It is Time for . . .Change

La tour à l’étranger

If you’ve previously visited my travel blog, la tour à l’étranger, you’ll notice a change.  The first is the appellation of my musings.  This blog began as a personal project with two goals: update friends and family back home while living abroad, and document my experiences for nostalgia’s sake when I’m old and wrinkly.

La tour à l’étranger, roughly translated from French, means The Tower Abroad or The Foreign Tower.  It was a nod to two physical attributes – my height and location.  It also followed the format of “theme” and “identifier” most blog monikers apply.  Some of my favourite travel blogs are great examples of this format: Legal Nomads, The Bucket List Family, Nomadic Matt, and The Restless Worker.  Picture day at school almost always sealed my vantage point in the centre of the back row.  “Giant”, “tall”, and “big” weren’t cutting it to use in a blog title, however “tower” luckily began with a T in both French and English.  Coincidentally, Tara, in at least one of its linguistic derivations, means “tower”.  Either my parents are psychic or the universe has a funny way of manifesting itself.  The “foreign/abroad” element is self-explanatory.  Lastly, the title was in French as a nod to my profession as a French teacher and fascination with language and linguistics.  

Unfortunately, there was one glaring problem – most of the site’s visitors don’t speak French! The title held no meaning to its Anglophone audience.  It was confusing, easily forgettable, and often misspelled.  Not a great combination for making a strong memorable impression.

Connecting the Dots

Two years after this personal project began, life, travel, and this site have morphed into the next chapter.  Welcome to Connecting the Dots.  One of my favourite things to do, whether it’s with words, travel, or people, is to find, create, and maintain connections.  In language classes I teach my students to be Language Detectives, identifying clues that aid them in recognizing both meaning and grammar.  They connect world history and personal experiences to spelling and structure, becoming autonomous learners, expert problem-solvers, and independent thinkers instead of robotic regurgitators of sounds and sticks.  In social settings, friends and family can attest to the giddy enthusiasm with which I recount how so-and-so from one part of my life is connected to another familiar so-and-so.  

Perhaps my favourite thrill is connecting those around me.  It creates a cozy intimate space, with the potential to take care of and encourage each other.  Connecting people can break down barriers, build understanding, and lead to unlimited opportunities.  It can support healthy bodies, minds, and hearts.  At its core, it is community.  Living, working, and travelling abroad exponentially magnifies the possibilities to connect words, places, and people, especially with the use of the internet.  You can see why I’m so addicted to foreign lands.

Change & The 4 “P”s

As with language and words, when there is a change to the structure, there is a change to meaning.  Replace “-ed” with “-ing” and you are actively learning, instead of having once learned.  And so, this cozy nook in the interweb is moving with new direction and purpose, built on four components:

• People: to connect people and businesses around the world that I interact with and support
• Places: to connect faraway traditions, history, and landscapes, to you at home
• Pictures: to connect unfamiliar perspectives and moments to your experiences
• Parlance: to connect words to their past histories, present use, and to other ways of communicating

1,2,3…You and Me

Literally anything is possible through the practice of finding, creating, and maintaining connections (read The Brain That Changes Itself, it’ll blow your mind!).  I think that’s why I have such a passion for it.

Something I’m grateful to witness often in my job is the delight children have for the simple bits in life.  Disguised as a thrilling pastime, there is an exercise that requires a pencil, a paper, and some patience to help children learn to count.  When an image reveals itself from a bunch of seemingly random dots, the reaction of pure joy and amazement is priceless.  And learning how to count?  A bonus.

The dialogue you create contributes to and builds this space into something I am unable to do as a single “dot”.  I like to think we’re 1 degree of separation apart instead of 6; a small world after all, if you will.  Thank you for visiting, and… for connecting the dots!