Changing Direction

The title of this post, changing direction, has multiple meanings.  For those of you who read this blog before, it used to be about my experiences of being a new mother with Audrey, who is now 5.  We've added Claire to the family too since then, and most pertinent for this blog, we've moved to Scotland for me to take a postdoctoral research fellowship at the University of Dundee in Dundee, Scotland.

In the few years since I've been blogging, this site (Blogger) has changed too.  I guess it was always part of the Google universe, but now it's more explicitly so, trying to get me to "sign in to all of Google" with my gmail account, and encouraging me to tag people (well, they don't call it tag, it's something else more google-ish like "call out") on my blog posts so they'll be flagged on Google+, which still seems a little Facebook-wanna-be to me. But part of my job now at Dundee is to consider current use of online/social media, and start thinking about the future of it as well, so I'll give Google+ the benefit of the doubt.

So as I change direction, I return to this blog.  I write for myself, but also to explain to family and friends (and other readers, although I doubt even if I link this blog to Google+, I'll be overrun with readers :-) exactly how Scotland is different, even though the US and Scotland are both 1st world, English speaking countries.  So it's really one part venting, one part information and one part anthropology. Hope you enjoy this trifecta.

    Sunset over Magdalen Green, near our house in Dundee: October 2013