January 25, 2020 Persistence and Patience If you’re anything like me, sometimes patience escapes me. I know it does. I’m not afraid to admit that sometimes, I just want things to happen quickly. Patience has always been something I have worked on, and still do to this day. I know I’m not the only one who has to remind myself to take a deep breath, be patient, but persistent.
January 18, 2020 How Do You Know? Growing up, I often times daydreamed about love. Call this a result of all the princess movies I watched or all the Disney VHS tapes my parents kept on hand, but I couldn’t help myself. All the books I read had some love component, whether platonic or romantic, and all the stories I wrote had a little bit of love intertwined into the mix. Even if I wouldn’t admit it, much like everybody else out there, I was anxious to find love of my own.
January 11, 2020 Love is Love is Love Ah, au sujet d’amour. This is something I have written on before, but not in the most positive of lights. I’ve said a lot about traveling being more important than dating. I’ve alluded to love in other posts of mine, fictionalized la romance, but other than that, if you haven’t noticed, I have steered clear of the subject. Love never used to sit well with me. Used to, being the key word here.
January 4, 2020 20/20 Vision Happy (late) Holidays and Happy New Year, everyone! In the spirit of the New Year, I felt it was time to be raw and share what’s been happening lately with you guys. There’s so much to share, and much to reflect on, so hold onto your hats.
October 28, 2019 Gratification or Gimmick? Our world is far too instantaneous. We have cell phones that allow us to access information in mere seconds, social media platforms that allow us to send messages to friends around the world in no time, and the climbing total for the MegaMillion lotto is displayed all around the country. Our society, whether we like it or not, thrives off the idea that somehow, some way, and somewhere, whatever we want is going to come to us right away, when we want it, and by total chance. That, unfortunately, is a giant lie.
October 5, 2019 Redefining What Homesick Means A year ago, I sat in my apartment in Taiwan, staring out at the concrete jungle. Part of me felt completely at ease eating my Bento boxes, writing every morning before work, teaching kids English, but another part of me felt this pull back to America. Like I knew I needed to come back for my next chapter. Truthfully, I was homesick.
September 21, 2019 Work Now, Play Later As a twenty-five year old single woman living in America, I’ll admit: the struggle, unfortunately, is very real sometimes. Life gets us down and we have to get back up, but that’s how it is, isn’t it? There are challenges, ups and downs, but we prevail in the end. Something I have never understood, however, is when we make deliberate, pleasure-based decisions and purchases that keep us down when all we want to do is get out of whatever rut we got stuck in.
August 31, 2019 What is it REALLY Like Living in Florida? A little more than a year ago, when I first made the decision to move to Florida, I got a lot of the same sorts of questions from people: What are you going to do there? I’m going to work. Why Florida? I went to Florida because honestly, after living in Taiwan and experiencing absolutely not one snowflake of snow in nearly three years, I was not too keen on jumping back into the Chicago frozen tundras again.
July 27, 2019 Why Convenience Isn’t All That Great Once upon a time in a not so far away land and time, I was living in Taiwan. Or as I like to call it, the land of convenience stores, amazing food, and Pokemon Go everywhere you go. But mostly convenience. I used to think that America was the Convenience King, but I was proven wrong. Taiwan is the King of Convenience.
July 20, 2019 Clean Eyes A couple of months ago, there was this ten year challenge going around on various social media, mostly Instagram and Facebook. I remember looking through photos (and yes, I did post one just for fun) and thinking to myself that I literally look the exact same. My hair was more or less the same length, color, and I was more or less happy to the same extent, at least upon first glance at the image. But if you dug beneath the surface, Marie of 2009 and Marie of 2019 are very different.
