About

I loathe taking pictures and writing about me pages. But they are a standard part of websites and thus I should have one.

I am 25, female, and currently living in Abu Dhabi. Ah, the good old days of "asl?" In real life, nobody asks me about those things because they can tell I'm female, I'm obviously living here and it's rude to ask about age.

So instead they ask me where I'm from. To which I reply, "America." And then they always want to know where in America, (especially if they've ever been) to which I reply, "near Chicago." If I'm feeling like I need to impress the other person, I will add that I lived in New York City for the last six years that I was in America. (They're always impressed.)

The next question that I get asked is "What do you do?" To which I am usually coy and ask them what all American women here do. To which they answer that we teach. Specifically, I teach English to children who are much younger than my preferred variety of students. Other teachers and the people who grew up in Abu Dhabi always ask me which school, but I obviously can't share that information here. I will just say that I am the only native English-speaking teacher at my school and I find the job extremely difficult.

So why do I do it? There are many reasons. The most pressing reason is that it is my second job here and for visa purposes, I can't just up and leave it. It is my second job because I was fired from the first one, the one that originally brought me here to work with a friend from college. I wish I could tell you why I got fired from that school, but I wasn't even given that information.

People also want to know how long a person has been here, especially if they themselves have been an expat for any significant amount of time. This is my second year here. And when they ask how long I'm staying, I pause. I have given up trying to plan my future. I just know that there are great financial upsides to working here, the partying is top notch, and I've learned far more about the world than I ever could in America. So we shall just have to wait and see how it all unfolds.

I also have a Goodreads, a Twitter, and a Tumblr.