Evan arrived in Malta over a week ago now. I picked him up at the airport and we’ve been having the time of our lives ever since.

This week we went on a trip to Gozo with Olivera and Igor.

Somehow its impossible to upload photos today, we’ll be back with more later. Promise. Love, E & A

Yesterday morning I looked at everyone in class, so many sleepy faces… but we certainly threw one of our best dinner parties the night before!

Secret Santa (or secret friend): this game has so many rules in all our countries it’s not even funny. We had a blast:

And desert of course:

I’m really going to miss my international family. Good times and so many stories…. The first ones are leaving this weekend, but some of us will stay here and celebrate Christmas together.

Our last week of classes came to an end with a bomb threat at the university. So we went out for breakfast instead. It was what we needed, because we had our farewell dinner last night and stayed up until the wee hours of the morning.

This photo was taken with Aline-Wendy on our last official day of classes together. The end to a fantastic semester. We’ve learned so much. 

We’re enjoying our last week of classes with Aline-Wendy Dunlop from Scotland. She is lovely and reminds me of two of my favorite teachers in life: Kaisi (my Kindergarten teacher) and Rhuanedd (one of my piano teachers). Her heart is in the right place and I love listening to her stories about teaching, the recommendations for further readings, and the projects she has worked on over the years. She is best friends with Colwyn Trevarthen, whom we got to see at a seminar in Oslo. I wish my memory worked better, but I know he talked about joyful interactions with infants. Here is a little bit about his interests from his site:

“Psychobiology and developmental brain science of expressive movement; human intersubjectivity and cultural learning; communication of experience and emotion from infancy; chronobiology and ‘musicality’ of human action, and applications in development, education, therapy, and art.”

http://www.pmarc.ed.ac.uk/people/colwyntrevarthen.html

I talked to Aline-Wendy about the idea of writing journal articles or even a book once the program is over. I honestly think it would be amazing if the IMEC cohort(s) could write something together as a group. Our program is so unique and we have access to so many different perspectives. Anyways, she said that there is some funding from the EU that we could apply for, I believe it’s for knowledge transfer which is exactly what we would be doing. Something to dream about.

15 years ago my mom, my sister, and I moved to Canada. Some of you might remember that day at the airport, one of the saddest days ever. The end of the world. Looking back now, moving to Vancouver lead to such a rich life. I have a home, friends, and family in two countries, that’s pretty pretty special. At this point my two lives are not separate anymore, people from both lives are connected and know each other. I love it!  I would never trade it in!

A colleague from Capilano University has applied to the IMEC program. Cross your fingers for her. I would love to have someone to talk to in Vancouver. We could do some amazing things together 🙂

While we’re talking about the transition from the ECCE institution to the primary school in class, we’re constantly going through transitions ourselves: For example, the transition from our old lives into the IMEC program (and now we’re  starting to think about transitioning back into our lives at home), moving from country to country, university to university, getting used to lecturers…

I’m starting to feel like I did last summer in those weeks before leaving for Oslo. My eyes are watery every day, anticipating our last week of classes together next week. When I sit in class, listening to my friends & lecturers, I am so grateful that we got the spend these last semesters together & were an important part of each others lives. A big transition is awaiting us, that’s for sure. I’m very excited about what lies ahead of us, but sad to move on.  Then I try to remind myself that it’s good to be sad. After all, that means that I enjoy what I am doing.

I don’t know how I can find the strength to start this very last assignment here in Malta. I have already submitted a proposal for the assignment and received feedback from my instructor. So I guess I’m actually well on my way.The feedback was good and I think I have found a way to make this meaningful in my context in Canada 🙂

This paper will have the same structure as the thesis, but I’m not quite ready for it… my whole body is resisting the specific report structure that we’ll have to follow, I much prefer essays with my own headings. Barbara (one of our instructors from Ireland) would say, “This is just an academic exercise.” Let’s focus on that.

WEEKEND! We deserve it.

Our poor little heads & hearts are so tired. This has been one of the most challenging months… We’ve worked very hard on assignments for our last modules, as well as on our research proposal, and the research proposal presentation. Everyone looks exhausted and (when we’re not crying) we’re close to tears. We’re happy that everyone got their first preference for the last semester, but the feeling is bittersweet, since we know it’s all coming to an end very soon. We’ll make the best out of the next two weeks, TWO WEEKS, but we’re also quite busy with other assignments. I’m sure the world will look better if I can just sleep in tomorrow.

Our photography class today was fun. We learned all about portraits and using light. I was hoping the teacher would bring in a real model, but no, it was just a sculture. How disappointing.