My earliest memory in life was looking at a tiny rocking chair at two years old and thinking, “I’m going to sit there, think about the Wizard of Oz, and poop my pants.” Though I’ve outgrown the rocking chair and my diapers in the years since, my fascination with Dorothy in Oz has remained—the dream of clicking one’s heels and arriving in a place like home…

Five flights, twelve time zones, thirty-seven hours’ transit, four friends, and a night out

Catching up with old friends in the south of England on the way to New Zealand

A recap of my experience trail-guiding in Guatemala and brief history of the nonprofit school it helped support

A crash-course in Spanish and first impressions of Xela, my home for the next several months

Arrival in Guatemala and meeting my homestay family

Shifting gears in preparation for becoming a trail-guide in Guatemala

A strange evening with a male stripper and suitcase full of euros, a motorcyle ride down the coast with my homestay brother, and a visit to an acquaintance’s countryside chateau

How I ended up sleeping on the dorm room floor of strangers without a common language for weeks and loving it

A meditation on how wasabi (and Japan) changed my life

An introduction to the blog, myself, and an odd fact about northern Italy’s school curriculum

[Predates blog] An op-ed I self-published on having cancer at 26 and the fear of financial ruin that nearly overshadowed death

[Predates blog] An historical fiction short story I wrote for Bellum Magazine’s Fall 2017 issue about my grandmother’s emigration from South Africa

[Predates blog] My firsthand account of Washington D.C. during the weekend of Donald Trump’s inauguration