Engineering my life

Incredible India. I've heard the phrase many times before but after spending the past 10 days in India, I have to agree that there's probably no better way to describe this country. It's truly incredible in every way. Incredibly beautiful. Incredibly chaotic. Incredibly vibrant. Incredibly frustrating. Incredibly alive. I've been in Jaipur, India working with an organization called Sankalp that works with street kids in the area. A huge THANK YOU to every single person who made this trip possible for me through their amazingly generous donations. The support and encouragement I received was unbelievable and I'm so grateful to have had this experience :) Amber Fort in Jaipur Working with the kids has been phenomenal. I've been teaching English and Math to the youngest lot in the school. The group consists of around 8 to 10 kids between the ages of 3 and 8 years. Because they're all either really young or haven't been to school before, I'm ba

" We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures that we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open." - Jawaharlal Nehru Traveling is a passion of mine. I think I caught this passion from my dad who loved to take us on vacations since I was a little kid. And I'm so glad he did. I don’t just enjoy traveling because it allows me to escape from the stresses of daily life. I love it because allows me to step out of my comfort zone and completely immerse myself in a new environment/culture/world.   Over time, traveling has become a kind of a meditative experience for me because it’s the one time I’m able to truly just live in the moment and feel joy, peace, freedom, and excitement all at the same time. I also love traveling alone and that's what this post is really about. While traveling with friends and family is fun and unique in its own way, exploring a city by yourself is a completely differe

I'm a Third Culture Kid (TCK). If you don't know what that means, it's a term coined by an antropologist/sociologist   " to refer to the children who accompany their parents into another society ". Wikipedia it, if you want. And before you ask, it's not quite the same thing as being a second-generation American or an Asian-American. While Asian Americans may face a cultural conflict between their family and their home, the biggest difference is that they HAVE a home. They identify themselves as Americans (or whichever nationality they were born into). A TCK doesn't identify themselves with one particular home country, simply because they don't really have one. One of the toughest questions for me to answer is "Where are you from?". It's a simple enough question for most people, but for me, I have to really think about it. Are you trying to ask me where I was born? Which country's passport do I hold? Where I have lived the

I’m writing this first entry from Ribeirao Preto, a city I’m almost positive no one outside of Brazil has ever heard of. It’s the tiniest little university town, about 200 miles away from Sao Paulo. I’ve spent the past two weeks here, working with a professor at the university here. It’s actually been a pretty good experience. Not only did I get the kick start I needed for research, I also got my first South American experience. I’m currently sitting at the Ribeirao Preto airport, waiting for my flight to Rio de Janeiro to arrive. It was supposed to leave at 8:15 am, then 8:40, then 9:00 then 9:30, then 10:30 and then…you get the point. It’s 11:45 am and I’m still here. So, I figured I’ll pen down some thoughts. My first thought when I arrived in Brazil was that it’s a lot like India. It’s difficult to explain in words but the behavior and demeanor of people is a lot less formal than in the US. It’s a lot more…”raw” (that’s the best adjective I can think of to describe it). Her