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I just finished reading a fabulous book, Where the Jungle Meets the Sea, by C.L. White. In the first chapter, she boldly addresses an issue that I wrestled with for sixteen years in Costa Rica: being approached for money because of the assumption that a pale, freckled-face foreigner from the United States would have lots of it.

I met White circa 2009 at a language school that we both worked at in Heredia, Costa Rica, and we became friends. Several years later, she returned to her home state of...

I was honored to be selected for the Faculty Spotlight last month at Columbia College in Sonora, California for publishing my memoir, Blue Star Bound. This recognition means a lot to me, particularly coming from Columbia College where I have a bit of fond history.

Fresh out of High School, I attended Columbia College for two years, graduating with an Associate of Arts degree in 1996. It was a local option for me, allowing me to stay home and work while pursuing higher education.

Fast forward...

"The wreckage from Boa's wrecking ball took some time to clear" (Blue Star Bound, p. 277).

In my memoir, Blue Star Bound, I share some painful and deeply personal experiences, many of which star my ex-husband, called Boa (a fictional name).

Yes, I named him after a snake, and he deserved that name. You have to read the whole story to understand.

The deepest disappointment from that marriage wasn't the money he embezzled from my school, the women he purchased at brothels, or his excessive...

"Growing pains are inevitable when we step our of our comfort zones. We encounter versions of ourselves that we'd rather keep quiet" (Blue Star Bound, p. 69).

Have you ever worked really hard to eliminate an ugly aspect of your personality only to find it sneaking back into your repertoire of behaviors?

I thought I would never let this hideous character flaw back into my life. But here I am, in 2026, dealing with it again.

And a few days ago, I found myself in a mental spin, pouting that I...

"I was learning the game as I played it. Building the plane as I flew it" (Blue Star Bound, p. 69).

When I started a language school in Costa Rica, I had no business experience or degree. I was living in a new city in a foreign country without a single friend close by. I was a fish out of water. It was deeply uncomfortable, but I gave it my all.

My efforts paid off, and my little school took flight. I learned many valuable lessons in the twelve years that I ran it - or it ran me. It was such a...

"It dawned on me in that moment that I had become a role model, like a mother to her daughters, of what women can do if we work hard and dream large" (Blue Star Bound, 55).

When I started my language school in Liberia, Costa Rica in 2010, I did not have any bold intentions of empowering women. That thought had not even crossed my mind. Within the first year of business I realized, however, that I was doing exactly that.

In a town where women had few opportunities, and most did not complete...

A little over a month ago, I self-published my memoir, Blue Star Bound, on Amazon, and it has done extremely well so far.

Blue Star Bound is about my quest to build something meaningful in Costa Rica through a language school that I founded and operated for twelve years. On the surface, my school empowered women, helped children and changed lives. But behind closed doors, paradise turned into a fight for survival. I was pushed to the absolute edge with predatory lawsuits, domestic abuse and a...