Confidence Boost

It is so easy to feel like you are not going anywhere at work when you are faced with deadlines and your hard work gets edited a million times before it is finalized. And it is so easy to feel demotivated when you are made to think no one is listening to you, and there…

A Great Gift

Sometimes you get a present that completely catches you off guard- surprises you in a way that you never really thought was possible. For me this was a scrapbook that Lina gave me the night before the wedding, documenting all the important memories in our friendship from the day we met up until this point….

Serenity

It’s amazing what a person can find while digging through their phone memory, trying to clear up space for all those planning applications. Like this photo I snapped by the Meuse River in Maastricht one beautiful April day in 2012. That was the one time we took our bikes and cycled for the sake of…

Wardehofplein 15C: If I Could Go Back Again

I can still smell it: that mix of home cooking, cleaning detergents, shampoos, beauty products, and something I can only describe as freshness, probably from my roommate’s freshly made coffee.  It’s been three years since I’ve moved out of that apartment, Wardehofplein 15C, but that smell still lingers faintly to this day. And why would it not? After…

What A Teacher Does

Earlier this morning, we were listening to the radio on the way to work while the hosts were discussing teachers that have been inspirational. Jokingly, I texted them that Terrence Fletcher (played by the incredible J. K. Simmons) from the movie Whiplash had inspired me. They actually read that little text on the air and we laughed…

It’s Not the Place, It’s the People

There are days when I lose focus of everything around me and find myself transported back to that tiny bedroom that I tried to make my own in a town whose name I still can’t pronounce right. Everyone who has met me knows that I traveled to the Netherlands for graduate school. I don’t hide…