Weekend in Charleston

By the time December rolls around and we’ve had a couple of months of New York grey,  I’m usually nostalgic for high school in stiflingly hot Florida, with its brilliant blue skies and miles of leafy green palm trees. Or summers home in New Orleans, where everyone smiles and calls me sweetheart in an unironic way, and where the thick, humid air in my backyard is heavy with the scent of gardenias and roses. So of course, when my best friend Mary suggested we go somewhere warm for a girl’s weekend in December, we decided to head to the South – and we landed on Charleston.

Hiking Rattlesnake Ledge

On Sunday, we woke up to a spectacularly sunny morning, perfect for hiking the four-mile Rattlesnake Ledge trail. The mountain is about 45 minutes outside of Seattle, just past the North Bend. We picked up croissants and sandwiches from Bakery Nouveau for breakfast and lunch, and headed downtown to pick up our rental car. Jerry’s little sister met us with a backpack full of oranges and giant bottles of water. As we drove, a smokey fog settled at the base of the mountains, floating just above the tips of the evergreens. It was if as we were driving right into the clouds.

Weekend in Seattle

I think 90% of my American experience has been clouded by culture shock, after spending my childhood in Canada. My earliest memories include a breathtaking view of sparkling clean, white snow blanketing the rolling hills in our backyard, the peaks of the Rockies piercing the sky, as if someone had taken craft scissors and trimmed the border of the horizon. As a formerly happy Canadian with Canadian sensibilities and a fondness for snow and evergreen trees, moving to Florida for high school felt like moving to a different planet. So imagine my delight, as we flew into Seattle, to watch the undulating curves of the Rockies appear below us, with scattered snow-capped peaks and crystal clear lakes glimmering in the sun. It felt like homecoming. 

Teacher’s Note

The more that you read, the more things you will know, the more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.

– Dr. Seuss

I hope everyone had a lovely extended holiday! We celebrated Christmas in New Mexico and New Years in Louisiana, with a little detour to Orlando for the Disney World Marathon, and then Chinese New Year here in New York. We also made a trip up to the Catskills (with another to come, over Valentine’s Day weekend). There’s so much in the pipeline that I can’t wait to share.

On a more urgent, exciting front, during all of these festivities, I interviewed for – and was accepted by – the New York City Teaching Fellows. I’m so thrilled and excited to start teaching English as a New Language in the Bronx this fall. I’ve been tutoring through city-led initiatives since high school and worked part-time at an educational non-profit in college. Teaching has always been a passion but I’ve never been brave enough to make the career change until now. Stay tuned for little updates as I embark on this wonderful new adventure!

In the meantime, I’ve quit my job to focus on studying for the certification exams, interviewing with principals and touring Bronx schools, and polishing my writing. I’m also interning part-time on the communications team for a lovely non-profit called The Hunger Project, dedicated to eradicating global hunger through community-led interventions.

Thanks, as always, for stopping by! I’m experimenting a bit with the posts around here and hope to find a nice rhythm during these next few months of transitions & vacations 🙂