Living a Dream

As anyone who has met me knows, in 2014 I quit my job in Chicago, convinced my then-girlfriend (now wife) to do the same, and moved to Italy to teach English. It was a leap of faith, for sure, but it was never as scary as friends and family feared it would be. It was everything I dreamed it would be and then some; the stories of which have been peppered throughout this blog over the past two years. So today, I simply give five reasons to quit your job and teach abroad. It's surprisingly easy to get started . I used a company called International TEFL Academy to get licensed, but there are countless accredited "schools" that do the same thing. Major cities - both in the US and abroad - offer month-long in-person classes to get certified, but I did the online class. It was not difficult. Anyone who has been licensed and taught will immediately forget what they're taught at the exact moment they're thrown into a classroom, so there's only so much need for pr

My brother just went to Yosemite and he is about to experience a feeling that people who go on great trips get. It's the same feeling we got when we returned from living in Italy, or got back from our anniversary trip to Iceland. Everyone wants to know - and lots of them genuinely  want to know it, too - what was it like? What were your favorite parts? Was it over/under/properly rated? Tell me everything. This, unfortunately, is a brutal set of questions to answer. He sent me a text several days ago about having hiked up Nevada Falls. He said, "you would never believe some of the things we saw today," and "I'll tell you about it later, but nothing I say will equal the experience." That's the feeling. While I obviously think that travel is an essential part of the human existence due to how it makes you feel about situations you're unfamiliar with (among about a million other reasons), travel is also a personal, intimate experience to have wit

In 2012 I had the chance to visit Europe with my friend Graham. We spent a couple weeks going to a few different areas - one of which was Milan, my future home. We planned to go there for a soccer game, see the famous Duomo, and use the train station as a launch-pad for the Lake Como area. In our time in the city we wanted to browse a little bit of the local art scene but unfortunately couldn't get a time to see the Last Supper (Jenna and I were able to see it during our time there. It was awesome). We walked the city streets though, and not surprisingly there was a lot to see. Statues abound in Italy - guys you've never heard of and extremely famous people alike. There are buildings older than the USA, there are fascinating shops, and there are restaurants that offer burgers named after Native American tribes in a vaguely offensive atmosphere . So one day we were walking from our hotel to a random corner of the city. We started by passing a shop that offered pens - the w

We Americans have a bit of a reputation. We're loud, we're ignorant, and we often make sure everyone around us knows that we're loud and ignorant. On a beautiful April day, a group of family and I visited Pompeii. Like many, we were excited to see the ruins, impossibly preserved areas, and the casts of people who were perpetually stuck in their final moments. It was a very cool place. We did see all that and more, because Pompeii is huge. Most people head to the main points on the tourist map, but there are places where you could easily get lost and not see anyone for 10-15 minute on this particular day. At one point, near one of the main squares of Pompeii, an American woman stopped us and asked us to take a photo. She asked that we take it of her and her...boyfriend? Son? She appeared to be in her 40s and he appeared to be in his 20s, but they certainly didn't give off a mother-and-son vibe. After the photo - they posed in a way that gave no hint of their

I've been looking at this photo a lot lately. I put it on Instagram with the caption "sometimes you just gotta jump" because I think that's a lesson that could be taken away from it, but I admit it's also because I like to pretend I'm a photographer on Instagram and that's what a photographer might say.  I've been looking at a lot though, and I guess there could be several reasons.  Maybe I look because I think it's a cool photo of me. Maybe I look because I wonder exactly how high that jump was. Maybe I look because I remember how cold the water was.  Maybe I look because jumping off of something is freedom. Maybe I look because that moment of anticipation before hitting the cold water is the clearest moment of thought that a human can experience. Maybe I look because Oregon, and specifically Crater Lake, is beautiful. Maybe I look because I used to be more comfortable with heights than I am now, and I remember how I was mor

When I was in college I had a nonfiction writing class with a woman named Diana Hume George. I've thought about her more than most any of my professors over the years and I'm 100% sure she doesn't remember me at all. I found a couple of the essays I wrote in her class and I'd like to go back in time and thank her for not failing me because, wow, those were trash. In any case, she had us do an activity that I love. I loved it then and I love it now. I force it on students of mine when they get writer's block on an essay and I tried to encourage a couple of my Italian students to use it as well. Here's how it worked: Five minutes and a prompt. She would give a prompt like "I remember the last time I..." or "I always liked the sound of..." and she would tap a tuning fork. Your pencil was on the paper when the tuning fork dinged and it was not to leave the paper until she dinged it again five minutes later. It didn't matter if it was cohe

In December, Jenna was between jobs so we decided to go to Costa Rica. Not surprisingly, this was awesome. We got photos of howler monkeys mid-howl, capuchin monkeys trying to get into my backpack, sloths that were awake, and frogs galore. We also saw a few of these guys. First of all, they're giant. This guy was probably six feet long, nose to tail, and I would guess it was a solid 30 pounds (weirdly I was not able to leap out of the boat, swim to shore, climb the tree stump, and hold it to confirm its weight). Second of all, we saw several and noticed that some had back stripes on their tails while others didn't. We learned that this is essentially a sign of age. Young ones are green, older ones start to turn colors. It's not unlike getting colored spots on your skin as you get older...except those are basically just your skin dying. Anyway, going to Costa Rica was awesome and we saw all kinds of cool wildlife which I will talk at-length about in later posts.

