My Story
I got the world history bug early, my mom is from Switzerland (her mom was Czech-born in the Austrian Empire) and we lived twenty-five minutes north of New York City where my dad worked on Broadway. This meant we enjoyed a steady stream of visiting relatives from abroad which along with a couple of trips overseas in my youthood fueled a keen interest in history! (before I graduated I was lucky enough to live a year in Switzerland and travel to Germany, England, Japan, Hong Kong, Austria, go behind the Iron Curtain to Czechoslovakia, not gonna lie, at nine years old that was terrifying!).
At this point, for transparency's sake I feel dutybound to inform you that I was an extremely poor student! (It's because I am a creative person-that's my excuse!) However, I did have a knack for seeing the big picture, especially socially, which I believe helped me get along while visiting overseas and really understand history.
Obviously, I am a teacher! I started teaching overseas in 1990 as an English conversation teacher in Karlovy Vary, in what was then Czechoslovakia where two of my mother's cousins lived. I taught at night at a private school and during the day at a porcelain factory and the Moser Glassworks (which was an old business that had made their glassware for the popes!). Even under communism the government allowed the factory to operate as a capitalist business to make money from the west since East European commie-currency was worthless.
From there I went to Iwaki Japan to teach at a cram school where kids went after regular school (Iwaki has the unfortunate Fukushima nuclear plant that got hit by the tsunami in 2011). When I left Japan I spent 18 weeks backpacking around Thailand, India and Nepal (where I took the picture on the homepage!).
Arriving home in 1994 I accompanied my parents from New York's suburbs to North Carolina and after a few years (too many) got my teacher's license. Since 1999 I have been teaching mostly world world history in New Hanover County (Wilmington, at the school where they filmed One Tree Hill!).
From left: My glassworks students, my nightschool students and Kathmandu sunrise over the Monkey Temple (monkeys aren't cute!)
From left: backpacking after college, Nepal at 12,000+ feet, one of my drawings (the kind of stuff I drew in my notebooks instead of paying attention in school)
From left: Rajasthan in western India, I took a three-day camel trek, Ahhh Paris, beautiful, spiritual Assisi Italy
(I know that's not Paris, it was a joke! As if a history teacher wouldn't recognize Big Ben!)
From left: Himeji Castle, Japan, absolutely stunning! The Duomo in Florence (watch 6 Underground on Netflix, the first 15 minutes takes place in Florence), camel trekking in India, I'm the one on the left
From left: One of the cities in Rajasthan that rise so dramatically out of the desert (same one as two pictures above), mom said I was a "special" child, I have to admit I was a bit freaked out going over this ravine, the bridges are made to bounce a little
Left to right: My son took this pic of Switzerland when I took him there before 7th grade, I'm one one of the exceedingly rare and lucky few westerners to ever see the Trab of Nospmis, this is the remains of the original labyrinth Palace of Knossos on the Island of Crete
Left to right: These statues decorated the triangular facade on the temple at Olympia, the rowboat is reflecting the sun as it rises along the Ganges where Hindus will bathe or be cremated & scattered, the Sagrada Familia which was originally intended as a church, maybe the closest you can feel to heaven indoors
Left to right: Kiyo Mizu Temple in Kyoto, Japan (I haven't been everywhere but I've seen a bunch, this place is top five easily!), Me in Kathmandu where I attended classes at the Karmitage School, another one of my drawings (scary thing is I don't do drugs, but I have fallen head first onto two pool decks)
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