“The essay must lap us about and draw its curtain across the world.” — Virginia Woolf Maybe I’m stretching it, but today I started reading Virginia Woolf’s 1925 piece titled “The Modern Essay” and couldn’t help but think, maybe she does have something relevant to say about our 21st-century ways of communicating. Her essay is actually … Read More
Month: September 2010
On my love-hate relationship with long-term hostels.
Tomorrow is a big day. Not only do classes begin at Kingston but – and what’s about to follow eclipses even the excitement of finally starting my master’s – I get to move into my flat. It has been a long two weeks at my hostel in southeast London. Of course the price was right, … Read More
Where the rubber meets the road.
Talk is easy. It was one thing to be home for the summer, telling people that I’m moving to London to pursue not only a master’s in travel writing, but to get my career going as a writer itself. And yet, it’s been another thing altogether now that I’ve actually arrived. Well, I tell myself, … Read More
On life outside our comfort zone.
“Bravery is being the only one who knows you’re afraid.” — Franklin P. Jones Sometimes, I never learn. You would think having done this whole “moving to London” thing before, I’d have taken a more relaxed approach during the summer leading up to this year’s Big Move. Two years ago, I was so worried about … Read More
Hey, neighbor: Ten hours in Toronto.
As a child, Canada did little to hold my attention. I knew it was there, of course, like a distant relative you hear about from time to time, but my vague knowledge of its presence – this large terra incognita somewhere north of New York and New Hampshire – came only from the footnotes on … Read More
It’s good to be back.
It had been a long flight. Of course, the six and a half hours from Toronto to Heathrow pale in comparison to past flights to and from New Zealand, but what I hadn’t realized was how lucky I’d gotten on them – on my ten-hour flight from LA to Fiji, I had a row of … Read More