My friend Sarah asked me if I am still teaching here in Riga, and this reminded me that I had a dead blog post here that I started a year ago and never finished writing. So here it goes: a brief explanation of what I do here. Testhut I am not a strong subscriber to …
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?
One Year Jubilee Well, I did it! I have officially lived in Latvia for over a year, and I have a lot of people to thank for that! As with any jubilee, I think there should be a celebration, so this post is dedicated to all the people I have met and all the adventures …
This post is dedicated to Stephany Kecy who always seems to have my back on social media! (fixed the misspelled name) She asked me whether I had made my decision—was I coming back to Westside or not? I thought I had posted about it, but I haven’t written any sort of thoughtful explanation or reflection. …
With only a Master’s degree in English from the lovely and wonderful University of Nebraska-Lincoln, I have landed myself a job as a lecturer at Riga Technical University (RTU). The Mighty Flying Letts of RTU are a traditional powerhouse of the Big Baltic Conference. They are dominant in such sports as Ice Fishing, Feline Trapping, and …
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 …
Here I am at Gailey’s Breakfast Cafe, waiting for food for forty minutes now. Am I complaining, yeah, I guess so. The waiter just brought over my check, and I haven’t seen a whiff of my food yet. That’s a first for me. I was a bit shocked and said, “But I haven’t gotten my …