One Year On....

Exactly a year ago, my Mother and I sat in our house dazed, exhausted, and heartbroken. Though my Father died peacefully in his sleep it was not peaceful after the fact. Organizing services and obituaries in two countries was a challenge, but we seemed to manage. Then organizing books in a library of over 2000 books to either keep, sell or give to students, etc. but we're close to finishing. Basically, this year has not been without its ups and downs, and for the most part it's been in a cloud. The overall feeling is definitely that life goes on around you, but your life-cart has lost a wheel. It's not a feeling that can be described, nor does it dissipate. The best way I can described how it feels is you get used to feeling that way. You get better at thinking about what happened and replaying the day's events in your mind with a little more strength every time. It becomes part of who you are, as it has part of me. The first year is all about doing everything once without one person: Birthdays, Christmas, anniversaries. Then there's the special events you wish they were here for: engagements, graduation, etc. We made it through these firsts, and now prepare ourselves for the seconds. One thing's for certain, my Family and I couldn't have gotten through this past year without your prayers and support. Thank you all!

Aged 4
Aged 24
His wedding to Mum, 1980.
With his girls, me aged 4, Catherine aged 8, and Allie aged 16.

Why is the English the Lingua franca?

On one of my many trollings through the internet, I found an ancient email sent from my Dad on the 14th of May 1993 through the "gophermail" system at McGill. At a time when departments were scared to "go online" and "network", and when the speed of the internet was gaged by a traffic light system at the bottom of the screen; red meant there were lots of people online and it was running slowly, yellow meant it was slow but you could manage, and green was clear running, my Father encouraged internet use. Everyone who had internet then recognizes those beeps, buzzes, whurrs and clicks that meant you were dialing up. But most of all, we can all remember the screams of frustration when someone trying to email, download, etc., was thrown off the internet by someone in the house unknowingly picking up the phone! We have a funny family memory of our Father shouting out in aforementioned anger, and storming up the stairs, bursting into my sister Catherine's room yelling "did you pick up the phone?!" only to find she was sound asleep. Sheepishly, he retreated downstairs to be angry at the internet.

Here's the email, which outlines the difficulties we often face with the English language. I get a great kick out of it, and it's best read aloud because the humour is lost in just reading. I hope it gives you a good chuckle.

"I just thought as a lightener that the net would be interested in
seeing the following, which I found in a gopher hole. It certainly
shows how complicated pronunciations can be now at least, whatever
they might have been in earlier days. It makes a jolly good read,
though.

Everyone going to Kalamazoo have a wonderful time.

Abbott Conway,
McGill University.



           WHY IS ENGLISH THE LINGUA FRANCA?

Multi-national personnel at North Atlantic Treaty Organization
headquarters near Paris found English to be an easy language ...
until they tried to pronounce it. To help them discard an array of
accents, the verses below were devised. After trying them, a
Frenchman said he'd prefer six months at hard labor to reading six
lines aloud. Try them yourself.

                ENGLISH IS TOUGH STUFF
           ======================

           Dearest creature in creation,
                Study English pronunciation.
                I will teach you in my verse
                Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
                I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
                Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
                Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
                So shall I!  Oh hear my prayer.

                Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
                Dies and diet, lord and word,
                Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
                (Mind the latter, how it's written.)
                Now I surely will not plague you
                With such words as plaque and ague.
                But be careful how you speak:
                Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
                Cloven, oven, how and low,
                Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

                Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
                Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
                Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
                Exiles, similes, and reviles;
                Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
                Solar, mica, war and far;
                One, anemone, Balmoral,
                Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
                Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
                Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

                Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
                Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
                Blood and flood are not like food,
                Nor is mould like should and would.
                Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
                Toward, to forward, to reward.
                And your pronunciation's OK
                When you correctly say croquet,
                Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
                Friend and fiend, alive and live.

                Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
                And enamour rhyme with hammer.
                River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
                Doll and roll and some and home.
                Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
                Neither does devour with clangour.
                Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
                Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
                Shoes, goes, does.  Now first say finger,
                And then singer, ginger, linger,
                Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
                Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

                Query does not rhyme with very,
                Nor does fury sound like bury.
                Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
                Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
                Though the differences seem little,
                We say actual but victual.
                Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
                Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
                Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
                Dull, bull, and George ate late.
                Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
                Science, conscience, scientific.

                Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
                Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
                We say hallowed, but allowed,
                People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
                Mark the differences, moreover,
                Between mover, cover, clover;
                Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
                Chalice, but police and lice;
                Camel, constable, unstable,
                Principle, disciple, label.

