Many of you guys were sweet enough to humor my entirely self-absorbed call for questions to help ring in Yes and Yes's one-year blogoversary. I was wicked impressed by how deep and meaningful y'all got! I was expecting queries more along the lines of "what is your weekly cheese budget?"
How do you decide where to go on your travels? - A
Honestly, I'm a a bit of a travel slut and willing to try any country once. Many of my travel choices are motivated by having friends who currently live in that country or the fact that a country is cheap to travel through. I'm also more likely to visit a country if I'm a big fan of the food - which was a motivating factor behind my trips through Italy, Greece and Thailand.
What's your favorite ice cream flavor? - Magatha-May
Despite my attempts at sweet corn ice cream, I'm not terribly fussed about ice cream! I've got more of a cheese-tooth than a sweet tooth. However, when I do dabble in the sweets, I quite like pistachio gelato. Yummo!
I curious to hear more about your teaching career - Jaka Merriman
For a long time I resisted going into teaching. Both my parents are public school teachers in a low income, rural school district, so I grew up very aware of the reality of teaching (long hours, discipline issues, uncooperative parents) . I had no interest in that foolishness. I was gonna sell my soul to the advertising industry and make a million dollars!
But then I went to Brazil and changed my mind. When I went home, I worked as an event planner for year before having the ubiquitous quarter-life crisis. I worked as a teacher's aide with special ed kids and then moved to Taiwan to teacher ESL. I've been teaching since then, literally from 4-year-old Chinese kids in Taiwan to a 72-year-old Korean man in New Zealand. Now I teach South East Asian refugees in St. Paul, Minnesota and I absolutely love it. I'm not sure that I'll always teach (as I do enjoy dabbling in the writing) but I'd like to keep it for a bit longer. It's also one of the easiest ways to see the world!
What has been your absolute favorite place that you've been to? - Erin W.
Ooooh, tough one! There have been heaps of places that I've loved, but I think my heart belongs to Greece. I'd been wanting to go there since the ubiquitous Greek Gods unit in fifth grade social studies class, and it's one of the few places that I've been to that has well and truly lived up to my expectations. I was there for a month volunteering with a wildlife rehabilitation center and got to know every blessed corner of the little island I was living on. It really was everything I'd imagined - tiny white churches tucked between mountains! fields of poppies! old men with giant mustaches!
My affection for the Greece may also have been helped along by a romance-novel caliber travel fling and, well, all that cheese.
I want to know why you're a vegetarian - Erin
Honestly, I think I was born vegetarian. I spent most of my young life battling my parents' 'two bites of everything' rule. I won that battle when I was 12 and gagged some summer sausage back up onto my plate after attempting the classic "swallow it whole with a giant gulp of milk" trick.
For me, it wasn't really about the ethics behind eating meat - though I am a total, total animal lover. I just didn't like meat - the texture, the smell, the creepy chewy bits. Just like I don't like sweet pickles. Or radishes. Or button mushrooms. I don't judge non-vegetarians (I realize that we have canine teeth for a reason) but meat's just not my scene. Though I will judge you for eating veal. That's bad karma, yo.
As I've gotten older, I've come to appreciate the environmental effects of vegetarianism. Of course, that's not why I stopped eating meat but I'm glad that I'm inadvertently having this positive effect.
I'd like to know which languages you speak and how you acquired them. - Sal
Sadly, I really only speak English. At various points in my life I've been able to hold my own in German, Portuguese, Spanish and Italian but those words just seem to spill out of my ears as soon as I leave the country in question. I've only ever studied German, for two incredibly mediocre years in high school, but then did an exchange program to Stuttgart for a summer when I was 18. The Portuguese, Spanish and Italian were all learned on the road and, obviously, go hand in hand with each other.
I can also haggle and give directions in Chinese: "Dwo shao chen? E buy quie? Tie Guay! (How much is it? 100 NT? Too Expensive!)"
What's your favorite smell? - pinkapplecore
Can I cop out and say lemon grass/cucumber/cilantro? Anything fresh and green smelling, really!
I'm curious as to whether you were an adventurous child, or if your sense of travel and adventure developed more in adulthood, and if so, why? - DaddyLikey
Hmmm, I wasn't an adventurous child so much as I was weird/imaginative. I wasn't ever the kid jumping off of the roof with an umbrella, I was more likely to be dictating elaborate stories to my stuffed animals or choreographing awful dances and forcing my neighbors to watch.
