a few things about me…
I’m Kim, and I have recently returned to New England after three years of living in sunny southern California. I just moved to Providence, Rhode Island, which fulfills my desire to explore a new location while allowing me to live much closer to my friends and family in New Hampshire, Boston, and NYC. I’ve definitely been shaped by the places I’ve lived over the years, and I can neatly review my life by the chunks of time I spent in each location.
After growing up in small-town, suburban New Hampshire, I went to college in the Boston area and attended a ridiculous number of concerts, fueled by my love of music. In order to fulfill my desire to truly speak Spanish, I decided to study abroad in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I lived there from July 2001 to August 2002, a fascinating year to spend outside the U.S. (check the dates) and an unexpected opportunity to experience and observe Argentina’s economic crisis. Choosing to study abroad in Buenos Aires has influenced many other decisions in my life; as cliched as it sounds, it absolutely changed my life. Travel is amazing.
After finishing undergrad, I moved to New York City in September 2003, where I learned how to be a young professional in the corporate world, how to live with lots of roommates in tiny spaces without closets, and, as a result, how to escape from all that by exploring my many passions, taking classes and teaching myself new things.
After a few years in the big city, I decided to return to school for an interdisciplinary degree and to try out living on the west coast, so I moved to San Diego. I obtained a M.A. in Latin American Studies in 2008 after writing my master’s thesis on Peruvian fusion music. My research led me to travel through Peru, Bolivia, and Argentina once again in 2007, which stoked my constant desire for more and longer travel experience. This second South American journey was another life-changing experience, helping me make the switch from jaded and bitter (thanks NYC and grad school) to optimistic and excited about all the possibilities out there.
After finishing grad school, I taught ESL to recently arrived refugees, mainly from Iraq, both at a local nonprofit organization and at a community college. While I enjoyed teaching and loved my students, I did not love the current mess that is the California economy, and I started to seriously miss my friends and family back east, especially as more and more got married and started families. After a lot of deliberation, I decided to return to my home region in December 2009, road-tripping across the southern United States in an exciting adventure. (Yes, now I’m just as excited about domestic travel!)
Here in Providence I’m continuing my work teaching refugees and immigrants, and I’m very excited to have the opportunity to stay in this field and interact with people who inspire me on a daily basis. Providence is a totally new adventure for me, as I’ve only stopped in before to attend concerts, so exploring my surroundings will help satiate my desire for more travel.
Since I’ve been back east, I’ve realized that I really am a city girl who loves public transportation and wandering around on foot. At the same time, if my road-trip taught me anything, it’s that there’s a lot to explore in our own backyard, so that’s my plan — to learn even more about New England. I also intend to travel around the US, hoping to visit Chicago, New Orleans, and Miami, and to revisit Nashville and DC. After saving some money, I want to go backpacking overseas again for a few months (or even a year if I can make it happen!).
I created this blog to share my thoughts about my hobbies and interests, about my travels, and about this new journey of exploring the east coast with a fresh perspective. I’ve always been interested in what we now call “social networking” and am trying to get more engaged in all the different web mediums. Hopefully the blog will help me keep in touch with friends across the world, and perhaps help me make new ones!