                Petal, panel, and canal,
                Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
                Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
                Senator, spectator, mayor.
                Tour, but our and succour, four.
                Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
                Sea, idea, Korea, area,
                Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
                Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
                Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

                Compare alien with Italian,
                Dandelion and battalion.
                Sally with ally, yea, ye,
                Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
                Say aver, but ever, fever,
                Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
                Heron, granary, canary.
                Crevice and device and aerie.

                Face, but preface, not efface.
                Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
                Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
                Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
                Ear, but earn and wear and tear
                Do not rhyme with here but ere.
                Seven is right, but so is even,
                Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
                Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
                Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

                Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
                Is a paling stout and spikey?
                Won't it make you lose your wits,
                Writing groats and saying grits?
                It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
                Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
                Islington and Isle of Wight,
                Housewife, verdict and indict.

                Finally, which rhymes with enough --
                Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
                Hiccough has the sound of cup.
                My advice is to give up!!!

                                               -- Author Unknown"

R.I.P Little Puff

Sadly, moving house has affected one of us more than the rest. When I went to put my fish back in their tank after moving them from house to house, I found Huff was the only fish alive and only just. I managed to rescue Huff who is now swimming strong and awaiting a new playmate, but unfortunately Puff will join our dog Bonnie and my other fish Simon.

...And We did all the Packing Ourselves!

As many of you know, Mum and I are moving to the nearby village of Bloxham. Mum found the house herself in the news paper, and there hasn't been a single person who hasn't liked the house after seeing it. The walls fresh paint on them, the carpets look new and clean, the garden's a great size and I'm loving mowing the lawn again (with our Canadian mower), there's a double garage so lots of storage space for the "bloody boxes" as well as the canoe and a few other things. I smiled when after the movers had brought in all of our furniture, Mum said "our furniture looks like it belongs". We've met a few of our neighbours, and look forward to meeting the rest of them in good time. These are a few pictures from the beginning of the process... As things progress I'll add more.

My Aunt Christine, and Aunt Lorraine with Mum as they headed back home after 2 weeks of pure labour. We couldn't have done it without you!!
The bonefire Derek and I put together to get ride of some of the burnable items from the skip.
The bone fire again.
The skip after Derek climbed in to pull stuff out. It was full before we started, and we took out about 2/3 of the stuff!!
Bags of recycling destined for the curb. The Recycling guys were fantastic! They took everything so long as it was clearly marked (which it was) having labels with "recycling", "paper", "textiles" or "books" on everything.
The Skip... or is it Tip?? ;P

Flight Over The Tews

For quite some time, our good friend Peter has promised to take Mummy up with him and his wife in a plane ride that he was given to him as a Birthday present. For several reasons including bad weather a couple times, and even the plane being un-airworthy, this flight had not taken place. That is until we got a phone call from Peter starting with "I know this is short notice, but..." So Mum headed off to fly over the village where we live as well as some of the surrounding towns. However, due to fuel delays they didn't take off when they expected, so I then got a phone call from Peter saying that my Mum and his wife had gone up first and would I care to join him for his turn. Of course I said yes!! The last time I had gone flying was way back in 2006 with Sir Grumpy, and that was flying over Montreal and the West Island so very different :) These are a few images that I managed to take, unfortunately neither Mum nor I were able to capture the Vicarage from right above, but we got the church a few other landmarks.

Peter, and our pilot Derek in our plane.
The dash board, I have no idea what any of it means...
Tew Park, where the Horse Trials are held (you might be able to see some of the jumps).
The wee Village of Tew :) From the top of the picture down, the green circle is of Court Farm; the purple circle is of the Green where the shop, pub and school are; the yellow circle is of the Estate Offices; the red circle is Big House (unoccupied); the black circle is the Coach House (aka: the Glass House) where the Squire and Family lives; and finally the faint blue circle is the church.
Tew Blue Vein and Ironstone Quarry
Another view of the Village, and the yellow circle is the Vicarage!!
This is Little Tew to the south of Great Tew. The small L-shaped building in the center of the picture is the church.
Great Tew, the dark trees at the top of the picture, and Little Tew at the bottom, together.
The nearby market town of Chippy.
The town of Bloxham where Mum and I are moving to. the steeple spire you can see slightly left of center of the picture is the church.
The great town of Banbury, home of the Banbury Cross ridden to by the fine Lady upon a white horse...
The runway upon our descent.
Back on terra firma :)

Convocation!!

