Blogs are supposed to be honest, so after a bunch of weeks of trying to hide it, let’s be honest here: Things are weird.
I suppose it was to be expected, right?
You can’t just uproot your life and meander around the world for nine months, then come home and expect everything to be silky smooth.
Now, it’s not that things are bad: in fact, most things are lovely.
It’s all just… weird.
The best way [...Read More!]
Article #9 in the ESL Student Life Story Project, by Jeremy from China, age 20.
When I finished high school in China, I went to Singapore to keep studying because I felt there were too many high school graduates like me in China, and I wouldn’t get into a good school there.
Living in beautiful Singapore was a huge challenge for me because I wanted to learn English well, so [...Read More!]
First: today my info-packed article, “5 Facts About TEFL Courses and Teaching ESL” was published on The Expeditioner. Check it out for handy tips about teaching English to speakers of other languages!
Second, let us pause to celebrate a milestone.
Exactly 365 days ago on this date, I clicked a button labeled “Create New Blog,” trembling slightly with the nervousness that comes from embarking on something utterly foreign.
A blog? I had barely thought [...Read More!]
“I feel terrible for you!” sighed Sherry, watching me lug my suitcase through the sultry New York streets. ”I’m so sorry we have no place for you to sleep tonight!”
I chuckled. ”Literally,” I said, “this is the hundredth time I’ve showed up in a city and had nowhere to stay. And yet, miraculously, it always works out in the end.”
Sherry looked dubious and murmured, “I really hope you’ll be all right.”
As you likely know, I spent the nine months from August of 2009 to May of 2010 traveling around the world, and one of my favorite countries on the journey was Laos.
Now, by clicking on the link below, you can see the deliciousness that is Laos whittled into a colorful photo essay for Boston.com !
Exciting!
I hope you enjoy the piece, forward it far and wide, and then go back and read [...Read More!]
Article #9 in the ESL Student Life Story Project, by Maryam from Saudi Arabia, age 25.
Waiting, waiting, waiting… waiting for the new episode of the new season to be downloaded! So exited and so curious what will happen next!
I was in my pink “girl” room on my heavenly bed surrounded by pillows, freezing under my blanket, somehow unable to lower the air conditioning. Popcorn smell was all over the room [...Read More!]
I shall be brief, to-the-point, and righteously indignant. Here are the facts.
During the TBEX World Travel Blogger Conference last month, I was Vuvuzela-ed in the face. This is to say, I was brutally accosted by a Vuvuzela-wielding top travel blogger (pictured below). The experience was very loud. I still somewhat hear the (South African?) sea in one ear from the instrumental trauma.
That is fact one.
Fact two: This evening I was innocently attending a [...Read More!]
Yes, that IS a woman passed out in euphoric exhaustion on a four-foot-tall heap of clothing. Want to know why? Read on.
Saving money to do awesome things like travel is often a matter of making small sacrifices (or put more positively, “alterations”) in your budget that add up over the long term.
One such alteration that can save you thousands of dollars a year is this: instead of buying new clothes, hold [...Read More!]
Article #8 in the ESL Student Life Story Project, by Mayuka from Japan, age 25.
In our lives, we have keys that can change everything for us. Maybe these keys are key words, or key points, or key people we meet, but many keys are not realized at the moment we first see them. Keys are often realized later, and whether we are aware of it or not, they guide us [...Read More!]
Article #7 in the ESL Student Life Story Project, by Andy from China, age 20.
The light passed through the window near my bed and fell on my face. The weakness of the sun woke me, and I opened my eyes. My view through the window saw a dim scene, and I suddenly realized something was wrong.
Before going to sleep, I had been playing an online game called World of [...Read More!]