Back to the Motherland: Goodbye Saigon, Hello Taiwan!
September 29, 2020
What a wild year 2020 has been! I rang in the new year in Taichung, Taiwan, helping my parents settle back into our home after 20 years of living in the United States as immigrants. The homecoming was bittersweet for them, and I was grateful to be there as emotional support. At the time, I had no idea that I…
Read More
From Nomad Living to Ho Chi Minh City
May 16, 2019
We can read all about an experience, but until we’ve lived it ourselves, it’s just a story. Nomad Envy I have wanted to travel full-time for years. I read blogs and watched vlogs of people who trot around with their life’s possessions in a backpack (or a suitcase), and call the world home. When I was trapped in the corporate…
Read More
Career Tip: Trust the Dots Will Connect
April 18, 2019
Recently, I’ve received requests for informational calls to discuss my “career path”. I’ve happily obliged to pay it forward, since I myself had requested many of these calls while in grad school. A pattern soon emerged. Gleaming from my resumé, people apparently think I had some master plan to weave together my experiences in finance, international development, and tech. But…
Read More
Shanghai Farewell
June 21, 2018
Today, a friend asked me to sum up my 6 years in Shanghai in a word. I haven’t had much time to reflect since time has been occupied by the massive task of minimizing all of our belongings down to two suitcases and two backpacks. I gave it a quick thought, and the word diverse came to mind. Diverse Friendship…
Read More
10 Years Since the Peace Corps
June 12, 2018
Last week marked 10 years since I left the comforts of American suburbia for a different life. It was 2008. I packed up two massive bags and flew to Philadelphia to meet a bunch of strangers, some would later become lifelong friends. From there, we got vaccinated and were inundated by information. Within a few days, we were shipped off…
Read More
Why Coding Camp? Why Le Wagon?
February 24, 2018
Isn’t it ironic that I am leaving a tech giant to go learn tech? Life is ironic that way.
It’s no secret that I had been thinking of all the ways to pivot my way out of being a sophisticated bean-counter. For a while, I even worked 15-hour days, volunteering my time to another group within the company, hoping for an opportunity to pivot. Alas, it didn’t work out.
Read More
Goodbye Corporate Grind, Hello Life!
February 22, 2018
Today, I walked away from the fancy corporate job, counting beans for that tech giant of a fruit company. It has been 1,683 days or 15% of my life that I’ve worked in a job for the sake of earning money. $120K of debt and a substantial saving later, I unchained from the golden handcuff.
Read More
Becoming 30
September 6, 2016
I turned 20 in London. It was junior year of college, and I was on an internship program at the U.S. Embassy. The night before turning 20, I met a boy. That boy liked me and we had a lot of fun for 4 months. He liked me so much that we carried on. I felt very adult carrying on…
Read More
Shanghai Calling
September 28, 2012
I haven’t been this excited, yet simultaneously anxious about anything since I decided to join the Peace Corps. This is the story on how I decided to move to Shanghai on the day that I moved to Washington, DC. A little over a month ago, I decided to move to DC. My reasons were to be closer to a tight-knit…
Read More
Live Every day as if You Are Moving Away
August 19, 2012
Live every day as if you are moving away. I dislike the common saying of “Live everyday as if it were your last.” Why so morbid? Moving away forces the same level of appreciation on the present, and less all-or-nothing. I always find that I truly appreciate any place that I live in during the final months and weeks before…
Read More