Welcome to Brazen Careerist!

About Me

I am a serial expat and a dual national of the United States and New Zealand. As a person who grew up in the U.S. and left at 18 for many years abroad in the U.K., New Zealand, Vietnam, and Japan, I feel my writing comes from a unique persective. Add this to the travel I have undertaken and I have many, many stories that are waiting to be written.

I am passionate about travel and learning about other cultures as I believe what you get from others is invaluable in building your own viewpoints. I am keenly interested in social identity and the interaction between how one see's one's self and how others perceive that person. I write from a New Zealand perspective on Pocketcultures.com.

Food is something we all have in common and I feel that talking about food, eating together, and cooking together are some of the best ways to make links with people from other cultures. I explore the dynamic of communities within a community in my blog http://fiveflavours.com as I write about the various cultures of food that exist in Auckland, New Zealand.

I also keep a personal perspective blog on writing, travel, food, and other topics at http://shantiwallah.com .

Work History

• Pocketcultures
• Contributing Editor
• October 2009 to Present

• Pocketcultures.com is an informational travel and culture site written by people within each country in order to give the local perspective. I write from New Zealand.

• Nile Guide
• Auckland Expert

• I maintain the Auckland, New Zealand site content and blog.

• Undisclosed ESL Textbook Publisher
• Textbook Writer

• I write English language textbooks for the Taiwanese market.

• Matador Travel
• Freelance Writer and New Zealand "Expert"

• I have written a few articles for Matador and am also listed as an "expert" that people can ask questions to regarding visiting New Zealand.

• Hagley College
• Workplace Literacy Tutor
• March 2009 to December 2009

• I teach literacy skills in the workplace for factory workers in South Auckland. My current learners are mostly of Samoan origin and are and economic migrants to New Zealand.

• Keiwa Gakuin Daigaku
• Visiting Lecturer
• January 2006 to January 2008

• I taught English language classes to Japanese university students. Amongst my regular classes I also taught some topic-based courses in Travel and Study Abroad, and Peace Studies.

  As the Peace Studies class was of my own design, I was able to angle this so that students explored their own identity in the world and how they thought they might be able to contribute to a better world situation. Their final project was called, The Peace Photography Project, and I later presented the outcomes at the New Zealand CLESOL conference in 2008.

  Another highlight was working with the Keiwa International Volunteers (KIV) club as they raised money throught a year in order to go to Thailand and build a house with Habitat for Humanity.

Education

• University of Auckland
• Graduate Diploma in Teaching (Primary)
• 2008 - 2008

• University of Auckland
• MA (HONS) Language Teaching and Learning, Applied Linguistics, Sociolinguistics
• 2003 - 2004

• Dissertation investigated social identity and language learning

• Languages International
• CELTA, Certificate in Language Teaching to Adults, English as a second/ foreign language
• 2000 - 2000

• University of Leicester
• Bsc (HONS) Sociology
• 1991 - 1995