But I was definitely always curious about far away places and different people. I loved my sister's Korean fairytales (princesses hatching out of gourds!) and I couldn't get enough of incredibly macabre Russian stories (a house with chicken feet!) My parents had both traveled extensively before they had me and, as public school teachers, we had the summers free to road trip all over the place. I think I was just brought up believing travel was a normal part of life: that's what you did in the summers.
And I find that the more I travel the easier it gets. You learn how to haggle, you're not thrown off by the tuk tuks and the beggars. And, more importantly, you make heaps of travel friends who understand your wander-lust and sort of normalize it. It's fantastic to call up my girlfriend in Japan and calmly and realistically discuss meeting up in Mongolia next year. Or maybe India.
Are you domestic? - Magatha-May
I really am! I'm all over the interior design magazines and crafting and futzing over homemade Christmas tree decorations. Actually, one of the things that I really like about being back in The States and having a permanent(ish) living space is being able to embrace my inner Martha Stewart. I've found when I'm living abroad, especially in a non-English speaking country, simply suriving and existing consumes most of my energy. When it's a three hour struggle to pay your phone bill, you don't have a lot of time left for make lemon curd.
Tomorrow - fake bacon, morning routines and bloggery!
But then I went to Brazil and changed my mind. When I went home, I worked as an event planner for year before having the ubiquitous quarter-life crisis. I worked as a teacher's aide with special ed kids and then moved to Taiwan to teacher ESL. I've been teaching since then, literally from 4-year-old Chinese kids in Taiwan to a 72-year-old Korean man in New Zealand. Now I teach South East Asian refugees in St. Paul, Minnesota and I absolutely love it. I'm not sure that I'll always teach (as I do enjoy dabbling in the writing) but I'd like to keep it for a bit longer. It's also one of the easiest ways to see the world!
What has been your absolute favorite place that you've been to? - Erin W.
Ooooh, tough one! There have been heaps of places that I've loved, but I think my heart belongs to Greece. I'd been wanting to go there since the ubiquitous Greek Gods unit in fifth grade social studies class, and it's one of the few places that I've been to that has well and truly lived up to my expectations. I was there for a month volunteering with a wildlife rehabilitation center and got to know every blessed corner of the little island I was living on. It really was everything I'd imagined - tiny white churches tucked between mountains! fields of poppies! old men with giant mustaches!
My affection for the Greece may also have been helped along by a romance-novel caliber travel fling and, well, all that cheese.
I want to know why you're a vegetarian - Erin
Honestly, I think I was born vegetarian. I spent most of my young life battling my parents' 'two bites of everything' rule. I won that battle when I was 12 and gagged some summer sausage back up onto my plate after attempting the classic "swallow it whole with a giant gulp of milk" trick.
For me, it wasn't really about the ethics behind eating meat - though I am a total, total animal lover. I just didn't like meat - the texture, the smell, the creepy chewy bits. Just like I don't like sweet pickles. Or radishes. Or button mushrooms. I don't judge non-vegetarians (I realize that we have canine teeth for a reason) but meat's just not my scene. Though I will judge you for eating veal. That's bad karma, yo.
As I've gotten older, I've come to appreciate the environmental effects of vegetarianism. Of course, that's not why I stopped eating meat but I'm glad that I'm inadvertently having this positive effect.
I'd like to know which languages you speak and how you acquired them. - Sal
Sadly, I really only speak English. At various points in my life I've been able to hold my own in German, Portuguese, Spanish and Italian but those words just seem to spill out of my ears as soon as I leave the country in question. I've only ever studied German, for two incredibly mediocre years in high school, but then did an exchange program to Stuttgart for a summer when I was 18. The Portuguese, Spanish and Italian were all learned on the road and, obviously, go hand in hand with each other.
I can also haggle and give directions in Chinese: "Dwo shao chen? E buy quie? Tie Guay! (How much is it? 100 NT? Too Expensive!)"
What's your favorite smell? - pinkapplecore
Can I cop out and say lemon grass/cucumber/cilantro? Anything fresh and green smelling, really!
