I am a lifelong lover of travel and learning. I consider myself a student of the world. At the moment, I am also a formal student. I study Geography, which is an amazing field that literally means "Earth writing". Mostly, I study Nature, Culture, and Place. I occasionally make maps, too.

I grew up in suburban St. Louis, and I made my escape after I graduated from high school. At that time, I only got as far as rural Ohio, but I have since moved to Philadelphia, where I have lived for the past four years. I have had many jobs, including waitressing, driving an ambulance (for a day), translating and editing books in Spanish, line cooking, teaching music lessons, teaching yoga, playing guitar and singing, and teaching middle school science. I am employed right now as a full time student and a part time teaching assistant.

I have traveled a bunch, but I am hungry to travel more. I like to travel for long periods of time, at least a month. My favorite trips so far include hiking the Camino de Santiago in Spain, backpacking in southeast Asia, and spending a summer volunteering in a health clinic in Guayaquil, Ecuador. For my next big trip, I want to go back to South America, and this time I want to be in the mountains (Guayaquil is on the coast).

I am a lover of languages, cultures, people, and places. I love learning about the history of a place, what made its people the way they are, what they do that is different from people in other places.