What I Did On My Summer Vacation

Gosh, it's been ages since I've posted here. I can't really say it's due to lack of time, but perhaps lack of motivation for composing long and thoughtful posts. But I'm sure most of you have been keeping up with the Flickr and the Twitter and the Facebook, and if that's too much for you to check, you can catch it all (including this post!) at the Tumblr.

So anyway. You probably want to know what I've been doing all this time. As tomorrow is the First Day of School for the young'uns in my family, I thought I'd present you with that timeless Back-To-School composition theme, What I Did On My Summer Vacation.

First and foremost, I watched people get married. In June I went to San Francisco to see Chrissie and Collin tie the knot:

This was a wonderful experience for many reasons. First, I got to go back to San Francisco, which was great fun. (I went there last year for the first time.) I also got to reconnect with many old friends from my first two years of Oxford, as well as meet some cool new people. If finances can withstand it, I'd love to make a yearly trip to San Francisco.

In July, my cousin Ryan got married:

Ryan's new wife is Trish, and they met when Ryan was living in Boston. The really cool thing about their wedding is that Ryan designed a lot of things for it: the invitations and save the dates, the programs, the place cards and table numbers, and even the favors - hand-illustrated cookbooks of their favorite recipes. Unfortunately, their weather was crap (as was expected - it rained 90% of the time this summer), but the location was beautiful and we all had a great time.

And in August, longtime family friend Amanda married Bryan on my mother's birthday:

Amanda was exceptionally lucky to have gorgeous weather, especially since she had her wedding outdoors on a lovely mountainside, which led to some fabulous photos.

And my wedding attendance schedule was on the light side this summer: my parents also attended my cousin Emmy's wedding the week before my cousin Ryan's wedding, and my sister Kelly is attending roughly 837 additional weddings between now and November.

When we were not attending weddings, we attended wedding-related events, such as bachelorette parties (that's "hen nights" to all you Brits out there)...

...rehearsal dinners...

...and Jack-and-Jill showers. Whew!

(The couple for this one was Casey and Paul. Casey has been Kelly's best friend since middle school. She's getting married in October, and alas, I cannot go.)

Again, my wedding-related event schedule was only the tip of the iceberg. My parents and my sister will be attending weddings pretty much every single weekend in October. But even so, I now declare myself the official expert on weddings and can advise on pretty much any aspect of wedding planning. If this whole doctorate thing doesn't work out, I know I'll still have a career. ;)

When I wasn't attending weddings, I was teaching faculty at the University of Hartford how to use Blackboard.

(This is a very old and very bad picture of me, but I was doing the same job two years ago. I don't have any photos of me doing the job this summer...)

The university upgraded its version of Blackboard this summer, so I spent my time in FCLD doing what I usually do with them: developing and updating documentation, testing new features, and training faculty. I absolutely love educational technology and hope I can continue with it in some way once I'm done with my doctorate.

What's up next? Lots of work this year. I'm looking to finish about a year from now, so it requires lots and lots of work. If all goes well *knock on wood*, I'll submit in July and defend in Octoberish, and make my way towards the real working world. I can't wait. :D

Wishing you all, whether you're tenured faculty or sending your kids off to preschool, a happy and productive back to school season - Kx