January 25, 2022 My 2022 Mantra: Unapologetic Everyone talks about the negatives associated with the pandemic. Yet, I haven’t seen so many people talk positively about what changed for the better during this time. Of course, I can only speak from experience, but from January 2020 until now, as I wrote in the last post, I can only really describe the previous two years with one word: unapologetic.
January 8, 2021 Consistency Vs. Intensity: The Key to Success For as long as I could remember, people who chose to participate and compete in long-distance running or other endurance sports of the same nature always fascinated me. I trained to be a quick sprinter because that was the nature of ice hockey. Shifts on the ice were no longer than 90 seconds, and most people (even the exceptionally trained players) would need to take a breather before going back out there for another shift.
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 6, 2020 A Change of Pace Laying in the saltwater on the beach two Sundays ago, my fiancé and I were chatting while we watched the clouds passed overhead. The topic of the conversation was the same as it had been for the last few months: my job. I was experiencing the Monday Blues, real bad. We talked and talked–for hours–at the beach, until we came to a decision that was both risky but responsible.
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.
June 8, 2019 New Mental Push-Ups It’s Friday, April 26th. My alarm goes off at 4:30 AM, and I rise out of bed rather easily because this isn’t my first time getting up before the sun peaks above the horizon. I throw on my Aldi work t-shirt, a pair of beat up black jeans, and make sure my hair is tied back and I am relatively alert. Then I put on a podcast and go to make breakfast.
February 20, 2019 Taking on Taiwan: The Ups and the Downs During the first six months of my time in Taiwan, the world was shiny and new. I remember–quite vividly–walking into any store (even a 7/11) and being over the top excited about everything that I saw. The snack packs of seaweed, sushi, soy milk, Coca-Cola, tissue, toiletries, disposable underwear, literally everything I saw, because everything was new. And for a long time, that’s what life was like in Taiwan: a mix of terrifyingly brand new and exciting. There is, however, that time when your everyday life becomes the norm.
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.
October 10, 2018 The Key to a Proper Diet The year is 2011. I was seventeen going on finally being a legal adult, preparing for university and collegiate division three ice hockey. In the spring of that year, I’d written my first real full length manuscript (which I never ended up publishing) and I was attempting to get noticed on other smaller websites or journals. As far as my future appeared, things were looking up. Until I glanced around at the other aspects of my life. Then the truth became more than apparent to me: my diet was inadequate.
