It’s time for a much-needed update on what’s been going on with me. You may have noticed the blog has a ~~BrAnD nEw LoOk~~! I finally decided to host my own site, buy my own domain, and work on being a better blogger in general.

It’s been a long time coming for this type of change, I think. I’ve been writing this blog for about 6 years now and despite many people telling me they ‘love my blog’ and think I should ‘become a travel blogger’, I never believed I could make it in the extremely saturated world of travel blogging.

But I’ve had some time to think lately about life and what I’m doing with it at the moment and I decided that I find blogging and writing in general rewarding and fun. So I’m going to do it and I’m going to actively work on my skills related to digital marketing, social media, and writing/existing in the online world. I don’t care if I ‘make it’ or not – It’s fun for me and I feel like I’m learning stuff. So that’s good.

My boyfriend and I just started a little blogging project called Baltimore Fun Hacks if you want to check it out!

In other news, I just recently graduated from my master’s program in public health and honestly, this past year and a half at Hopkins was pretty shitty. I still need more time and space from it to understand why but my review of the Hopkins SBI program is somewhat illuminating in terms of why the program wasn’t a good fit for me.

The clearest way I can express the way I felt about the last year and a half is that I felt trapped. I felt trapped, and now I feel more or less free.

So…what now?

Right now I’m working as a Research Program Coordinator for Hopkins’ Center for Injury Research and Policy. I help collect data for a study on infant sleep and scald safety by doing home visits – and I also train and manage the team of data collectors working alongside me on this task. This job is far from what I envision myself doing (I definitely don’t want to work in research/academia), but it will only be until about May.

And after that??

I really have no idea what’s next. But I read The Four Hour Workweek, got myself an adult coloring book, and am feeling much more empowered and capable than I was this time last year so I think I’m at least thinking in the right direction (I’m thinking: location independent…digital nomad…working for myself…). I’m pretty excited about making my blog #nextlevel so that’s a good feeling too. I’m also getting those itchy feet again…Stay tuned; I’ll definitely keep you posted.