Ambivalent feelings

I am writing this post as my students write the final examination. The course is over, and it has been an intensive experience both for me and for them. A twelve-week senior course taught in eight weeks. They have learned a lot. I have talked a lot. We have read a lot together: works of literature in all genres (including life writing, of course!), works of literary criticism and theory (mainly about the particular postcoloniality of Canada and Canadian literature), and we have watched four NFB documentaries (have I mentioned how much I love the NFB?).

It is odd to be a 'native informant.' I wonder how many misconceptions I have inadvertently planted in the minds of students whom I have addressed both here and at other universities. I wonder if I have managed to convey the complexities of issues such as "Canadian national identity" (there isn't one, really, or at least not a singular one) to students who live in a country that has had to fight for its national identity and where hyper-nationalism can be dangerous. I wonder how many facts I've gotten wrong when I'm giving Readers' Digest versions of Canadian history, politics, geography, etc. Thank goodness for Google, is what I say to that! And maps; I've shown a lot of maps. I'm confident about all I have said about literary matters (one would hope so!), and I could have told them so much more.

I have absolutely no ambivalent feelings about my experience being a visiting professor at the University of Zagreb. I only have ambivalent feelings about it being over. I am tired. I have done a lot of travelling, a lot of lecturing, a lot of talking. I am ready for Arlequino to join me; I am ready for some holiday time, and eventually, being home. But I have loved it all. And I am very proud of my students. I am consistently impressed by their intelligence, their cultural fluency (not to mention their fluency in often more than two languages), their analytical skills, their writing--their writing is AWESOME! They would do very well in our Canadian university classrooms, and I have told them so.

And how lovely Zagreb is. I have loved living here, even in Novi Zagreb. The tiny apartment became home. The neighbourhood became my neighbourhood. I know my way around the city, and there are delightful visions everywhere you look. Like these amazing blossoms on the chestnut trees.

Today I move out of the apartment and into the Palace Hotel, an old grand hotel with a rich history, across from a gorgeous park in the centre of the city.

In a few days Arlequino and I will pick up a rental car and head to Istria, then to the interior, and eventually down to the Dalmatian coast, ending up in Dubrovnik. So from here on in it will be tourist photos and stories. Hope you will continue to enjoy those.