Early in our travels, Jenna and I developed a theory called "follow the music." This simple plan was based on the idea that anytime we were in a public place and heard music (not just a crazy person humming to themselves), we should follow that music and see what was going on. The first time we tested this theory was in Brussels. We were in a big public park with tall hedge-rows and heard something through one of them. We ducked through a small opening and were surprised to see a small stage-area with 15 or so people singing to a group of about 70. We were delighted by the songs even if we didn't understand a single word of any of them, and when the group onstage started inviting audience members up to sing with them it became a real treat. The size of the choir doubled and everyone sang along as if they had all been part of this choir as kids. Thankfully we weren't invited up to sing. Anyway, it was a fun experience and gave us the lesson: If we hear people s

When the situation calls for it, I am a mature person. I can talk comfortably about reproductive health, I can watch a movie with a sex scene and not make a joke, and I can look at nude statues and think nothing of it beyond art. Hell, my senior yearbook quote was about how maturity is just knowing when and where to be immature. I won't laugh when you fall down because you might be hurt and I absolutely do not laugh when an animal humps something because it's instinct and the animal can't help it. I believe you shouldn't laugh at something if the thing you're laughing at is helpless in the situation. But sometimes you find your limit. The National Archaeological Museum of Naples (abbreviated MANN in Italian) pushed me near my limit. See, Naples is home to brilliant and interesting historical artwork. With the nearby town of Pompeii buried under the ash of Mt. Vesuvius, tons of pristine artifacts which were rescued from Pompeii ended up in MANN. Some of these p

I went into Whole Foods today because I occasionally like to pay an extra $5 for every item that Wal-Mart sells and I got a taste of nostalgia. I was in the diary aisle and saw yogurt drinks for the totally idiotic price of $4.59 and it took me back. As I've discussed with anyone who will read or listen, living in Italy was really cool. There were rough parts - transit strikes , language barriers, and the smell of dog pee almost everywhere - but there were obviously wonderful parts. Big, wonderful things like train travel, proximity to cool places, history, art, generous people, great food, and others were just part of our lives. I'm not going to talk about those big things. I want to talk about the little things that I miss about being in Europe. I'm starting with yogurt drinks. This may seem silly, but you know those little Dannon drinkable yogurts? They're 6-8 ounces and come in 4-packs? They're tasty, but they're not exactly filling. You can also get C

As the 2016-2017 Cleveland Cavaliers come down the stretch with one of the deepest teams in NBA history (RIP Andrew Bogut), it's fun to look back at how things used to be. We all know that LeBron James is one of the best players the league has ever seen. We also know that he couldn't get over the hump in Cleveland without any stud teammates. He won titles in Miami with a couple of monsters, dragged the Cavs to back-to-back Finals appearances, and won one for his hometown against the best team to ever play (regular season) basketball. So what wins here? Was it the other-worldly shooting in his second title season in Miami? Was it the Herculean effort in the Eastern Conference Finals to beat the Pistons? Was it playing without Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love and damn near taking the 2015 Finals to 7 games? Or was it winning three straight (2 on the road) against the best team to ever play (regular season) basketball? There are lots of options here. So I'm going with the dar

Perhaps you've heard that the Cavaliers are loaded. LeBron, Kyrie, Love, Tristan Thompson, JR Smith - it's a beastly roster that was good enough to beat the Warriors last year. Now it's got Deron Williams, a weirdly resurgent Derrick Williams, and Andrew Bogut on the way. Realistically, the biggest issue facing the Cavs is how their coach is going to handle all of this. Tyronn Lue is the guy who has played LeBron 40+ minutes 14 times in his past 40 games. Lue is also the guy who gets 24 year old Kyrie Irving's minutes to trend down as the season progresses while 32 year old LeBron's go up. Lue also looks like he's watching his son walk into traffic and is frozen in fear on the sideline most of the time. On Wednesday night in Boston, Ty Lue had a new toy available in Deron Williams. The whole reason for getting a backup point guard has been to spell LeBron, who largely runs the point for the 2nd unit. Lue said prior to the game that he expected Deron to