My Life: The Greatest Hits Version

So, Oktoberfest posts are mostly written. Now we’re just waiting on me to get my ass to an internet cafe to upload photos to go with them. Because I don’t want my family to pay triple what they normally do for internet, unlike last month. Go me!

So, in the meanwhile, here’s the backstory of how I got here:

I was born in North Dakota – quite literally Middle of Nowhere, USA. I spent my childhood approximitely two hours away from the geographical center of North America. It was flat, with extremely bipolar weather conditions, decorated by large fiberglass sculptures, and a place that I’m glad to come from, but don’t think I’ll be moving back to again.

Oldest of two kids, with my grandparents living in the same town. Spent less time than I should have at the family farm. Spent my time doing theater, speech, debate, and forcing my friends to join me in these activites (HI HAMILTON). Traveled with my family to Nepal, Sweden, and Norway.

Went to college in Iowa. Still Middle of Nowhere, but a little further south with a few more hills. Went to a wonderfully quirky school with plans to study abroad in India. Decided to take German on a whim with my roomate sophomore year (HI KATE), because I thought it sounded awesome. Studied Psychology and was angered that I couldn’t work Linguistics into my schedule. Had a mid-college crisis after sophomore year and decided to sacrifice semester abroad to study theater more seriously. Wanted to continue with German, but it got squeezed out by Other Priorities. Spent summer after junior year traveling across Canada on a bus with a friend I met at Nerd Camp in 8th grade (HI EMU).

Plan for post-graduation was to move to Chicago and try my hand at professional acting and possibly stand-up. Realized that this would condemn me to years of day to day drudgery and would remove all chance of really traveling like I wanted to do for a Long Long Time. Began searching for ways to get abroad that didn’t have deadlines that had passed months ago.  Had a dream (literally) where I was living abroad with a family and taking care of their kids.  Realized that this was actually possible and that two summers of working as a camp counselor and a year of running a small church daycare probably left me well prepared to do so.

Decided to abadon theater plan a few weeks before graduation, lined up au pair job through a website, and spent the last summer working as a janitor at home in order to save up money so that I can travel during my time off. Plan to return to the States at some point (probably after two years abroad) and either live in Chicago or Seattle and take up theater again.

Any Questions?