I know what I know, and perhaps more importantly, I know what I don't know...

I'm Mona - a half French-Canadian/ half Egyptian bio-chemical engineer currently back in school to become a secondary mathematics teacher specializing in French immersion. I'm from Montreal originally and now live in Calgary, Alberta by ways of Vancouver, Toronto, Sarnia, London - Ontario, Memphis, Tacoma and lastly Sparwood BC (in non-chronological order of course).

I am a member of the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) having joined in October 2002. In the society, I am known as the Honourable Lady Katelijne van der Ast - a Flemish woman from the late 16th century. I am quite active in the society in the Principality of Avacal, more precisely in the Barony of Montengarde.

My SCA device is Quarterly gules and sable, an ash tree eradicated ermine. Oh and I have a pretty badge too - love them FUR trees! An ash tree eradicated ermine.

Before I forget, I horribly overuse ellipses, parentheses and dashes. It's one of my many writing quirks. I am a native French speaker - English is my second language - so that also explains the weird idioms I tend to use.

I write this journal as a means to communicate with a lot of important people in my life. I ramble a lot about the SCA, travels and now my toddler new baby girl!! The human experience is meant to be shared - however banal it mostly is. Unfortunately due to the nature of what I do professionally, I now post friends-only as I want to keep my personal life separate! If you are interested in reading my ramblings, feel free to introduce yourself in a public post of this LJ and if you pass the NOT-an axe-murderer test and aren't someone I deal with professionally, I'll add you back.

Chris is my wonderful husband. John/Iain is his SCA name - he is in the middle of switching to his more period appropriate name (John) and I am still getting used to it. He is on LJ and is known as landsknecht_po. I am partly to blame for that user name having bought him the potty-mouth Po doll back in 99. He also works up north with me. Élise is my baby daughter, she was born in October 2009 and I am absolutely smitten with her. I kind of have been posting a lot of pictures of her since her arrival... But she is so cute, how can I help myself!?

I have a slight obsession with books. Our entire library is catalogued here. Oh, and if you need to get hold of me, either mail me at rectangularcat (at) livejournal (dot) com or leave a comment in any public post of this LJ.