A Parisian hummingbird

My very close friend ML just came back from spending more than a month in Europe travelling through some of my favorite cities, including Paris (France). Having spent extended periods of my life in Paris, and feeling as Parisian as they can come (even though French is, out of the 7 languages I speak, the second one I speak less fluently – I almost forgot most of my Japanese).

ML was kind enough to brave the tourist crowds in Montmartre and find me a glass-blown hummingbird at an artist’s shop. She brought it for me for my birthday (which was just a couple of weeks ago). Could not have been more timely. In the past few months, I have been feeling a really strong nomadic desire.

Don’t get me wrong: I love Vancouver, and I have the best framework for success here. I teach at one of the top Canadian universities, have some of the brightest undergraduate students any academic could ask for, and I have wonderful academic and consulting colleagues. I have one of the fullest and happiest lives of anybody I know. I have amazing friends and someone who fills my life and completes me in ways I never thought could be possible.

Yet, I’m feeling nomadic again. I’ve travelled the world, lived in Europe, North America, and I consider myself a citizen of the world. And the more I think about it, the more I think I’m going to move to Paris in the short term. Not sure when, and not sure how, but I think I’ll end up teaching at Sorbonne Nouvelle in Paris, or more likely, Sciences Po.

Sciences Po is a selective and diverse French university specialising in the humanities and social sciences. It devotes 40% of its budget to research

It’s timely that I now own (and have in my office at The Network Hub campus New Westminster) a Parisian hummingbird. For all I know, I might be the Parisian hummingbird, much sooner than you think. That’s the life of the academic, and the life of a traveller who has been living abroad for decades.

Despite this, let me tell you Vancouver: Je t’aime.