Change. Transition. Progress.

All Shanadian has been with me since January 2004. I believe I originally created this blog as a means of distraction from the current task at hand - at that time, it was my Business Honours research paper. Then it morphed into a travelogue for the next few years, while I ceilidhed it up in Scotland and Ozzed it up Down Under. During my stints in Canada it served more often as a scrawl wall, upon which I'd find msyelf writing a rant about something or other, typically involving politics or the environment. It's also been a faithful note-taker, tracking what I considered to be noteworthy events (getting kicked out of Scotland) and ho-hum everyday life kind of stuff that I deemed worthy of recording. It's seen me through two broken hearts, four places I think of as 'home', several jobs and non-jobs, countless encounters with amazing people, and endless moments worthy of remembrance, most of which have been captured by All Shanadian, in the words that were written or in the spaces between those words.

And now, I think it might be time for a change. Not an ending or a beginning, but a transition. Looking at the statistics, the number of times I've blogged each year has dropped steadily since 2004. I've been neglecting All Shanadian and I've been neglecting my artist for some time now. My heart has been trying to tell me for some time and I've ignored it, caught up in trying to get through grad school, get my body back to the way it was when I was 21 and, let's face it, spending far too much time on Facebook and MSN Messenger. Not that there's anything wrong with FB or Messenger, but they tend to act as 'gleaners' and they definitely don't demand or even encourage thoughtful words composed in multiple paragraphs.

I need to return to my writing. Writing is what I am meant to do. Admittedly my blog has never served to showcase my writing abilities, mostly because I tended to write them while typing against a clock (when in Internet cafes in Scotland), or late at night (like now), or when I should have been writing a thesis (also like now).

So why, if I want to return to writing, do I not just start writing more entries in All Shanadian? I've been struggling with the answer to that myself and I guess it comes down to the advice of What Not To Wear hosts Clinton and Stacy" 'Dress for the job you want, not for the one you have'. Likewise - 'Write as the writer you want to be, not as the blogger you have been'. And I want to be a writer, I want to flex my writing muscles and see how much they can take. I want to transition from a sometimes lazy blogger to a writer who blogs regularly and with some sort of direction. Ah and there it is, the other piece to the puzzle - I want to be a writer who blogs with focus, passion and, on occasion, intent.

So what am I trying to say? I think I'm trying to say one of two things:

A) that it may be time to retire All Shanadian and transition to a new adventure in blogging.

B) that it's time to try on two blogs for size - maintain All Shanadian and start a new blog with a focus on food (in the broadest of senses possible)

Ack. I am torn. I want to believe that I can do Option B, but my gut tells me that if I try to maintain two blogs, while also writing a Masters thesis and doing research for the City of Kingston I will fail to maintain either, thus ending my career as a blogger for ever and ever. OK, OK, I know I'm being dramatic, but my heart is truly aching as I contemplate the possibility of retiring All-Shanadian. I think I need to break and come back to this later. Or maybe earlier in the day.

AFTER A BREAK

OK, I've eaten chocolate almonds, reread some of my All Shanadian posts and made a mental lists of the pros and cons of Options A and Options B. What I've come up with is Option C, which will be rolled out in the coming days. But here's a sneak peek at what to expect:

No need to memorize a new address, or change any bookmarks, the address of my blog will remain the same: http://allshanadian.blogspot.com

The name of the blog, however, will change. Stay tuned.

And as with the name, the focus and style of this blog will (hopefully) shift. As mentioned in Option B, I feel driven to write about food and everything related. No, this won't become a recipes blog, or yawny academic type blog. The truth is, I don't know exactly what this blog will transform into, I only know what I won't let it become (see previous sentence). Right now, I envision the 'everything related' of my food blogging to include, but not be limited to:

*food systems*cooking*actively being*being active*love*the environment *grassroots* people power*traveling*nature*being green*going slow*politics*going local*home*friendships* relationships*being passionate*fear*hope*the future*

Forgive me for my ramblings. I am tying All Shanadian up to the dock for now, and setting sail on a new ship (yet to be christened), without being quite certain of my destination and having only a sense of the direction I want to go in. But what's life without a bit of uncertainty? Where's the adventure when you Google map your way from Point A to Point B and use a GPS for back-up?

I'm excited, possibly moreso than would be considered normal when all I am planning is a name and template change, along with some food blogging. And yet my heart is racing a little faster - thanking me for finally taking a baby step in response to its persistent tugging.

Thank you for sailing with me on All Shanadian, I do hope you'll join me on my next sail into the sunset.

Do you know the PEI song?

It starts something like this:

'I was Prince Edward Island born, and Prince Edward Island bred
and when I die, I'll be Prince Edward Island dead!'
Oh Prince Edward Island Island, Prince Edward Island
Island, Prince Edward Island Island
P.E.I.!!!
Some come from the West
and some come from the East
But where ever they go, they know PEI's the Best!


