Category Archives: About Us
In Memoriam: U.S. Space Shuttle Program
When I was a kid, I wanted to be an astronaut. You too? I guess at some point, most of us children of the Space Shuttle generation (the first shuttle lifted off on April 12, 1981, one month and two days after I was born) wanted to be astronauts. But it wasn’t a passing fad for me. I wasn’t one of those kids who had an ever changing list of things I wanted to be. I never wanted to be …
So You Want to be a Freelance: Five Reasons to Make the Leap
Last week, I tried to talk you out of freelancing with a list of five reasons freelancing is not all sunshine and roses. Maybe I made some of you give a little prayer of thanks for your 9 to 5. If, however, you’re still thinking freelancing might be the life for you, here are five reasons to further convince you to take the plunge. 1. You can work when you want. With an office job, flex hours usually mean that …
3 responses to “So You Want to be a Freelance: Five Reasons to Make the Leap”
So You Want to be a Freelancer: Five Reasons to Reconsider
I’ve been working entirely as a freelancer since we returned from our trip in October 2009. Nice, right? Well, actually, until recently, I wasn’t entirely sure freelancing was the life for me. To be honest, the first 1.5 years of my freelancing career were a bit rocky. I was underemployed to put it optimistically, and I actually missed a fair few things about office life. However, in the past couple of months, I’ve decided that freelancing is indeed what I …
7 responses to “So You Want to be a Freelancer: Five Reasons to Reconsider”
You Can Go Home Again
As we sat in the transit lounge of the Seoul airport in October 2009, existing for a few hours in the in-between, in the interim between our round-the-world trip and the life that awaited us at home, my thoughts went only in one direction: home. I thought of catching up with my family and friends. I thought of the jeans that I hadn’t wiggled into in a year. I thought of homecooked meals and good Tex Mex and a refrigerator …
2011: A Fresh Start
Good riddance, 2010. Sure, you had your moments. Colombia was fantastic. You can sign me up for another couple of weeks there. Moments from the Yellowstone roadtrip will forever live as legend. And we proved once and for all, that neither tornadoes, nor torrential rains, nor wind-whipped snow can hold us down (or keep us from sleeping in a tent). My baby brother graduated from college (what?!). Jeff and I celebrated five years of marriage. We rallied for sanity by …
Becoming a Yes Man
Sometimes as I climb the stairs with a basket of laundry, I stop and look at the photos hanging on the wall—photos of the remarkable dunes of Sossusvlei, of children walking through the rain in Sapa, of a frog clinging to a reed in the Okavango Delta, of the bright red sail of a dow in Mozambique—and I marvel that I was there, that I did that. Life, at least mine, has a way of keeping you in the here …
February Doldrums
The February doldrums have got me in a headlock, and they show no interest in letting go. Every so often they’re throwing in a noogie to add insult to injury. I’m defeated. Come evening I have no struggle left in me. There’s nothing I can do, but throw myself onto the couch, snuggle under a blanket, and test my knowledge against the contestants on Jeopardy. Yes, my life has been reduced to that. But the good news is I’m apparently …
A Credo for the New Year
This year, instead of joining most of the world in making a bunch of half-hearted or even well-intentioned resolutions that we’ll all indubitably break before the first month of 2010 is over, I’ve decided to say adios to that guilt-inducing tradition. Having grown up Catholic, I have no trouble finding things to be guilty about every day thank you very much. Instead, for this fresh (and ridiculously cold, I might add) year, I’ve chosen to establish a credo, to write …
We’ve Got Answers
Thanks to all of those who left us questions when we opened up the floor. Here is our attempt at answering. If you’ve thought of something else you want to ask, go ahead and do so. We have received other questions via email, and we plan to answer those in a later installation. Did you ever have to get medical treatment or even buy medicine? Only two sicknesses stick out in my mind. On New Year’s Eve 2008, two days …
Three Things I Miss and Three Things I Don’t
THE THINGS I MISS 1. Jeff Today, Jeff started work in his lab at Duke. For the first time in a year, we’re not together all day, every day. You think that would be enough togetherness to drive anyone insane and make them long for time to themselves, but really, we have a damn good time together, and I miss him. The fact that I’m home completely alone probably doesn’t help. At least back in DC, I had my “work …
14 responses to “Three Things I Miss and Three Things I Don’t”