On July 9th, I officially graduated with a 2:1 (B+) degree with Honours in Biological Anthropology! Mum and I took a few days to go into Canterbury, when we had dinner at Zizzi's with Ed, his brother Jack and their Mum Deb; we also went to a few drinks parties, one for Scott as he's going back to the States to work (GOOD LUCK SCOTT!!) and another one for the whole Anthropology department. Typically, it rained on the day and it was very windy but I think this was a benefit because I didn't have to worry about sweat stains and blisters, and most of the photos look like action shots with all the wind blowing around. We couldn't have asked for a better location though. The Cathedral was packed and I for one was proud to be there. As it was Dad's birthday, I carried his academic hood from when he received his PhD. The hood was bright red, so I certainly stood out in a sea of black robes and grey hoods even though Mum, Catherine, and Ed were sitting right up in the front in the Nave, so they wouldn't have had any problems anyway. After the ceremony and the drinks party, I handed in my robes and we headed out for dinner at a restaurant of Catherine's choice called Strada. The next morning Mum and I headed back up to campus to get my photos done. This was definitely better then having them done on the day of the ceremony. For one thing I didn't have to worry that my makeup was running or that my hair was flat. It went as well as it could have, and now I can hold up that piece of paper that gives me the right to say: "Sarah Conway...BSc!"

Mum with me outside the Cathedral after the ceremony.
Me with Ed and sistor Catherine.
Ed with me in front of the Cathedral.
Me with Scott, my supervisor, at the departmental drink party
(L-R): Ben, Han (way in the background), Beth, Ed, and me at the departmental drink party.
Dinner with Ed's family: (L-R) Deb, Ed, Jack, Mum, and Me.
Rosie, a fellow survivor, and Me after Scott's going away party.
Me with my dissertation bones that I cleaned and organized into these boxes. That's Cedric, the Lab's skellie, in the background.
The Nave of the Cathedral where we received our degrees.
Me!!

Happy Birthday Paigie!!
Today, my not-so-little niece turned 5! This Summer has introduced her to the wonderful game of soccer, so only naturally she had a soccer themed party at the Science Center. The cherry on the cake was having a soccer-shaped birthday cake, what a treat!!

Happy, Happy Birthday Chickie :)

Miss. Paigie when she was just 16 months old in 2004.
And here she is last April ('08) in her Pink Dress from her Nana.

Strong Women

We have been blessed with a whole brood of might strong women in our family. My mother is one of four girls, I am one of three girls and my sister Allie has three girls of her own. One of the days we were in Toronto, 9 of the ten women got together in the same house. These pictures are of our "estro-fest". These pictures are so special to all of us, and they will be cherished :)

My sister Catherine and Allison, my Mother and me.
(L-R) Catherine, Ella, Allison, my Mum, Paige, Me and Morgan
(L-R) Aunt Lorraine, Ella, Allison, Catherine, Mum, Paige, Me, Morgan, and Aunt Jan

The ROM

While I was in Toronto, I went to see the new dinosaur exhibit at the ROM with my cousin Jamie. I loved seeing all the fossils that were apparently hidden in the basement for years. The Canadiana exhibit and Darwin exhibit were packed with fascinating stuff that I couldn't get enough pictures of. It was a great place, and I'm so pleased I got the chance to go while I was there.

The entrance to the ROM
This is a proposed ancestry tree from earliest bipeds to modern human. I did an entire class on this, so I got a little excited when I saw it :S
This is a hand made birch canoe that must have been at least 20 feet long!
I Stegosaurus
A Triceratops
My Cousin Jamie...as a Knight.

The Grand Babies!!

One major drawback about living 5000 km away from where you grew up is missing your family change and grow up. Especially the younger members. My three nieces: Morgan (7, 8 in November), Paige (almost5) and Ella (2 years and 5 month old) are ever changing and active but we over in England see this in slow mo through pictures and online videos. It was so great seeing them so frequently while we were in Toronto. Allie and the girls came over to Toronto and had a great visit with their Great Aunties and their Nana. I also had a sleep over at their house where I saw Morgan playing piano, Paige bowling on the Wii, and Ella colouring every minute she could. When two big eyes look at your and plead "please colour with me" with the accent of a two year old, how could you resist that? Aunt Jan also opened her home to everyone and we went to a nearby park where the girls had a great time. To top it all off, we all went and had a Dairy Queen, one of the best ice cream places around :) Each of these girls are different, and each will be wonderful no matter what they do!