I’m very much looking forward to getting back down to Australia in mid-March. I’ve been invited to speak at a Rotary conference in the nation’s capitol, Canberra, and will go down a few days early in order to get back to Brisbane for a visit there, and possibly a concert as well. It will be […]
Where To From Here
“What is it you plan to do with your one wild precious life?” – Mary Oliver 17 April, 2010 train from Brisbane, QLD to Grafton, NSW As I write this I am riding through the Australian countryside on a train, headed to a conference where I’ll be speaking about the Rotary World Peace Fellowship and […]
Mason at and approaching eight months
By popular demand, here are thirty recent Mason pictures. Click here for a slideshow, or on the photo below to peruse the album at your own pace. Mason @ 8 months Deanna and I celebrated our fifth anniversary yesterday— best move I ever made. It’s such a joy to see this little guy who is […]
New Faces of Peace at UQ
by Naomi Smith For some, the word peace conjures up images of hippies and free love. Not so for the new 2009 cohort of UQ Rotary World Peace Fellows. For the nine new scholars housed at UQ’s Rotary Centre for International Studies in peace and conflict resolution in the School of Political Science and International […]
My First Paper
From random blog photos I turned in my first paper of my post-grad career today. I’ve been deeply immersed in it for the last couple of weeks, and have learned a great deal. The education has come not only from wrestling with the content, though, but also from wrestling with writing an academic paper, which […]
A Taste of My Old Life
From random blog photos Let your voice ring back my memories Sing my songs to me – Jackson Browne It’s a strange thing to suddenly be a student. My life is filled with writing papers and reading articles and books, other people’s schedules and agendas. That’s very, very different from the last eighteen years of […]
First week of classes
From random blog photos It’s Saturday morning here in Fig Tree Pocket, our little corner of Brisbane. Deanna was up with a restless Mason through much of the night, so she’s getting some sleep while he is, and I’m watching the morning in a quiet house. I’ve finished my first week of classes at the […]
How the World Changes
From random blog photos Deanna and Mason on the bus It’s Sunday in Brisbane, and yet another warm, clear day. The quick update is this: Mason turned four-months-old yesterday, we’ve been here for a month, all of the campus orientation events are through and classes start tomorrow. I’ve met all of the fellows, and they […]
Class VII Fellows
I’m going to meet up with a few of the Fellows with whom I’ll be studying at the University of Queensland. Some have yet to arrive and some are here and looking for places to live (we’re lucky to have figured that out already). It’s a fascinating looking group of people. Rotary has posted our […]
Fig Tree Pocket
It’s 82 degrees (28 C) and sunny in Brisbane today. From first week I thought I’d better just get that out of the way. If you haven’t just turned off the computer in disgust and you’re still reading then you must love us a lot, so I’ll feel free to wax on about our Brisbane […]