The Hard Work of Getting Ready

I'm still six weeks away from traveling to the U.K., but the preparations for the trip are kicking in to high gear.  There are butterflies doing the jitterbug in my gut because there's SOOOO much to do. I'm starting to worry that I won't get it all done.  Beyond that, I'm almost 100% sure I will forget to do something.

Money is a top concern.  Will there be enough to do what I want to do?  The answer is almost certainly no, but I'll do my best to do what I most want to do.  Jim and I arrive in Edinburgh and will be exploring a small part of Scotland.

The lovely Leonore and I will be visiting our friends, the Arnoux family, in Digoin, France so that is definitely going to happen--no matter what!

My dear friend Cindy-Lou-Who and I will most assuredly visit at least one camp, but we hope to go to three.  Friends Bonney, Fran and I will certainly visit various sites in Southwestern England.  Then there are the field trips built in to the Study in England programme.  We're going to Devon and Cornwall, the Malvern Hills, and the Deciding What's News students, Leonore and I will go to the BBC and the London Times.

En route to Digoin, I'd like to stop off at Giverny.  It would be nice to explore Le Chambon sur Lignon and Marseilles as well, but the latter two might be too costly both in terms of money and time.  I'd also like to visit Ireland if possible, but we'll see.

I'm expecting that once I get to Germany, trips to the Czech Republic and Poland shouldn't be too difficult to arrange. 

My daughter Nina is working hard to help me figure out what train passes or airline tickets I should get.  I'm going to need to figure out hotels/hostels/pensions or couch surfing arrangements--whatever will be cheap, clean and safe (recommendations are most welcome).  Much as it runs counter to my nature, I think I'm going to have to put food MUCH lower down on my list of priorities while I'm gallivanting across Europe.:( There won't be much of this   I'm also thinking I won't be making any souvenir purchases--something I tend to do rather impulsively.   I always start trips with great restraint.  By the time the trip is winding down, however, I become absolutely driven to find little trinkets for friends and loved ones to let them know I've been thinking about them.  Invariably, I buy some real crap (along with decent purchases)--and I'd like to avoid that on this trip if I can.

Beyond the trip planning, I'm also working hard to prepare my courses.  At the beginning of June I took a workshop on Internationalizing Teaching and Learning.  It only made sense to "Globalize" (or should I say "Globalise") my "Deciding What's News Course," but that is proving to be a rather arduous undertaking.  I've been working on it steadily and  I feel as though I'm getting a little closer to what it should be every day, but this is probably the most challenging course preparation I've ever done.  One of the biggest dilemmas I'm facing is what to keep from the course I've taught for over a decade and what to omit.  I'm bound and determined to keep my faves--Watergate, the Pentagon Papers, the Insider, and some assorted scandals, but we'll be looking at the Murdoch phone hacking scandals and what kind of impact that debacle has had on the Murdoch international dynasty.  Most importantly, we'll look at the relationships between the press and government systems in various countries.

The Interpersonal course will also be fun, but the internationalization of this course is built in to the the text.

There are MILES to go before I sleep--that's for sure--but it's an exciting challenge which is bound to influence the future of my teaching career.