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Welcome to my homepage. I'm Tim Allison. I'm currently an 8th-grade Science teacher in Lancaster, South Carolina (although I remain staunchly Canadian -- make no mistake about that). I'm approaching the end of my first year here, which has generally gone fairly well. Although I've
generally been kept busy with my work here, I do try to get outside whenever I
can. There are several activities that I enjoy. Birding,
photography, and fishing are activities that I can do all year -- although in
the winter, fishing involves drilling holes through the ice, which is sweaty
work, since I use a hand auger. Birding is just plain great, all year
long (below, at right, is a Pale Thrush (Turdus pallidus) -- a fairly
common Thrush in Northeast Asia); although it's pretty slow here in Thunder Bay -- it's hard to find thirty
species in one outing. While I'm very much an amateur photographer, I
really like to get pictures wherever I go. Most of my pictures are of
nature and natural phenomena, but I do occasionally take pictures of people.
In the summer, I add odonates to my list. The odonata are an order of
insects which includes dragonflies and damselflies (above, at left, is a
Cherry-faced Meadowhawk (Sympetrun vicinum)). I can often be found,
running around with a net, chasing after these speedy little insects. It's
actually great fun. I have more general naturalist interests, too, but
have specialized in the odonata and the birds...I guess that just sort of
happened. I really didn't plan it.
People often ask
me where I'm from. I'm never sure how I should answer that question.
I was born in Guelph, ON; when I was very young (I don't remember living in
Guelph), my family moved to Ottawa, where I grew up. I moved to Halifax in
1997, and spent just over 4 years there, studying, then working for a
carpet-cleaning company. As a result of the time I spent there, and of the
friends I made, Halifax is the place that
really feels the most like 'home',
whatever that means. At the end of February 2001, I packed my bags, and
went to work for the Jung-gu Seongdong Wonderland Language Institute in Seoul,
Korea. I spent 16 months there, working as an English teacher and
travelling throughout the country whenever I had free time. The nice thing
about a small country is that you can see quite a bit of it without travelling
over long distances. From there, I came back to Canada (via Thailand -- I
figured I deserved a break), and came to Thunder Bay, where I had already been
accepted at Lakehead.
I don't think there's really much else to tell. I'll leave you with a few links to explore in case they interest you:
