I honestly have no idea what this is going to be about, but on this foggy morning in Riga, I felt like it was time to write something. Philosophy of Writing and Sharing I have not been writing my blog because I had this moment last year where I thought… why am I sharing my …
It has been too long since I have written anything, so this is just an exercise in writing. I have been to the USA and back, and since today is the last day of summer, it seems fitting to write a relatively interesting post about my thoughts an reflections on life. September Here I sit …
Everything I Know About Finland (Which isn’t much) I spent the last couple of days chatting with people and doing some fact finding in Finland. Whenever I travel, I am always a bit blown away by how little I know about the world and how incredibly huge this planet is. When I moved to Latvia …
Warning! This is not my normal travelogue kind of post. Read at your own discretion! Prerambling Lying around and not working for the first time in a long, long time gives me time to think. Of course, I spend most of that time trying to distract myself via social media, entertainment, and reading, but …
How Many Tabs Do you Have? This morning, I am looking at my laptop and closing the tabs that I had opened the day before while teaching my students who range from Intermediate to Advanced speakers of English. For those of you who don’t know, I teach primarily at Lingua Franca where I engage in …
Game of Thrones leads me to think about my place in the world. What is my identity? What is my culture?
I am sitting in one of the dark classrooms at one of the schools I teach at in Riga, Latvia pondering why one of my students said that they would like to see the school burn down. What are we doing to make high school students feel so demotivated and even angry at the system? …
Okay, America, let’s get this right! Latvia makes the first day of school a national celebration. Every public school in the country starts on the same day every year—September 1. And on this day, students walk to school with flowers in hand to give to their teachers. I was excited to see this spectacle, so …
Darbu 25 August 2017 I am sitting in my old friend, the Beer House having a celebratory IPA and fish and chips while pondering my future here in Latvia. Today I signed a contract for a half-time teaching job at Gymnasium 2 in Riga, Latvia. Rita tells me it is where her heroine, Anna Bērzkalne …
CELTA I feel like I have told some people that I’m doing this CELTA thing, but not many really understand it. Quite frankly, I’m not 100% certain I get it myself, so I’m writing about it to work through and untangle the mystery. According to Cambridge, CELTA stands for “Certification in Teaching English to Speakers …