I'm curious as to whether you were an adventurous child, or if your sense of travel and adventure developed more in adulthood, and if so, why? - DaddyLikey
Hmmm, I wasn't an adventurous child so much as I was weird/imaginative. I wasn't ever the kid jumping off of the roof with an umbrella, I was more likely to be dictating elaborate stories to my stuffed animals or choreographing awful dances and forcing my neighbors to watch.
But I was definitely always curious about far away places and different people. I loved my sister's Korean fairytales (princesses hatching out of gourds!) and I couldn't get enough of incredibly macabre Russian stories (a house with chicken feet!) My parents had both traveled extensively before they had me and, as public school teachers, we had the summers free to road trip all over the place. I think I was just brought up believing travel was a normal part of life: that's what you did in the summers.
And I find that the more I travel the easier it gets. You learn how to haggle, you're not thrown off by the tuk tuks and the beggars. And, more importantly, you make heaps of travel friends who understand your wander-lust and sort of normalize it. It's fantastic to call up my girlfriend in Japan and calmly and realistically discuss meeting up in Mongolia next year. Or maybe India.
Are you domestic? - Magatha-May
I really am! I'm all over the interior design magazines and crafting and futzing over homemade Christmas tree decorations. Actually, one of the things that I really like about being back in The States and having a permanent(ish) living space is being able to embrace my inner Martha Stewart. I've found when I'm living abroad, especially in a non-English speaking country, simply suriving and existing consumes most of my energy. When it's a three hour struggle to pay your phone bill, you don't have a lot of time left for make lemon curd.
Tomorrow - fake bacon, morning routines and bloggery!
But... what IS your weekly cheese budget??
ReplyDeleteIt must be a traveler mentality thing, but every time I read your blog I think "that's me! yes! (and yes?)"
Anyhoo - I know it's terribly late to ask a question, but could you maybe say a little more about the volunteer organizations that you've worked with? Which ones sucked, which you'd recommend, how to get in touch with them, etc. That would be awesome!
Honestly, lately I've taken to only buying the amount of cheese I need for a recipe ... otherwise I just eat it all. Seriously. Entire bags of shredded chedder.
ReplyDeleteI'll write up a post sometime about the volunteer programs!
Thanks for the teaching answer! I didn't realize you taught ESL, something I've considered doing myself. It sounds like you really do love the profession, which seems to be a rarer and rarer passion these days. Go you! :3
ReplyDelete"I was more likely to be dictating elaborate stories to my stuffed animals or choreographing awful dances and forcing my neighbors to watch."
ReplyDeleteOh man. This is so my childhood. I was mad type-A about my weird projects and would dictate what the costumes should look like (but make the other kids do the sewing), how the dances would go, the dialogue, everything. I think my most memorably retarded productions was a version of Lord of the Dance where all the characters were chickens dealing with their little chicken dramas and doing bad tap dancing with bird masks on all performed by a gang of 7-10 year olds. And of course I had to be the main chicken doing a solo tap dance. God.
So awesome to learn more about your background, Sarah. I really enjoyed this!
ReplyDeleteDude... we may have been separated at birth. Well... except for the bit about not being plagued by sexy ice cream fantasies day and night.... and by that I basically mean fantasies of eating as much as you want of it all the time.
ReplyDeleteI will never forget my Dad forcing me to chew on a fatty piece of steak at the age of nine until I started gagging. That was the end of that. No more meat for me thanks. And let's not even start to talk about any kind of sausage.
Thanks for sharing your little snips about yourself. Very fun to read and for real yo... I am saying... we are walkin' the same walk sister.
I'm entirely jealous of your Greece experience. Sigh. Someday!
ReplyDeleteI absolutely love this photo of you!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteI'm so excited to have stumbled across your blog, I'm heading of to Japan next year to teach English and I've been planning on using that to travel across the world working and volunteering as an English teacher. Everything you write about totally resonates with me (especially the cheese love), I hope my travels work out as well for me as they did for you!
ReplyDeleteI am the same way about being a vegetarian. I stopped eating meat almost a year ago and haven't even thought about going back once. I just don't like it and never really have all that much. At first it wasn't about the animals (though like you I'm a huge animal lover) but of course now that is a huge part of it too. I'm happy to have found your blog!
ReplyDelete