Teaching, I imagine, has quite a few similarities to parenting. Parents see their kids at home acting out, letting manners slip, saying and doing things they would never do around others. Then when they’re out in the world, they’re prefect angels and parents are like, “What? My kid?”
Last week I had the bittersweet pleasure of [...]

It is said in local laowai circles that China seems to attract a somewhat higher percentage of weirdos. While I’ve certainly met my share of creepy, strange, and/or weird foreigners, I find that one reason I like the expat community is that I have a greater chance of meeting someone really interesting. Of course [...]

Since my brain has been bled pretty dry in terms of lesson plan ideas, I had my kids make dialogues in class today. Little did I know it was time for the teacher to become the student. In three separate dialogues, the kids exclaimed, “Oh my Lady Gaga!” This is new, red hot catch phrase [...]

Something strange happens when life gets good: my blogs get sparse. They get much more frequent when I’m bored or lonely. Sure, doing and seeing cool things helps, but given that this blog is three weeks delayed, I’ll stick with the theory that my creativity is inversely proportionate to my happiness. Generally.
I’ve been shuttling back [...]

If you’ve studied your Plate of Wander history, you know that Huzhou has not been the easiest place to live. I’ve known it was time to leave for quite a few months now. And now that the school year is about 6 weeks away from ending, my official clock is counting down.

Though Huzhou has certainly [...]

Dear Blogger’s Block,
You are harder to lose than the last few pounds from the Malaysia trip—you know, the one I’m trying to write about. The one you’re prohibiting me from writing about by completely overstaying your welcome.
I expect you to come when Huzhou life has reached its predictable static lull, when life is nothing but [...]

My college we’re-practically-married roommate Emily liked to regale me with stories of her endearingly eccentric music librarian father. A few times she told me about family trips, in which her father would permit his family breakfast, and then insist on sight-seeing (I have a feeling it included a lot of museums) straight though until dinnertime [...]

One of the pleasures of traveling is returning to a place for a second time. The Local Way is no longer a grand mystery, and the place is likely not yet so familiar that The Local Way becomes the norm. So stepping off the plane in Kuala Lumpur, I felt just a little bit superior, [...]

I’ve never considered myself to have an addictive personality. There’s pretty much nothing I can’t live without, though when it comes to living without, say, pretty much any food group, I question the definition of ‘living.’ The things we think of first when we think of addiction—smoking, drinking, drugs, video games—have never really appealed to [...]

When I try to picture Cambodia conceptually, like on a map or as an overall mishmash of purple, trees, dirt, bricks, and green, I usually ‘see’ it as tucked neatly away under Thailand and Laos, or through a veil of netting—not quite clear, and hidden and out of the way. Cambodia has seemed, and [...]