December 31, 2020 Ambivalence Today is the day that all of us have been waiting for: the time to say goodbye to 2020. I believe everyone can agree…
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.
August 24, 2019 Which Road Will You Take? As a kid, and even as a young 20-something year old, we get asked the same question: Who do you want to DO when you grow up?
August 3, 2019 A Simple Choice Every morning, Ted rises at six in the morning. He grabs his cup of coffee, makes some breakfast, and sits in front of the TV to see the news. It’s the same themes, different faces and locations. But Ted enjoys it. It fills his empty home.
January 9, 2019 Taking on Taiwan: The Buzz About Buxibans Not less than twenty-four hours after touching down in Taipei the second time, I was sitting in a lecture hall among forty other men and women. Some of them were the same age as I was, while others were older with far more teaching credentials than I had. Exhaustion filled me, mostly because I’d spent much of the night chatting with my roommate and one of my now good friends, Rona, after she arrived as well. We awaited our training leaders to start what would be a week’s worth of learning how to teach and more about the HESS curriculum.
December 23, 2018 What Happens After Your Last Game I remember the first time I stepped foot on the ice in hockey skates. At nine years old, I had donned figure skates for six years leading up to that, but nothing could prepare me for the dozens of bruises and bumps I had all over my body as I got used to life without toe picks. But yet, despite every fall and a few stifled laughs from my teammates that summer, I kept on trying. Thirteen years later, I would step on the ice for the last time, wearing my collegiate uniform and equipment way larger than the first set of pads I wore way back when.