Hmm...from thereon in, it gets a bit fuzzy, but you get the idea.

So, I've been back on PEI since Sunday at midnight after an awesome weekend in Toronto. What a stopover on the way - Kingston to Toronto to PEI. Population wise, that goes something like: 117,000 to 3,000,000 to 140,000. Note that the last number represents the population of an ENTIRE province!

Random numbers and notes since my landing in PEI 2 nights ago:

15 kilometers - distance I've covered in training for marathon - 13 kms jogged, 2 kms walked

2 hours - amount of time I've spent working on my thesis research

4 hours - approx amount of time I've spent procrastinating on working on my thesis research

$140 - amount of money spent loading up on groceries only to discover after the fact that the
M&J boarding house that I am staying at (aka MOm & Jim's) is well stocked, especially in
in blueberries and haddock

1 - number of premiers I've seen since arriving on the Island. Yes, that's right I saw PEI premier Robert Ghiz at The Pilot House tonight, eating dinner with his wife. Only on PEI.

1 - number of UPEI professors I saw eating at the Pilot House who have decided that the leopard print look is so very 'hip' that he should get his head dyed to look like that of the spotted cat

49 seconds - length of my first stint as a videographer, where I assisted Jen Mac and Janielle Furness in getting one step closer to their dream of winning a 67 day trip to Orlando, Florida

And that's all for now. I am oover and oot!

June Bugs Bunny Cash

I'm nearing the end of my vacation/escape/academic sojourn. Currently, I'm shacked up in Nowhere, Pennsylvania a.k.a Sate College, where *gasp* Penn State is located. Apparently they have a big football stadium and a big campus to put it in. No wonder, there's no other sign of civilization in this part of the state to outbid the college on real estate. I'm not exaggerating either. Find Pennsylvania on a map (hint: it's close to Washington, DC and below the Great Lakes). Now find Pittsburgh (to the West) and then locate Philadelphia (to the East). OK, now if you look carefully for State College you'll find it's approximately smack dab in between the two metropolises of this particular state. Now you might think I'm complaining, but I'm not. I'm simply in awe of the sprawling open green spaces that surround this small college town. It's about as picture perfect a rural setting as one could find.

As for why I'm here in the hinterland of America, well that's quite easy - I'm attending a conference. It's an academic conference hosted by two associations whose main focus is agriculture and food. The name of the conference is Informing the Possibilities for the Future of Food. The three day event is jam packed with 'sessions', where academics (both faculty members and graduate students) make presentations with regard to research they've conducted or are currently working on. It's actually been really interesting. Each session is 1.5 hours and within that session, four academics present their research findings...which translates to about 15 - 20 minutes per presentation. A bunch of sessions run concurrently, but they are organized around themes so I've been able to attend sessions related specifically to local food. It's amazing the diversity of subjects and academic backgrounds that are represented here though - there are English scholars who study food in literature, lots of rural studies people looking at tonnes of different aspects of agriculture, farming, etc. and just as many sociologists researching just as many different things.

As interesting as the sessions have been, truth be told I've enjoyed the field trips and meeting people even more. Yesterday, I joined a 'Local Foods and Winery' tour. We ate lunch at a cafe that sourced its food locally, visited a 10-acre CSA that had an on-site farm shop with deliciousness for sale, and ended at a local winery where we sampled some extremely sweet wines. I am not going to lie - I came back to the hotel with preserves, chocolates and wine.

Tonight I enjoyed dinner at an Amish farm. There are plenty of Amish farms in this area of Pennsylvania and I've learned a lot about their way of life in a very short time. The dinner was spectacular - somehow they managed to fit 45 of us into their farmhouse and serve us up a most delectable dinner including the most delicious mashed potatoes ever (sorry Mom), roast beef that melted in your mouth, supersoft bread with homemade apricot preserves, all sorts of other savoury delights and then scrumptious rhubarb pie, chocolate cake and some sort of fruity compote that I managed to find a second stomach for. Again, I left with food (bread and apricot preserve).


Oh, but I digress. Enough talk of food. I've had so much wonderful food and wine in the last three weeks, but I can't wait to get back to Kingston so I can make a simple meal of spinach salad and an omelette. I am going cold turkey when I return to Kingston - with only 4.5 months until my half marathon I can't be messing around with alcohol or sweets any more. It shall be a dry and sugarless summer for me, and I'm completely OK with that. I will just switch from a sugar addiction to a sneaker addiction. I already have visions of buying Asics from Hashim's corner store in Charlottetown.

I have much more to write about, but I'm close to passing out and still have to figure out what sessions I am going to tomorrow.



It's been almost three weeks since I left Kingston and I reckon this conference is a great way to wrap up what's been a spectacular trip!