About

Travel empties my bank accounts, and writing sneaks a hold of my free hours; but I still consider myself lucky to have these simple needs for fulfillment.

I grew up in San Francisco, underneath iconic Sutro Tower.  So, I like to imagine that I am rooted in a nexus of forecasting, outreach and cross-communication.  The city was my first adventure–intentionally missing my MUNI stop after school to push neighborhood borders.  All my friends had immigrant families, and visiting a home in the Richmond district was like being hosted by an exchange family in Thailand.  Public transportation was my first international pilot.  Classmates were my first interpreters.   And SF is also where I learned my golden rule of travel: there is something sacred in walking, the original trekking method.

I still have an affinity for exploring the places I live in, which may also transpose into an attraction for living in the places I want to explore.  I spent six months in London working The Famous Cock Tavern–an Islington sports pub and not a male strip bar, as the name might suggest–and loving that monster of a city.

I spent four months then pulling espresso from a Eyre Square coffee truck in Galway–a slice of unexpected alternative culture in densely historic Ireland.  It was on to San Diego next to get my Anthropology degree, which is what has me now reflecting on my trips with a curiosity for the human motivations for and experience of travel.   After graduating, I returned home to venture into NGO work for a year before taking a couple months to study Spanish and volunteer in Guatemala.

This Year

I am finishing up a 9-month research project in the Philippines that started in November 2012.  I will go on to start my Anthropology Ph.D. program at the University of California, Riverside in the fall!