Moving Together: A Guide on How to Navigate Moving With Your Partner into Your New Home While Keeping Your Sanity Intact
Daydreaming about moving into a beautiful, spacious new home is whimsical and fun. Actually packing up your whole house on the morning of your move, hours before the movers are supposed to arrive, is a bit of a different experience – especially if you and your partner aren’t on the same page. Recently, I moved…
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5 Tips On How You Can Cope With Your Mental Health During The Covid-19 Pandemic
These last few months have been like walking through a fog. The world has shut down. Blurry memories now haunt the streets while basked in a tainted, hazy daylight. After Covid-19 happened, it’s like we’ve all gotten swept up in a whirlwind of jigsaw emotions. Our brains have been rattled and our sanity has been…
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An Expat’s Experience After Returning Home During the Covid-19 Pandemic: When Does Home Start to Feel Like Home?
It’s a peculiar feeling when you leave your home, set out to explore the great global expanse of unknown before you. It’s even more peculiar to return to your home after being gone a while, only to return to a semblance of home which has been morphed and twisted into a fog-mirrored, shadow-reflection of its…
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An Expat’s Experience: Returning Home During the Covid-19 Pandemic
On March 19th, 2020 I received a text from my sister. She informed me that the U.S. government issued a statement asking all U.S. citizens living abroad to return home to the states immediately, or to anticipate remaining abroad indefinitely. A panic surged through me. My racing thoughts came to a halt and everything around…
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An Expat’s Response: Deciding to Return Home During The Covid-19 Virus Pandemic
I’m going home. As we all know, there is a horrendous virus plaguing the globe that is disrupting the global economy, stealing thousands of lives, and quite frankly, it’s petrifying me. Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), Vietnam is where I am currently based. It has been such a pleasure and an immeasurable gift to have…
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A Guide to a Better You: How to be a Good Expat
I was not a very good expat when I first arrived in Vietnam. There were instances when I resisted and fought against opportunities to better myself and act with compassion. I ignored my privilege and viewed differences as things that were wrong instead of just different. I compared the culture which I grew up in…
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Hobbies: The Best Ways to Fill Your Time While Living Abroad
As an expat living abroad, have you ever found yourself with a lot of additional free time and no idea what to do to fill your day? Perhaps there’s an international virus pandemic which closed down the business where you work and now you have extra hours each day aching to be filled by something…
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Looking Past the Mundane Filter
It’s a shame how often the “mundane” is so disregarded from how extraordinary it really is. I keep finding myself lost in thought, sitting at the umpteenth coffee shop tucked away in the millionth alley of Ho Chi Minh City. After having lived here for seven months, it’s all too easy to forget exactly where…
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The Thing About Cultures is…
The thing about cultures is that they are glorious. They are beautiful. They are unique. I’ve come to the realization that there are some aspects of cultures that one simply can’t comprehend without having been born and raised within them. There are subtle norms etched into the very souls of those who grew and developed…
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The Power of Saying YES!
At the start of 2019 I made myself a vow. It would be the year of “saying yes”, of challenging myself and the fears that had dictated my years prior. I recognized that I had let so many amazing opportunities slither away from between my fingers. Blown as sand amongst the winds of change. Fear…
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The Idea of Being Me: What I’ve Learned While Traveling
In all my travels thus far in life, I have met countless individuals and have learned so much. One of the truly extraordinary lessons I repeatedly come face to face with is the necessity to answer the call of authenticity. I have witnessed on a global scale the struggle we all face with casting out…
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The Best Decision of my Life: A Reflection
Leaving to live and travel abroad was the best decision of my life. It has also become, quite possibly, the most painful decision of my life. No one told me how badly I would miss my life back home. Not that it would have changed anything except, perhaps, I could have spent more time preparing…
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What Makes an Experience “Authentic”?
*Notice: Rant in Session* Today in my Teaching ESL Program I was fuming. A classmate and I were engaged in a conversation where we discussed our experiences while in Vietnam. She and I had both been living in Ho Chi Minh City for about three weeks prior to meeting in our program. During our discussion,…
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Long-Distance Relationships: How to Make Them Last?
Love is pain when it’s flown away. Many say that long-distance relationships will never work: “One of you will inevitably get lonely and, in a horny moment of weakness, someone is going to cheat.” “You can’t spend your life waiting on someone else.” “If you really loved them, you wouldn’t have left.” It’s commonly believed…
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A Shifting Perspective: Falling in Love with Ho Chi Minh City
Day One: A squatty potty. That will always remain my first distinctive memory of Vietnam. After landing at the Ho Chi Minh City Airport, my first destination was a visit to the restroom. Upon opening the stall door, I was greeted by a solidifying reminder that I was no longer in “Westernized Society”. Dazed and…
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Traveling Mementos: The Magic Within a Memory
“You’d better not forget me on your trip, JoshuaAlvin. I’m so happy for you! This will be such an amazing experience. I just wish that I could go with you.” – Words from a good friend Have you ever shared this bittersweet moment with someone you love? Curtains about to close on the stage you’ve…
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How I Spent 48 Hours in Paris!
It was a scorched Thursday evening when I arrived late in Paris. Thankfully, I managed to make quick work of finding shelter within my hotel living quarters, a makeshift room converted from what was once probably an old broom closet. As I awoke that next morning, already clad in a sodium infused sweat, I plopped…
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Spider Invasion at the 2019 Washington D.C. MagicFest
I never suspected it. After landing in Washington D.C., I made my way to the Dulles Expo Center to compete in the 2019 MagicFest event. Upon entering the building, I froze mid-step when I saw an impossible scene. Cobwebs strung everywhere, razor sharp to the touch. Long, prickly needles of hair sheathed in thousands of…
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Three Lessons From an Ill-Prepared Expat
Congratulations on taking the plunge! Moving abroad is a thrilling spiritual journey. Surrounding yourself with new cultures excites the soul and broadens the mind in learning more about yourself and the world around you. Even so, heartache can tear into the fabric of your being, just as a lack of self-awareness tends to lead us…
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How did I Know it was Time?
About a year and a half ago, my sister and I were sitting down together over a few pints of our favorite beers. We had just returned from another of our international trips, this time from Prague, Czech Republic and Munich, Germany. After having decided to experience Oktoberfest in Germany, we knew that Prague was…
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A Letter to the People I Love
To the People I Love, Love is the central pillar of my life. It has been my guide, my strength, and my teacher. Who I am today is due to the love I have received and given in life. From decade long friendships down to the newest blossoming romances, love has been my North Star.…
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