Recently, I was contacted by Rate Your Study Abroad for a quick interview. At first this sounded strange being interviewed for a website about study abroad options for students until I thought about the fact that I have actually participated in studies abroad three times during my travels in the past year and a half - archaeology, Spanish, and Russian - all of which could have transfered to some sort of school credit had I actually been in school.

Take a look at the interview here: Interview with Brooke vs. the World

And, if you are a student or thinking of studying abroad, this site is an excellent resource! It lists various programs around the world and gives first-hand insights on them. Sometimes the study abroad advisor at school just isn’t the person who can give you all the info you need, so this is a great way to get another perspective.

Happy Studies!

Viscape is hosting a virtual travel writer meet-up on March 2nd, so hurry up and get involved! I was supposed to run on the panel of travel writers and bloggers, but alas, I had to back out. Unfortunately (or fortunately!), I will be on the road on that date and am not sure how the hostel situation will work out. Anyways, readers, here is the information on the event!

Travel Writing: Penning Your Way to a Career : Virtual Travel Writer Meet-up of the YEAR!

March 2nd : 7:30 PM EST

This virtual meet-up will cover the do’s and do-not’s of getting into a travel writing career.

Panelists include:

Debbie Dubrow from Delicious Baby.

Claire Walter from Travel Babel.

Shannon Lake (aka Cajun Mama) from the Traveling Mamas.

Shawn Bradford from Olga the Traveling Bra.

Beth Blair (aka Desert Mama) from the Traveling Mamas.

It should be quite the experience! If interested, check out Viscape University for more details, and RSVP today!

My nickname around this part of the world has become Artsy McCrafterson. I have a knack for making something from nothing, and I LOVE doing it. This is nothing new for me, but for Tanya… well, she seems amazed at all my little creations. She actually said I should start a crafting portfolio from just around our apartment. Interesting idea, eh?

Anyways, some of my creations have involved the following:

1. Making a Christmas tree from a house plant and doing it up right with gummy bears on a string for that extra burst of color it needed.

2. Making party decorations out of old colored papers we both had.

3. Making birthday party hats and a sceptor out of The Economist and old newspapers.

My mind constantly radiates creative ideas (hopefully that’s not a Chernobyl-related thing now), and if I don’t put those good ideas to use, I start to go a little crazy. This might be why I love playing around with my websites so much. I love colors, creating, and design, so this is where my next goal comes to play: start something you can continue to be creative with.

Over the past couple of years, I have been playing around with different web-based business ideas that I can really focus on and grow with. During this time, I have realized how much I really love building websites/blogs, so I think I finally figured out that a great idea to appease my creative mind and build a business is brought to you in the following form: Free Custom Wordpress!

Yes, I will set up your Wordpress blog, and you won’t have to lift a finger! I know, I know, a Wordpress blog setup can be done for free, but what if you don’t have the time or know-how?! I’ll do it for you in a snap with that little extra bit of love that you won’t get anywhere else I’ll even help you customize your template to fit your blogging needs. All I ask is that you buy your hosting through my partner, GoDaddy.com (who I’ve been using for years now!), and we’ll be square.

Sound cool?

I’ve done this before for a few people, as you can tell from the website, and I really enjoyed the process. I am also constantly giving little tips and whatnot to other readers who send me emails. I’m sure they can attest to my abilities, right? Really, I want to take this seriously because it will 1) allow me to be creative, 2) force me to learn more about it all, and 3) help me get a little extra cash now and then. And as for you, you receive your own blog at your own domain with no fuss! Nice.

Thanks again, everyone, for reading, and I hope you can help me spread the word. We’ll see how this goes!

Yours,

Artsy McCrafterson

In one of my conversation clubs in school here in Ukraine, I asked my students what the best year of their life has been. Questions like these, followed with a simple, “Why?”, are a great way to get them all to talk (my main goal for my classes), while also killing a ton of class time. However, a lot of the time they like to turn it around and ask me the same thing, so after thinking for just a few seconds, I confidently answered:

“It has definitely been 2008.”

“Why?” they asked (They also probably thought this was a good way to kill class time!).

