Warm weather dreaming as winter sets in reminded me that last year, I spent five days in Cuba on a quick all-inclusive vacation during Son #2′s week off university. Juggling paying work and my own school work, I didn’t have a lot of spare time but figured it could work. Between booking the trip and [...]
Tag Archives: Dispatches from the dorm
Take time to celebrate
It’s been a little quiet around the Red Jacket Diaries these days. I’ve just finished a stretch where every spare minute and then some went into various school assignments, both team and individual. My head was down and it felt like it came up only to check the next due date — sometimes, I’ll admit, [...]
Hello from Royal Roads, week 2
My second three-week residency at Royal Roads University is two-thirds done, closing last night with a class party that was all kinds of fun. Week one ended with tea at the historic Empress Hotel overlooking Victoria harbour; the photo shows me feeling a bit like Cinderella as I leave the luxury of the hotel to [...]
Blogging slowdown in progress
Remember the book, Where’s Waldo? That’s what my online presence has turned into these days. Where’s Sue? I’ve been quiet on this blog, Twitter and LinkedIn for weeks because I’m gearing up for the second year of the Professional Communication program at Royal Roads University. Another three weeks in residence in Victoria, B.C. starts in [...]
Controlled burn of my brain
Today presented itself to me as gloriously unstructured, pretty much the first such day since I embarked on my Royal Roads adventure last July. The reason: Year One is done. Yesterday, I submitted the final paper in the final class of the first year. I am torn between feeling relief, and feeling that I am [...]
Sue’s online life tanks
When I launched the Red Jacket Diaries, I worried that my track record of (not) keeping up a journal would be an indicator of my abilities to keep up a blog. For a while, though, I had a rhythm going, where I paid attention to the world and made a mental or written note about [...]
Learning means letting go
As the online portion of my two-year Professional Communications program cranks up, the biggest struggle is not fitting the work into my day or evening. No, it’s losing the feeling of competence I used to have. I’ve been running my own business for close to 20 years. I write every day, and modestly think I [...]
Pick four for life balance
After spending three weeks in academia, with no time to read newspapers or watch the news, let alone be active on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and such, it’s been interesting getting (slowly) back into the swing of things. Today, in between researching topics on peer-reviewed journals for a paper I have to write, I caught up [...]
Week 3 done; the journey has begun
Each day has been incredibly long, but three weeks here at Royal Roads University have indeed gone fairly quickly, as many predicted. Now my bags are packed, and the cab will arrive in about 20 minutes to take me and a few of my classmates to the airport. Home, here we come! Our official three-week [...]
Week 2 down; 1 to go
My husband was able to arrange work in Vancouver this week, with a side trip to Victoria over the weekend to spring me from the campus on Friday (I went “over the wall” as my classmate Max called it). Besides being happy to see him and another couple who came out for dinner with us, [...]
