake him up once), or he was putting his hand up for every question, yammering on like a school girl. He was sweet as pie though.

One of the highlights of the semester was riding a double decker bus tour of London, Ont. I’ve been in this city for over 15 years (yikes); learning some history made me feel a tad closer to it.

On an original British double decker bus –circa 1968 — the entire class (18 of us) crammed into the top; the driver made a loop around the city from west to east. I discovered that London’s Labatt Park is the oldest continuous use baseball park in North America, which some people in Massachusetts’s might deny. I also ate up the talk about the flood of 1937; the Thames River overflowed destroying over 1,000 homes. I remember being in someone’s house that survived the flood a few years back. Near the top of a door frame you could still see the faint line of a water mark.

This past week the weather went completely wacky dipping to -15 then shooting up to +8. The melting snow caused some flooding– nothing crazy but the Adelaide and Windemere intersection was under water for a good week — soccer fields are now pools as ducks too up residence.

On another note, I’m getting ready to head to Dominican Republic in February with the University. I’m a faculty leader for the Alternative Spring Break. Myself and two other leaders are taking 25 students to DR to teach English to orphaned and abandoned children. I originally applied to go to Peru where the project is more construction related. I don’t know how I will react. I mean, I volunteer with homeless and abused women at a day centre in London every week, but children? The old heart strings are going to take a beating; what if I bring home a child? I’m speaking prematurely. I guess you can’t prepare yourself entirely for something like this.

Switching gears, I’m also going back to Sardinia, Italy. But again, I won’t speak of what I haven’t done. Suffice to say that I’ll be biking from North to South this time. I get butterflies thinking about it. I had a peak at road bikes last week –I can’t lug a 25 pound bike up those hills again. I want a $1,500 Louis Garneau women’s designed bike. Compared to my tank of a mountain bike, it looks anorexic, albeit captivating: no tread tires, elegant clamp breaks, sleek curled handlebars…

I shall not leave posting for so long — New Year’s resolution.

Melanie