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MBA Graduation: Reflection, Gratitude, and Adventure
What to do when you graduate from your MBA in the middle of winter and want to celebrate? Take an adventure trip to Lapland!
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Welcome
Thanks for visiting Expat Heather! I’m an international educator, writer, and expat mom currently living in South Korea. On this site you’ll find things about living abroad, teaching in international schools, travel, hiking, and expat life.
As my husband and I are expecting our first baby in January, we’ve already started thinking about how living and traveling abroad will be different when we suddenly become a family of three.
When we were still just talking about getting pregnant, I started reading obsessively about traveling with kids and checking in on some blogs of active travelers and writers who have young children: Julie Schwietert, Leigh Shulman, David Miller, and Christine Gilbert.
I read all of Matt Gross’s Frugal Traveler posts that involved traveling with his baby daughter, Sasha, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading articles like David Page’s Adventures in Weaning: Cold Turkey in the Great American Desert. I was thoroughly convinced that bringing a baby into our family would not stop us from traveling or working abroad.
Several months later, I found myself prepping for the baby shower my mom is throwing. My husband and I are fairly minimalist, and we plan on borrowing the majority of baby-related items from his sister. We don’t want baby jumping things hanging from the doorways, clunky plastic toys cluttering the floors or music-playing mobiles driving us (ok maybe just me) insane with repetitive tunes.
We like to travel light, but we figured there are a few things that could make traveling with baby easier. I registered for a baby sling (for everyday use), a baby backpack (for hiking), an inflatable infant travel bed and an inflatable baby bathtub that rolls up and can easily be squished into a bag.
During my search for baby travel gear, I found all sorts of things that could be helpful for new and expecting parents. You can check out the full run-down on my latest BootsnAll article:
BootsnAll – Gift Guide: Travel Gear Wish List for New Parents
About half of these items are things I’ve registered for myself! If you do click over, remember the goal is to NOT be traveling with as much stuff as the mom in the first photo. Travel gear you do get should help make travel with baby easier, not leave you pushing overloaded carts through the airport.
So much exciting stuff happened in October that I barely managed to blog here at ExpatHeather! Here’s the latest news:
Named Editor for Matador Abroad
I was sad to leave my editorial intern position with Matador Abroad in August, but shortly after I was contacted by managing editor Julie Schwietert about the opportunity to take over as lead editor. Exciting things have been happening at Matador Network this past month as we’ve launched a print magazine and one article published on Abroad took in over 300,000 views and generated 300+ comments!
I also enjoyed putting together a photo essay on Classrooms Around the World and working with contributors to publish narrative essays about topics like organic farming in Japan, living as an expat in Cusco, Peru and learning to read Chinese.
Travel Writing Award & Cruise to Alaska
I was totally psyched to find out I had been awarded the 2010 International Food Wine & Travel Writer’s Association (IFWTWA) WiFTy Scholarship for my essay Cooking in Lahore: An American Woman in a Pakistani Kitchen. The prize includes a one-year membership to IFWTWA (and a snazzy, official press pass for said membership), publication in the travel magazine Global Writes, and complimentary attendance at IFWTWA’s Conference at Sea, which this year is a 7-night cruise from Seattle to Alaska’s Interior Passage.
Radio Interview with Big Blend Magazine
Thanks to IFWTWA President Maralyn Hill, today I’ll be featured on a radio show with Big Blend Magazine. My interview spot is from 2:00 – 2:25 pm Eastern Time, during which I’ll be talking about my award-winning essay, travel writing and life in Pakistan. You can tune in to hear the interview live at Blog Talk Radio, and afterward I’ll post a link for the show archive.
And now, since that interview starts in just two hours, I need to drive to my in-law’s house in order to utilize their land line phone!
Feature photo: A. Germaine
Pronunciation can be one of the most difficult areas to mast in any foreign language. Have a go at reading the following poetic verse out loud:
“I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble but not you
On hiccough, thorough, laugh and through.
Well done! And now you wish, perhaps,
To learn of less familiar traps?”
