Clattering, honking, flashing, zooming, hawking cities like Bangkok offer endless charm and excitement when they are faced with one’s full energy and an equal portion of patience. The city bubbles at a rolling boil, overflowing with the interesting, the worrying and the extreme – just on the brink of tumbling irrevocably out of control at any moment. On…
Category: Reflections
Temporary roots on Nusa Lembongan
I’ve now received more than a couple “so…. when’s the next blog post coming?” comments, which is nice since it means people actually read my blog (!!) but also is a bit of a reminder that I have now officially plunged into the deep end of the time warp that is island time, rendering me…
Quarter year recap and the three month dip
In my senior year of high school there was a perfect storm of bad scheduling and back luck that landed me in a remedial humanities course. The class was made up of meth heads, the occasional ESL case and general space cadets of the highest caliber. Instead of learning normal humanities, as one may expect from…
Explain yourself, wayward traveller!
“WHY YOU COME TO MAE SOT?!” The speed and volume with which he spit the words at me belied his good intentions, and suddenly I felt I was on trial. I looked around the overly air-conditioned reception bungalow, with its green lianas and teak furnishings, as if I might find an answer in close proximity. Unfortunately, this just…
What’s in a name: from vagabond to digital nomad
The labels we self-impose define us to others, but also to ourselves. Before I was a scientist, a biologist, a student, an expat, a bit of a nut and a total geek. I was a rock-climber, a forest cat-owner, a La Pavoni coffee-drinker… I could go on, but suddenly the tune to Ben Harper’s Joker…
Last day of ‘normal’ life
This time tomorrow I will be just leaving German airspace, on my way to Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam. The sun goes down in Sweden in about an hour, and I’ll take off before it comes up again. The last weeks have gone alternately fast and slow, and now time is both flying and crawling. I…
Study abroad: what’s the gain?
Yesterday the White House hosted an event for travel bloggers, and on the agenda was a push to get more American students to study abroad. As I see it, there are two reasons American students are not studying abroad in larger numbers. These are: Financial reasons (exorbitant cost of American university tuition to begin with and a…
Gainful employment is overrated
I’m gainfully employed. I might have my ‘termination of contract’ letter sitting in my inbox, but let’s ignore that. I’m gainfully employed and it is stressing me out. Big time. I have a head cold, which I think is due to the fact that I’m American and my body failed to realise that I wasn’t…
Dinner with Carl Larsson
Last week I moved to a tiny village in France to focus on drinking wine, eating baguettes and – oh yeah – writing. But I didn’t move to just smalltownville-anywhere in France, I have taken up residence in an artist colony in Grez-sur-Loing, which was once home to Carl Larsson (Midwinter Sacrifice; many paintings depicting life in the…
Write it up. Or just write it down.
Last weekend I got into the nitty-gritty of packing up my apartment. I dove headfirst into two of the most daunting crevices of my two-bedroom flat: the bathroom shelves and those two boxes labelled ‘important papers.’ A riveting game of keep or toss? After the warm up round of THREE HOURS going through boxes of half…
What I learned from having my computer stolen in Honduras
In February 2014 I was on the backpacker island of Utila in Honduras for a month of diving and, well, blowing off some steam after finishing up my PhD. As a newly minted doctor I couldn’t entirely leave work behind – a big grant application was due just days before I was ticketed to fly…
Three months to go: reflections
I have a confession to make. I have less than three months to go. Sort of. In a nutshell: my work contract runs out on December 31, and on that day I will board a plane into the great unknown. But actually, I have received an award and stipend from the Hasselblad Foundation (as in…
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