Taking on Taiwan: My Lizzie Moment

Growing up as a late 90s to early 2000s kid, Lizzie McGuire and Disney were all the craze.  Honestly, I think everyone wanted to be Lizzie McGuire at some point in their childhood.  She had Gordo and Miranda, and then she even got a movie where she met a handsome Italian pop singer (who turned out to be terrible in the end, unfortunately) and she sang in front of thousands of people, and still got Gordo in the end.  But mostly, I wanted to be Lizzie McGuire for one solid reason: that Vespa ride in The Lizzie McGuire Movie.  

Travels from the Time Vault: Greece

When I was sixth grade, my history teacher introduced us about ancient civilizations.  We learned about the rich ancient history in Africa, India, China, Aztec society, Incan society, and then we came to the Romans and the Greeks.  I’ve always been fascinated by mythology, and Greek mythology is without a doubt my favorite.  It was also around the same time that Rick Riordan released the first of his Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, which I still love to this day.  I could open up one of those books now and feel the same amount of joy reading it as I did the first time I found them.  Sixth grade was also the year that I traveled to Greece.

Travels from the Time Vault: Naples

The tall mountains of the Mediterranean coastline seemed even larger from on top of them.  I had spent the last two hours on a bus full of kids my age—twelve and thirteen years old—ascending the majestic peaks ever so slowly, each circle we did around them bringing us closer and closer to the point where I felt uncomfortable staring thousands of feet down to the small foreign fishing towns below.  The mere sight of the distance between sea level and me made my stomach twist but also gave me a sense of wonder when I realized just how small the area was.