(Attributed to George Bernard Shaw)
Not so easy, was it? English pronunciation is, in part, so tricky because English spelling is not phonetic. In a phonetic alphabet, each letter will only represent one sound, and each sound will only be represented by one letter. In English, this is certainly not the case! Other teachers are always asking me for good resources to teach pronunciation, so here’s a list of websites along with their descriptions. Many of these sites are good for both language teachers and language learners.
Sounds of English
Sounds of English is primarily a site for English teachers. It includes some great links, handouts from presentations, pronunciation pages including sound and video files, activities and exercises for pronunciation and listening, teacher tips, and printable worksheets with answer keys. It’s one of the best sites for English language educators.
American Clear Speech Sounds
This site gives great visuals of sounds in English and some practice exercises. Good for teachers or students who want to make sure they’re pronouncing a sound correctly, or for teachers who want practice exercises for class. The best part is the large, detailed pictures of the position of the mouth and tongue for each sound.
ESL Flow
A collection of pronunciation lesson plans. Easy to read, use and print PDFs can be found here. There are many exercises for teaching stress and speech sounds, but most are for British English. You can find lists of minimal pairs for both consonants and vowels at this site. There’s also a link to an article on the 100 most commonly mispronounced words.
About.com
About.com has a collection of pronunciation lesson plans for experienced teachers. The ones on stress-timing are particularly good. These lesson plans assume that the teacher already knows the content material, so if you don’t know the subject matter these plans won’t help you very much.
American Accent Training
This informative site gives information and examples of the pronunciation of the 6 sounds that are most difficult for non-native speakers to master. The best part about this site is that you can click on any IPA symbol in the vowel chart and hear the sound pronounced.
Many Things: American English Pronunciation Practice
This site lists many exercises for practicing minimal pairs, words that have only one sound different between them. It’s another great resource for teachers or learners.
English is Soup!
English is Soup is a resource for adult ESL learners. It’s put together by Kent University, and it includes PDFs for mastering vowels, consonants, consonant blends, and vowels combined with the ‘r’ sound.
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Feature photo: Muffet
ESL Teacher Connection
Do you know of any other websites for teaching and learning English pronunciation? Share them in the comments section!
Some notes from our recent trip from Boston to Kansas City – my first time flying domestically in several years.
The Night Before
6:00 pm – Duarte still has not started packing. I tell him again that I want to be done packing and asleep at 10:00pm.
11:00 pm – He is almost finished packing after moving the stuff back and forth between two different bags more than once.
12:00 pm – I finally go to sleep. I dream of packing one-quart ziplock bags with 100ml containers. I wake up twice thinking about it.
The Day of Travel
6:45 am – The alarm goes off.
6:56 am – Attempt to wake Duarte #1 – completely unsuccessful.
7:00 am – Attempt to wake Duarte #2 – he stirs and looks semi-conscious.
7:15 am – Attempt to wake Duarte #3 – he promises to get up.
7:20 am – I hear him getting out of bed. Not bad compared to the usual!
8:15 am – The cab arrives. It is not what I expected.
A large man who could serve as a bouncer offers a faint smile under his handlebar mustache. His loose tank top shows off meaty, tan arms as he gruffly puts the luggage in the trunk. There is no AC. There are ashes all over the taxi floor.
He’s blaring morning talk radio where some woman is saying that females spend $24,000 on shoes during their lifetimes. $24,000 on shoes? She doesn’t specify which country this shoe-buying study was done in. The driver doesn’t offer to turn the radio down.
Shouting About Food Stamps
8:30 am – At the bus station. Two old men are shouting at each other while having a friendly conversation about food stamps and disability benefits.
“I don’t have to pay for food. I get it free with the food stamps.”
“I wish I didn’t have to worry about that. I worked my whole life and I don’t get any free food. I don’t even have a TV in my house.”
“I worked too, until I hurt my back.”
“Hurt your back, sure, right. And now you get all sorts of free things. It’s not fair! I worked my whole life.”
The Egg McMuffin
10:00 am – Arrive in Boston, get disoriented in bus station and make poor decision to eat an Egg McMuffin.
