Finally Here

For the past 34 years the arrival of the Labour Day Weekend has meant a return to school either as a student or since 1999 as a teacher.  Well that isn’t the case this year.  Five years ago I decided to take deferred salary leave.  I deferred 20% of my salary for 4 years in order to be able to take a year off and still receive a salary.  I have spent the last four years planning and researching what I would be doing for the time I have off.

So far my plans are to travel to Australia and spend 5 weeks there seeing the country, visiting a friend, and diving.  I will finally get to travel with my family (parents, sister, brother in-law and niece) to Cuba in January when they usually go.  I have also just finalized plans to volunteer building an educational facility with the SchoolBOX organization in Nicaragua.  As for the first day of school 2013, I plan on waking up in a tent to a hopefully sunny day in Algonquin Park.