I felt kind of odd answering their question. Imagine trying to explain to people in Ukraine, most of whom have never even left their own country, that travel has been the most amazing thing you have ever done. Instead of rambling on about my travel lust, I tried to keep it short and sweet and save all the details for my lovely readers (that’s you!). So, here are some of the wonderful reasons why 2008 was so great!

1. I got to travel… A lot!

In 2008, I saw many different countries: Guatemala, Mexico, Honduras, Poland, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Hungary.

In the grand scheme of things, that probably doesn’t seem like much. It was a whole year, afterall! But, I like to think my approach to travel is still just as interesting as those people who are taking on the whole world in a single year. Don’t get me wrong - I love to be on the move (I miss it right now actually!), but hitting up a major site for just one long weekend doesn’t quite give you the perspective I’m looking for. What happens when people go back to work and all the tourists go back home? How does life look then?

2. I did some interesting things!

• I learned Spanish from a booger-picking Guatemalan.
• I survived an earthquake… ok a tremor.
• I watched the sun rise over Mayan temples.
• I dealt with the kindness and unkindness of strangers in Poland.
• I learned about, and laughed at, Ukrainian myths.
• I learned Russian in a country that no one knows exists.
• I slept in a yurt at Lake Issyk-Kul.
• I drank some nasty drinks on Sovietskaya.
• I gained a Kyrgyz family, and then left it.
• I became enemies with marshrutkas in Bishkek.
• I got stuck at the Kazakh border.
• I shot some heavy artillery in Lithuania.
• I built up a tolerance to vodka in the baltics, and then lost it when I got to Ukraine.
• I got a job!
• I tasted some traditional, Ukrainian food.
• I made a weekend escape to Budapest.
• I almost froze to death, and begged Russia for mercy in the process.

3. I met some amazing people!

The people you meet on the road really make it something special - they set the tone, and even shape the memories of a place forever. Travel with someone for a few weeks, or few days even, and you feel like you’ve known them forever. I would say I’ve been lucky to have encountered such interesting and wonderful friends from my travels - all the way from my Bishkek Crew and my Baltic Gang to my now Ukraine Posse. Yup, lucky. Last year will forever be shaped by the people I’ve laughed with, cried with, smiled at, hid from, been annoyed with, been surpised by, dreamed with, dreamed about, hated, and loved.

4. I learned a lot about myself!

As cheesy as it sounds, I did learn a lot about myself during my year of travels. Well, maybe learned isn’t quite the word I’m looking for. Perhaps notions about myself, and the way I am and deal with life, became fact in my mind. No, there were no life-changing, earth-shaking discoveries, but I would say I have a better understanding of where I stand.

Cheers to the good and the bad! Nothing is perfect. In spite of all its amazingness, 2008 still had its breaking points. Oh, I’ve been all over the place. I’ve been up, down, left, right - happy, sad, you name it. Maybe I’ve been good at times at hiding such things from my blogging life, but maybe other times I haven’t. Heck, I sometimes even forget that people are actually reading this! But, what else can I say? I wouldn’t change any of those experiences or decisions in 2008 because without them, where would I be now?

What about you? What has been the best year of your life? I’d love to hear back from my readers!

While not being happy with my decision to be in Ukraine at this moment in time, I have decided to preoccupy myself with a list of goals. The first one I’m going to address is increasing the amount of feed readers to this site (that would be those who read in a feed reader or get updates by email), as well as update all the information sections, such as the photo pages.

Now the first part isn’t a huge issue. I know many people check my blog, and I get loads of emails from readers with questions and such all the time, but its that number I see on the right column of the page that annoys me. It floats around 45-55 readers now and I’m thinking something more like 100 would be more pleasing to my eye. Yes, I know, I’m a little Monk-ish (I’ve taken the quiz), but please help to appease my mind by signing up for updates through feedburner. It’s quick, it’s easy, and it’ll spice up your inbox from time to time!

The second part is a little more annoying. I have a lot of information on this site from before I left in March and it has changed a lot since then. I also have a lot of photo uploading to do. I’m getting behind now! So, yes, I will do my best to get everything to an up-to-date level on the site soon - as long as I have internet at the moment. I won’t even get into the idea of being without it again when we move apartments. D’oh!

Green with jealousy.

