I have left my current residence in Oslo to spend a week in Guangzhou. I feel as though I’m starring in my own version of the film Inception, an American living in Norway conducting educational research in China. What will serve as my “kick” into familiar surroundings once again? Perhaps my move [...]

Learning a new language at 41 is a humbling experience . . . I struggle to catch the rhythm and grammatical structures, skills that I took for granted while studying in China 20 years ago.   Now I have an intimate understanding of losing “linguistic plasticity,” and I’m jealous of my younger self who merrily writes [...]

My father once told me about a mountain in Isfahan, Iran that took about four hours to summit.  As a boy, he would make several trips to this point within any given week.  Once at the top, he  would emote a victorious shout.  Poetry would flow from his lips and he would make several [...]

I couldn’t look at myself without cringing. My pants were a major upgrade from what I normally wore when I went out, but they were seriously lacking in material. They looked more like chaps that covered most of my quads and calves, but only had straps along the inner sides of my legs, thus [...]