2025 November
The Vibe
The first couple of weeks of November we were in a post-Japan haze. I love how travel seeps into your pores and you experience it beyond the time itself. The vibe after Japan was a feeling of grief and longing. I really loved being in nature and the hustle of the city, the food and the freedom of being away from work.
That said, I didn't spend that much time pining, as I was off to New Zealand fairly quickly for the ICDE World conference. I'd been to Wellington before, back in 2012 for an Ascilite Conference, and had only ever seen the city itself - and that's about it for the whole of the North Island. This time I had a bit more time to explore the city itself, but I also hired a car and set out to explore some of the countryside as well. I drove out to Cape Palliser, climbed up to the lighthouse, explored a couple of the villages, found Rivendell, and most enjoyably – Brewtown. I really loved the city too – it has this kind of grungy side that lets the independent shops, bars and breweries to exist and thrive. The conference was great too, where I made new contacts, met some IRL and reconnected with some old colleagues and friends.
I came back tired! The conference was full on, a lot was going on at work with the merger and in the Common Core course. Add to that the stream of end-of-year and end-of-university events that populated the calendar and a weekend spent writing up a job application, and I ended the month feeling like I'd lost a lot of sleep and needed to catch up.
Events
The big events for me were the string of presentations and conferences that occurred in relatively quick succession. It kicked off with This One Goes to 11(ty) as part of the Reclaim Open event. I did that early in the morning from home in Adelaide, worked, flew to New Zealand and backed up being on the Plenary Panel the next morning (lacking a few hours of sleep!). I didn't end up presenting at ICDE, but attended the pre-conference workshop day and most of the sessions, which meant some very long days. Luckily, when we finished up, I could head to Garage Project, which had kicked off Pickle Week and had a couple of glorious pints of pickle beer on the balcony with Ann-Marie. Also had a lovely dinner with Jocosta and friends.
I also presented live at the OER Camp event, which was really nice and an interesting event, while also prepping slides and a group presentation of our Ascilite paper for the following week.
Family-wise, it was pretty relaxed – very home-centric – and Frankie turned 4.
Photos
Some great snaps from New Zealand are included this month:
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