the next installment

The professor has kindly provided me with a few more photos. As you may suspect by this point (if you didn't know already) the Winnipeg visit was orchestrated by the Biological Sciences department at the University of Manitoba. That's because my professor has been nominated for one of these positions.

It's a big honor. It also means that in February of 2009, we hope to hear it's been funded by the Canadian Government and we'll be shopping for a house in Winnipeg. Next year in this time, we may be Winnipeggers.

I understood what all this was about, in theory, but until I saw the research laboratories, I didn't really get it. This is a big research university, with lovely facilities, big windows filled with a great campus view and sunlight (important for raising butterflies and moths for the professor's research) and a large faculty of 50 in the biological sciences. This is serious stuff. And, while it has been an honor for the professor to help educate many Kentuckians who are the first in their families to go to college, he missed the "show". That's what baseball players call the major leagues...the show. In scientist terms, it sometimes might also mean a major research university for a guy who's gone to school here, here , and here.

I'm enormously proud of my professor! So proud that when our hosts (also scientists) pulled up next to a huge Canola field and asked us to pose for photos, I tried to oblige. After all, what are few (million) mosquitoes in an irrigation ditch among scientists? (darn itchy if you're me, but heck, I'm not a scientist....)

For me, Winnipeg has other attractions. It is the ancestral home of the real Winnie-the-Pooh for instance. Famous writers have lived in Winnipeg. Finally, I will have a use for all my knitting--all these sweaters and handknit socks. I can wear them all at once as I skate down the river. :)