“Argh!” my friend emailed, “How are you able to juggle all your work and social and fitness obligations??”
“Help me organize my life!”
In the email I wrote back to her, I realized that I have, indeed, honed a set of concrete Life Juggling strategies that have enabled me to get a ton done (click here for examples of uber-productivity) while still staying sane.
Allow me to share these productivity tricks with you now, as you [...Read More!]
Hello From Madrid, Spain, where I am on a wonderful, whirlwind Free Teacher Training Tour run by EF Tours!
On this 5-day trip, I am in training with a group of teachers who have flown in from around the United States to prepare as much as possible to lead a group of our students abroad. In my case, I will be leading 42 Boston students to Beijing, China in just 1.5 months!
So far, this [...Read More!]
On Wednesday I came home to find a rose petal scavenger hunt!
Under the largest petal was a beautiful letter from my beau, Colin, along with the instructions: “Go to the smallest suspension bridge in the world.”
I Googled the clue… and it turns out the smallest suspension bridge in the world is in the Boston Public Garden!
I sprinted the five blocks from our apartment to the garden and onto the bridge over [...Read More!]
Yesterday was the first day of Fall, the Autumnal Equinox. And for myself and hundreds of other people who knew and loved a remarkable man named Kolajo Afolabi, yesterday was also a fall from innocence into deep grief as our dear, dear friend fell while running and passed away from the resulting injuries.
To celebrate our friend’s life, a life of warmth, contribution, love, and joy, I invite you to gaze at these [...Read More!]
Tears poured down my cheeks and into my gourmet hot dog as I sat across from my friend Meg, less than a week before my flight to Beijing and the subsequent 50-something hours of trains and buses I will take through Chongqing, Yunyang, and Shanghai.
“I’m sorry,” I choked out, “but I’m always a complete mess before international travel. Every little thing makes me freak out: an offhand remark from a friend… a [...Read More!]
One of the few songs I had on my small, cheap computer to travel around the world for 9 months was “Rains Down in Africa” by Toto, so you can imagine how many times I listened to it.
There are some songs that, while cheese-tastic, evoke a magical glitter in the air, and for me, Toto’s “Africa” is sure one of them.
So last Thursday, standing under the soaring dome and 100-foot arches [...Read More!]
Exactly a year ago today, I returned back to America after nine straight months traveling around the world.
What a change a year makes! My life now is unrecognizable from 365 days ago… and it’s an inspiring reminder of how we never have to be stuck!
On May 12, 2010, I flew from Madrid back to Boston with no secure job, no apartment of my own, a fragmented social scene, and a small [...Read More!]
It is difficult to write this because the heat has been broken in my apartment for five hours, and my bones (finger-bones included) are now ice-encrusted.
Maybe you’ve heard: we’ve had a liiiittle bit of winter weather here in Boston lately! What has it been: 6 giant blizzards in 6 weeks? 8 feet of snow total? Who knows. All I do know for sure is that we’ve had 5 Snow Days which [...Read More!]
Exactly one year ago, I was almost arrested in Bangkok, Thailand for bringing an illegally smelly fruit onto a public train.
You can read the whole dramatic story by clicking here, but the short version is that durians (giant, monstrously spiky fruits common in Asia) smell so horrifically bad that there are signs all over public transport in Southeast Asia warning against carrying them. And I did. And a Thai policeman nearly [...Read More!]
The resounding song in my universe since returning from nine months of travel has been entitled: “Appreciation!”
There is nothing like being away from something for a time to make you re-see it in its original glory.
That said, life isn’t always a happy-shmappy song. Right now, for instance, I’m in a nutty mood. My daily 5:30am alarm this morning was not enough to force me out of bed fast enough to catch the [...Read More!]