This was me during March in Poland when I met another traveler actually making money in the hostel while everyone else was forced to sit around in boredom when it snowed/rained outside. I love the idea of being able to make a couple bucks here and there to help extend my travels – and he had the job for it – the almighty work when you want to for how long you want to from wherever you have a decent internet connection job. You’re probably getting a little green now yourselves.

Since I was moving on out of Poland and eventually to Kyrgyzstan, I forgot about this opportunity until just recently at home. That’s when my friends told me about ChaCha – the way to get a more personal answer to any question you might have just by sending a text message to 242242 (chacha). The answers are composed by REAL people who get paid per search completed. THIS was the mystery job the guy was working in Poland!

I immediately went and started the application and testing process and now I am a fully fledged ChaCha Guide! The money, of course, isn’t great, but I still have to think that any extra money is better than no money, especially since you can do this WHENEVER you feel like it! How cool is that?!

I’ll be sure and let everyone know how this works out money-wise. Since it all depends on the number of queries searched/answered, the pay can vary drastically. However, just imagine how fun it would be to search for random facts, figures, gossip, etc. AND make a couple bucks in the process. Thank you ChaCha for helping me get my brain back into shape!

AND, if anyone is interested in signing up themselves, they do have a referral program. So pretty pretty pretty please with sugar on top put my ChaCha email address in the referral section when applying. Oops3838 (at) gmail (dot) com – that is of course without spaces and with various punctuation marks where necessary. Let me know and I will give you total props on my website. So come on and help a girl out! Thanks.

Want an Obama T-shirt? MoveOn’s giving them out if you make a small donation to their young-voter registration program, aimed at registering half a million young voters in swing states. I just got mine, and wanted to share the opportunity with you.

Click this link to get your Obama T-shirt:

http://pol.moveon.org/obamatshirts/index13.html?id=-9880135-WbUpLfx

Even though I’m leaving the country again this Sunday, I still decided to get a shirt. I’m going to have it shipped to me with some other things while I’m overseas. I also have 45 buttons coming my way, those of which I will have to get someone else to disperse while I’m away. What can I say? I heart Obama!

So I happened to be perusing the feature articles on vagabondish.com when I came across an article called “7 Bizarre Tours You’d Actually Sign Up For… Maybe“. It is seriously full of great ideas, but nothing in that list beats old numero uno - The Illegal Border Crossing Tour in Mexico.

Is this for real?!

Yes, it is for real, and they have the link to the NY Times article of the writer that actually participated to prove it! Of course, it is only a staging of the actual act - getting arrested by border patrol for most is not a desired vacation idea - but it still sounds very thrilling. So, next time you’re in Mexico, this could be you:

*Image from the NY Times article.

If you haven’t seen it yet, I suggest checking it out - Three Sheets. This guy, a comedian, is on one big journey to booze around the world, all the while making a very funny and interesting show in the process. And, you might be surprised to find yourself learning a little bit or two from it.

No, this is no DIY budget backpacker endeavor, but it just might give you some ideas on what to do or see while on your journies. Happy watching!

Sometimes, things just make so much sense. After I realize what makes sense, it becomes hard to ignore that things aren’t as they should be. My mild OCD kicks in, and I can’t stop until the task is completed. I realized I made a big boo-boo by keeping brookevstheworld on the same domain name as Brian & Brooke vs. the World. I started thinking I would just switch everything back to Brian & Brooke when we do eventually go RTW, but hey, what would happen to Brooke vs. the World?!

I would have to move it. Yep, that’s a scary thought. I don’t want to move even more posts/content around by the time we actually do the big trip. I decided to move it all now, so brookevstheworld.com is actually on a subdomain of usversustheworld.com. After I’m done posting this, I’m going to forward usversustheworld.com to the subdomain (http://usversustheworld.com/brookevstheworld/) so no one gets lost in the process.

I bet you’re wondering why I’m even taking the time to post this, right? Well since there is a new domain path and wordpress install, there is also a new RSS Feed. So delete the old feed and go to brookevstheworld.com to get the new one!!! Also, if you get updates by email, you will need to go to brookevstheworld.com and sign up again!

As always, thanks for following along. I can now get back to posting content instead of fooling around behind the scenes.