While writing some gruesome scenes about spider people and another blog post about crushing loneliness, I decided to take a break to try...

One year in Korea has gone by surprisingly fast. Flash back to me, one year ago, at EPIK orientation: Look at that naive little girl in...

“What do you mean, ‘the air is poison’?” I said. “We’re in Korea, not China.” Veronica shook her head and set down her fork on our...

Text Conversation Over We Chat, 9:22PM Kylie: our bus leaves at 7:55, so let’s get there at 7:20. not sure how to get from the train stop...

The food is easily my favorite thing about Korea. This will be shocking to hear for anyone who knows me at all. I’m the kind of person...

“You said you need to lose weight, right?” my date said between slurps of noodles. “I don’t think I said that.” “Oh.” He put down his...

I spend a lot of my lesson-planning time laughing at the English textbook that I’m required to teach from. On more than one occasion,...

5:30AM: I’m a morning person, I tell myself. I like getting up early, I tell myself. Go be an early bird and catch some worms, I reason...

“Whatever they ask you to do, say yes.” This was the advice that one of the speakers gave us at EPIK orientation. Were you invited to a...

Half-Asians have a spider sense for other half-Asians. It’s hard to describe what, exactly, makes someone “look” half-Asian. I’ve met...

Very late PSA: I’m going to Seoul as an English teacher with EPIK next week… …and sometimes I wonder how I’m going to make friends with...

A wild Kylie crawls out from a cave, even paler than before (which is really a feat, since she was already a bed sheet, so just imagine...

I hadn’t checked the countdown on my phone in weeks. I didn’t need to anymore, because I knew the little gray boxes labeled “WEEKS,”...

“We’re in Portugal,” I said. “We can’t get burgers.” That didn’t stop me from staring lustfully at the burger stand in the Lisbon food...

Foreigners in Salamanca are called guiris. I don’t know if guiris give off a particular smell, but everyone seems to know that we’re not...

The best day started at 5:00AM. I had to catch a 7:00AM bus to Galicia, so I crammed my clothes into a duffel bag, grabbed the “snack”...

Las mariposas “My neighbors don’t like birds,” my host mother said, tearing up another piece of bread and throwing it onto the patio....

Salamanca from the Rio Tormes “No pasa nada.” I hear this a lot in Spain. Translated in the most literal, anal-retentive way, it means...

Victoria, my Spanish host mother, pushed a stool up to the kitchen counter for me. She’d laid out a box of what looked like...

Zoe Sugg Zoe Sugg, an English internet celebrity known for her makeup tutorials and funfetti cupcake recipes, published her debut novel,...

When I stepped off the plane and fell into your arms, I already hated you. You ripped away the cool Georgia mornings and blue skies over...

Yesterday I came back to work, ready to unpack, sweep, and possibly spray another round of bedbug spray over my suite before the students...