The egg is full of shells. I think, “at least it’s real eggs then” as I spit half of it out. Duarte makes several comments about how disgusting it is that I’m eating the McMuffin. I feel like puking, blame him and then start crying. I feel totally out of it. Must be the hormones.
10:30 am – Walk to train station and realize there are dozens of other restaurants where I could have eaten something much nicer (and healthier) than the McMuffin. I still feel sick from eating and can’t stop thinking about the feeling of eggshells crunching against my teeth.
10:35 am – A nice and slightly odd gentlemen guides us through the process of saving 60 cents on our tickets to the airport by buying a reduced fare card.
Self Check-In, Security and Loud Spanish
11:00 am – Arrive at terminal C to find two airline employees manning 20 self check-in stations.
We’ve never done self check-in; we’re confused. The self check-in machine tries to sell us numerous upgrades throughout the check-in process. We decline. Our seats have been changed so we’re not sitting together anymore. It will cost money to change them back; we decline. We pay the $25 fee for one checked bag and wait for one of the two attendants. Our one bag weighs in at 49 lbs, just under the 50 lb limit. Relief.
11:15 am – Security moves quickly. We find out gate and sit down. Duarte buys a grilled chicken quesedilla, forgives me for eating the McMuffin, and offers me a piece. He then buys a $4 tiny plastic cup of pineapple at Au Bon Pain.
12:00 pm – Enjoying free WiFi when a loud Spanish-speaking family sits right behind us. There are at least six of them. Maybe more. Previously a soft-spoken Spanish-speaking woman and her children had been sitting there. I had been admiring the language. Now it seems jarring and obnoxious. I think about finding another seat, but there aren’t any near our gate.
12:30 pm – Mercifully that loud family isn’t on our flight. I start wondering if people are going to feel this way about me next summer when I’m traveling with an infant.
1:45 pm – Finally boarding. Feeling disturbed after hearing more than two dozen intercom messages reminding me to “be aware”, “report suspicious behavior,” “keep track of my luggage,” and “wash hands frequently.” I still can’t shake the memory of egg shells crunching between my teeth.
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Feature photo by size8jeans.
Last weekend I was going a bit stir crazy. Originally we had planned on doing some backpacking and WWOOFing during the summer months, but first trimester nausea kept me so weak I could barely go up and down the stairs. By the time I felt better, it was August and all of our time and effort was spent moving to a new apartment in Bridgewater, MA. We got settled, school started and I immediately got back to work on my thesis. I finally hit the point where I was sitting for hours with my books and accomplishing nothing.
I decided to go out for a hike, but when I go to the area where the trailhead was supposed to be, I couldn’t find any parking because a huge family reunion BBQ was going on. Since I’d seen signs along the way for a “Harvest Fair”, I decided to go back and see what that was all about. I ended up at the Soule Homestead Farm and Education Center in Middleboro, and I’m happy that I did because I’ll definitely be going back!
1. Sick of sitting in front of the computer, I decided I just had to get out and go somewhere. Anywhere.
2. I started driving toward a park in Middleboro and stopped at this 1724 cemetery across from a corn field.
3. Many of the gravestones that were still readable had dates from the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
4. Traditional churches dotted the area, including this one first established in 1694.
5. Alternate view of the Congregational Church
6. I saw signs all along the road for a Harvest Fair so I decided to check it out.
7. Although the fair was about to end in an hour, over 50 cars were parked near the historic Soule Homestead.
8. Tables with handmade crafts, quilts, soaps, and jewelry by local artists were set up all around the farm.
9. From these ladies, I bought a 100% cotton washable, reversible quilted bag that should be perfect for diapers.
10. These guys were having an impromptu jam session between the midwifery booth and the herbal soaps.
11. Homemade soaps, scrubs and lip balm by Lydia Devine from Plymouth, MA.
12. The farm had dozens of activities for kids to do like doing crafts and getting lost in mini corn mazes.
If you want to sample of the New England fair goods, check out Lydia Devine’s LMP Soapworks.
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