(If you’re reading on Facebook, please go to the bottom of this post and click “view original post.”) June 5, 2008 – I leave the hospital with “You are cancer-free” ringing in my ears. July 5, 2008 – Exactly one month later, I pick up the phone in South Carolina to hear a kind and […]

There’s a perplexing sight along the QEW (highway) between Toronto and Niagara Falls that has fascinated me for years. It seems a little out of place, don’t you think?  Especially when you consider that a major highway runs just meters from the unusual sight. (That’s the highway on the left!) For the first time, my […]

(Reading on Facebook?  Don’t–it’ll take forever for the photos to load!  Instead, click on the “View original post” link above to be taken directly to my blog. ) In my hurry to recover, I’ve been spending a lot of time doing nothing.  And by “nothing,” I mean working feverishly on an iMovie about BFA to […]

It has been a long and winding road… PHASE ONE: Dec. 31,  07:  Diagnosis of MAC (Microcystic Adnexal Carcinoma) and launch of the McJourney. PHASE TWO: June 2, 08:  Surgical removal of the cancerous tumor and the excessive scar tissue left behind after my initial hack-job.  Discovery that additional suspicious bumps were just that—bumps.  I’m […]

Day One is over, and the good news keeps rolling in… My mom and I arrived at our motel last night after a long day of driving and socializing.  We LOVE our Microtel!  It’s clean, it’s sound-insulated, it has an ironing board and iron in the room (yes, Youngs, I am indeed excited about that!) […]

I sneaked out of my Riedlingen apartment shortly before 5 am on Tuesday morning and thought to myself, “I smell a skunk.”  Now, in North America, that wouldn’t be anything unusual, but I actually don’t remember ever smelling a skunk in Germany.  I dragged my bags up the stairs to my car and noticed what […]

(Reading on Facebook?  Please click on the “View original post” link above.  Seriously!) “Why are you still here?” a student asked this afternoon.  He wasn’t referring to my imminent departure or to the fact that I was still at school, cleaning out my office, long after I’ve usually gone home.  In the course of a […]

(Facebook readers:  click on the “View original post” link above to see this entry as it ought to look…please.) Picture this:  [okay, maybe don’t picture it—don’t want to cause any retinal damage—but at least imagine the context] a quadragenarian woman, all decked out in slimming (ha) black sweats and three gallons of sun block, heads […]

(Reading on Facebook?  Please click the “View original post” link above to see this entry and its pictures as they ought to look!) There are milestones that are hard to ignore.  Some of them come but once in a lifetime, and others, especially in a place like BFA, are cyclical.  Junior-Senior Banquet belongs in the […]

Three weeks from today, I will be on a plane to the US, having said the kind of goodbyes that should never come early but, in this case, must. I’ve always considered imminent goodbyes as platforms for evaluations, and as these final days of the year tick to a close, I wonder about a lot […]