Writings

A Totally Impractical Guide to Changing Everything All At Once (Again)
October 11, 2015

A Totally Impractical Guide to Changing Everything All At Once (Again)

I should be studying right now. Four units into the first module of a master’s degree in applied linguistics, I’m painfully wrapping my head around the idea of a lexeme’s paradigm (not to be confused with a gangsta’s paradise, though I will admit that I …

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John McCain Crashed His Plane Just Outside Our New Flat
August 11, 2015

John McCain Crashed His Plane Just Outside Our New Flat

It was a few years ago (1967), but still- he ejected just over there- you can see it from our living room window.   About two weeks ago, we moved house. Again. I may have mentioned the reluctant need to uproot, yet again. The construction …

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The Unbearable Lightness of Being (and Living) in Ridiculously Humid Climes
July 23, 2015

The Unbearable Lightness of Being (and Living) in Ridiculously Humid Climes

  A month or two ago, my third external hard drive in three years decided to just stop being a functioning external hard drive. It was only a year and a half old when it died and took all of my laptop’s back ups with …

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Just Like Starting Over: Hanoi 2.0
July 21, 2015

Just Like Starting Over: Hanoi 2.0

Can I tell you about our early days in Hanoi? Back in October?     So many months ago. The weeks when we lived in a stuffy, cramped hotel room in a curious neighborhood that would have been more curious if it hadn’t been hemmed …

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Dear Fellow Travellers and Expats: You are NOT More Special or Better or Smarter Than Your Average Bear
July 15, 2015

Dear Fellow Travellers and Expats: You are NOT More Special or Better or Smarter Than Your Average Bear

  I’ll admit that I’ve been up since 4am almost every morning this week, woken by a wide-eyed toddler towering over me in the early morning half light, adamantly making the ASL sign for water, food, ball, whatever in my face, and am coping with …

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Notes on Resuming my TEFLtastic Educatrix Career (with Toddler in Tow)
June 25, 2015

Notes on Resuming my TEFLtastic Educatrix Career (with Toddler in Tow)

Earlier this week, I found out that this particular blog of mine had somehow made it onto the improbably mammoth and random Top 2300 Travel Blogs list, clocking in at number 18 on the Teaching English Abroad category. Aside from calling it by the wrong …

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Parenthood and Place: Notes on Writing About Stuff When You Have Nothing New to Say
June 7, 2015

Parenthood and Place: Notes on Writing About Stuff When You Have Nothing New to Say

Aside from being commissioned to write ridiculously detailed 20,000 word guides for relocating to Chinese cities I’ve never even visited much less lived in (I’ve written ten of these in the past year, which must qualify for a work of relentless, massive fiction on par …

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Welcome to Sapa: Notes From the Hub of the Curiously Dystopian Hill Tribe Folk Villages
April 28, 2015

Welcome to Sapa: Notes From the Hub of the Curiously Dystopian Hill Tribe Folk Villages

  Last week, we took an overnight train to Sapa, the hill tribe tourist hub in the northern reaches of Vietnam. It’s way up there near China, so far up that it’s shrouded in mist and fog, with palpably moist cloud tendrils snaking down steep, …

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Time Travelling Postcards: Cairo, in the Mad Summer of 2006
March 18, 2015

Time Travelling Postcards: Cairo, in the Mad Summer of 2006

  In the summer of 2006, I decided to take the train from Istanbul to Damascus, leaving from Haydarpasa station on the Asian side of the city and ending up in Aleppo some days later. I was totally going to do it. All my friends …

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Time Travelling Postcards: Anatolian Road Trip, 2003
March 12, 2015

Time Travelling Postcards: Anatolian Road Trip, 2003

I didn’t always live in Shanghai. Or Hanoi. Although this blog places my online identity firmly in heart of east Asia, I have actually spent more time living in Turkey, both in European Istanbul and Asian Anatolia- 6 years in total.  Sometimes even I forget …

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Time Travelling Postcards From: Christmas in New York, 2002
March 6, 2015

Time Travelling Postcards From: Christmas in New York, 2002

It’s damp season here in Hanoi. The moldy months are in full swing and I’m feeling super protective of my electronics and my reams of ephemeral life data. Hanoi, like Shanghai before it,  kills electronics. I’m quietly doing multiple back ups, fully aware of the …

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Notes From Hanoi: Post-Tet Bling, Wise Men and Orion Pies For the Gods
March 2, 2015

Notes From Hanoi: Post-Tet Bling, Wise Men and Orion Pies For the Gods

I’m surprisingly comfortable with having no clue what’s going on around me. I’ve spent most of my adult life in countries where I’m not only far from fluent in the language but am also illiterate and still learning the cultural ropes. Vietnam- and specifically here …

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