Just about three weeks ago, I returned to the United States after spending 8 weeks in South America – in Peru and Colombia. The sequence of my flights was easy with a short layover in Panama City before landing home at Newark EWR. The quickness of it all was sobering. It is both marvelous and terrible how quickly we can get from place to place. It just depends which side of the coin you’re on.

Since returning back to the land of the red, white, and blue, I’ve battled through three rounds of sickness and have enjoyed Christmas, Boxing Day, Birthday, and New Year’s celebrations. December is truly the best time of the year. There are parties and gifts, and people are much more festive and light-hearted than they are for much of the rest of the year.

I came into January ready to punch, and despite being terribly sick, I am taking on my long-awaited website project. There’s no shortage of tabs open at any time – job boards, applications, language learning sites. I have a lot of irons in the fire, but I’m hopeful that one of them will heat up soon.