Adieu 2014

The year 2014 went by fast looking back at it on the last day of the year. A year ago I was just back from living and working in Bogota, Colombia during all of 2013. A few months into 2014 the phone call came in to see if I was interested to apply for the job at Seneca College, and now I am already three months into that new job. Hilary graduated from her B.Sc. Nursing program and has been working crazy hours since the end of June in the emergency department of the hospital in Niagara Falls. She is there right now for another one of those 12 hour shifts. Mark managed to get a spot in the electrical engineering program at his university and completed a good term in his 3rd year. Mary has been busy directing all the traffic in our house of us coming & going as well as with her real estate business. My Dad of almost 95 is still holding up in Holland despite the fact that dementia has forced him in a care home since late 2013. My sisters Han en Ger report on him to me and are busy with the 11 grand children between their 5 children. I will see them briefly again on January 17 and 18. During Christmas we all got together again with Mary's family in Sarnia at Marcy & Joe's place. Wils, the youngest of the gang, is already 8 and the captain of his hockey team. So is his older brother Spencer who will start high school in September 2015. Parker in between the two of them is finding his own niche as well as Fiona, the daughter of Susan and Ralph here in Fonthill. Both Fiona and Parker have one more year of elementary school before starting high school. Sue and Ralph both continue at Niagara College. Mary's parents continue to manage well in their house in St. Thomas.

It has been another year with lots of world events, but more and more one realizes how careful you will have to handle the 24/7 news coming at you through the modern social media. As a stubborn optimist I like to convince myself that there is always more good news than bad news; more progress towards world issues than setbacks; and that we have way more good people among our 7 billion world population than bad people. In 2015 there will be new federal elections in Canada. I just read the book written by Justin Trudeau, one of the three sons one of the former Prime Ministers of Canada, Pierre Trudeau. Justin Trudeau will run against PM Harper as the new leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, a party which was reduced to only 34 seats in parliament during the 2011 elections and became the 3rd party only after decadees of being the leading party in Canada.

I will continue this blog for a 3rd year even though I don't think I will make as many posts as during 2013 and 2014. It is a nice way to share some experiences with friends around the world.

Tot ziens in het nieuwe jaar. Nos vemos en 2015. See you in the new year!

The ending of 2014

One of the last activities at work this year was a signing ceremony for cooperation with the government of the small Caribbean island state of St. Kitts & Nevis. A fair amount of the investment in the island's main industry (tourism via cruise ships who pass by for a day) comes from Canada, and there is a need to do more vocational capacity building at the island to better service the needs of the industry in today's world. Through mediation  of a local MP the team at Seneca was asked to investigate what can be done during  the  coming years.

See also http://www.senecacollege.ca/media/2014/2014-12-22.html

For Christmas we all visited the home of Joe & Marcy Vandenboom in Sarnia, a tradition of the last so many years. Hilary and Mark made Mary and me a nice sign (Hilary lives in Fonthill again now that she works as a nurse in the emergency department of the hospital in Niagara Falls). On the photo also Opa and Oma Vandenboom, still going strong in their mid-eighties.

All the best wishes for everybody for a happy, healthy and productive 2015.