Hello from León, Spain. My fellow Globalist co-founders Alex Stonehill and Jessica Partnow and I will be here until June teaching University of Washington students how to develop their own online publications documenting their experiences abroad.
It’s a nice full circle experience for three international journalists who got their start in Granada, Spain as 20-year-olds in 2000.
The Seattle Globalist will be up and running and in good hands during our absence, with Editorial Director Venice Buhain and Community Engagement Director, Christina Twu. In fact, Christina will be filling in as “Acting Executive Director,” while we’re gone.
Academic timelines are so weird. They’re often long to point of the absurd, forcing you to plan for a distant and unknown future where your courses and learning goals may or may not be relevant to a new world order you can only guess at.
When I first applied to teach a quarter in Spain it was over two years ago. The world and my life were, well, very different. Honestly, I didn’t think it would happen—even after the application was accepted and approved.
One baby, a major political upset, more growth of The Seattle Globalist than I could have dreamed of and 24 hours of brutal travel with a toddler later I’m in León.
It’s hard to be away from Seattle for so long, and especially hard to be away from The Seattle Globalist at such a tense and frightening moment in our country’s history.
Alex, Jessica and I hope that our time in Spain will be of value to the organization. It’s certainly on mission to learn how to guide a diverse group of young Americans through the experience of reporting abroad. Who knows? Maybe The Seattle Globalist will be leading international reporting projects with Seattle-area journalists someday!
In the meantime, Globalists, keep pitching, writing, reporting, reading, sharing, commenting and doing all of the things you do to make this publication great. We need you now more than ever.
¡Hasta pronto!
