I was born an increasingly long time ago in Austin, Texas, on a particularly awesome national holiday. My mother worked for a magazine here in Texas and my father is a math teacher. That really should explain a lot about me: I'm a pretty even combination of the two.

After high school, I went to Rice University in Houston and majored in biology because I thought it was "harder" than my favorite subject, English (I also studied Italian, for some reason). I then did some internships in animal behavior (including spending my 21st birthday in bustling Boyd, Texas, a dry county) and realized I hated it, but graduation was imminent so I had to stick with biology. I did score a pretty awesome internship at Houston Modern Luxury magazine my senior year.

Upon graduating, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I had been to San Diego on vacation a couple of times, and that seemed like a pretty good place to figure out my next step. I flew to San Diego for four days, found a job and an apartment, flew back to Texas, and packed my car to move across the country. At the first pit stop during my 20 hour drive, I was informed that I received an internship I had applied for months ago to teach English in Italy. So, I started my first job knowing that I would quit in six months.

I moved to Milan in January of 2008. I liked Italy but I LOVED teaching, so when I returned to San Diego, I decided to go back to Milan to get certified and see if I could find a job. Once again, I flew to a faraway place and found a job and an apartment (eventually...I moved nine times that year—I am now REALLY good at packing). I spent the next two years teaching English in Milan during the school year, and in San Diego during the summer.

I returned to the States permanently in June 2010. In San Diego, I worked for an online university, which was interesting, and was involved with a nonprofit called Reality Changers, which provided some balance on the good/evil spectrum. In 2012 I moved back to Austin to be closer to family, and promptly got a cat (Shiloh, love of my life). I lucked into a year-long externship at Michael and Susan Dell Foundation, and I also started writing for a fledgling blog called Literally, Darling that now gets over 100K unique visitors per month. I continue to work in philanthropy and write as much as I can.