Hello,
I’m Adrienna of An Accidental Vagabond.
I’m a writer and a former ESL Kindergarten teacher. I have worn many hats or costumes, as I like to say, in my life. I spent several years in the service and hospitality industry. I’ve worked in administrative positions in both real estate and tech. I was once a snowboard instructor and an actress.
I’ve Always Been Writing
Although, I have done many things work wise to survive and carve out a living, I have always been writing.
I won my first writing contest when I was eight. I write about traveling on this blog, but my real dream is to write short stories and a novel. I’d like to write fiction, but I tend to gravitate toward memoir. What is it they say? Write what you know.
I have a degree in both Theatre and English with a minor in writing and geology. I also have a certificate in the Mastery of Creative Writing, along with a TEFL certification. I have attended some inspiring writing events in the past and I look forward to attending more in the future.
Fundraising and Event Coordination
I have coordinated events in the past for work and school, but my crowning achievement was when I needed to raise money to pay for my tuition into The Attic’s Anthenum Mastery of Writing program.
Based off a phrase from William S. Burroughs, I titled my fundraising event Don’t Short Change the Muse. Meaning we have to feed the muse in order to survive as artists.
There were two Don’t Short Change the Muses and both were very successful. They are both stories of love and community. You can read my post: How to have a Successful Fundraiser for a Future Writer.
A Little Travel Herstory
The first time I ever left the United States I was 24 or 25 years old. I just made the cut for the Go25 card that allowed for youth prices for Eurail. Since then, I have lived and worked in Germany, Ireland, Scotland, Czechia, Poland, Slovakia, China, and South Korea.
I’ve seen a lot of Europe, just a tiny section of China, and nearly all of South Korea, including a few islands. I have also driven across the northern United States, and driven from Manitoba to British Columbia in Canada.
Writings
In Canada, I worked for a blog writing reviews about plays during the Canadian Fringe Festival. I wrote copy for Presents of Mind in Portland, Oregon, back when they had a blog. My most recent publications have been with Korea By Me a website about things to do in Korea written by foreigners living in Korea. I’ve recently started posting on Medium topics that don’t quite fit the themes I’ve got running here. So, if this is not your speed you can check out my work on Medium. Or don’t no one does.
Teaching
I started work as an EFL/ESL teacher in 2013. I first worked as a High School Literature teacher in Zhengzhou, China. Then after China, I moved to Prague, and in 2015, received my TEFL certification. I soon found work teaching adults in Prague.
I also worked in Slovakia with high school and middle school ages, and in Poland, I volunteered with Angloville conducting conversation English with adults.
In 2016, I moved to South Korea, where I worked with adults and middle school, but my main position was as a kindergarten teacher.
My First Dream was Acting
As I mentioned in my intro, I was an actress performing for two summers in Court Theatre in Chico for CSUC, and in a touring company, performing the show Inviting Desire, with Dance Naked Productions.
A fun tidbit: Once, for a short time, I was a level 1 snowboard instructor for the Armed Forced Recreation Center (AFRC) in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.
Other Blogs and Writing
If you are interested in reading any of my poetry, short stories, notes on writing or my photography see the following links below.
Reviews
One Last Small Thing
Statistically speaking if you are reading this sentence you are an anomaly. This is my most frequently visited page, but my guess is that most people stop reading after the “A Little Travel Herstory”, then they probably scroll through through to see the photos and never even get to this donation box. All donations go to keeping this blog up and running, but you don’t have to donate. Leaving a comment is just as helpful. It let’s me know you made it this far.
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An Accidental Vagabond 
Thank you for the like and the follow, it is very encouraging. Terry.
P.S. If the answer to this question is yes then you are a writer and not a hobbyist……………. do you have to write?
This is a tricky answer for me. Do I have to write? Have to? It’s more like I can’t help it. If I’m not writing stories or poems, which I want to write, but often don’t, I journal. I write in my journal almost daily which is why I don’t always blog. So yes, I have to write. But, when I think about the play I want to write, and the adaptation I want to write, or the poems in my head, and all of the short stories, and the next novel, all the stuff that wont come out because I think about how no one will ever read them- I feel comfortable with my writing as a hobby idea. I hope it will trick me into writing all of my ideas. I don’t know if that makes any sense.
Thanks Terry. I look forward to reading more of your posts, and thanks for liking my Zizkov excerpt. I really appreciate that- talk about encouraging.
My pleasure. Any trick that keeps you writing is a good trick.
Adrienna,
various google searches led me to your blog and I’m grateful for it. I really love your haunting video of Sue as well as your letters from an old friend section…she was incredibly special to me…an unofficial godmother (she hated that term) to my son. Will you send me an email? Would love to back channel a few things. PS also saw your post on Pollock. The Krasner bio is just out and it is fantastic. Warmly, Aby
Aby,
I don’t know if you will ever see this message as you left it over 10 years ago, but if for some reason you do get this message, and respond, I will send you an email. I recently went to Cove to visit Sue’s grave, and I met with her sister who I hadn’t seen since the funeral, and I still cry even after so many years have passed.
I’m sorry I missed this comment.
Much love,
Adrienna
I only just discovered your youtube channel and this blog even though I have regularly searched and looked at similar content since 2010. Yours missed me somehow. I lived and taught in ZZ from 2019-2023. I think the algorithm finally returned the result because I happened to be in the Portland, Oregon area during my most recent youtube search of ZZ expat/travel videos.
I think your content is very good but also somewhat sparse. Your videos in ZZ cover a period of time that few of my old friends that were in ZZ at that time really talk about or describe much, which is a shame because so much was changing at that time and still is.
I also had teaching stints in other countries. I never even got close to making it in Europe, just the usual Asia tour before getting older and deciding it was time to come back to the USA before it was too late to have a real career. Prague would have been my first choice if I could have made that happen myself. I tried and got nowhere close, but I did everything legit and always had jobs and visas lined up before hand rather than trying to do things after the fact.
I worked as a tour guide also sortof, ….well ..as a Park Ranger here in Oregon ages ago.
I take it you met your husband in Korea? That part is not clear. The only part of your life in Korea mentioned seems mostly like what most English teachers there experience.
Anyway, thanks for sharing. I hope you might fill in more details about some of your overseas experiences. Especially Korea and China. Were you joking about the Corn tower?
Hello Kevin,
Thank you for leaving a comment. Wow. Thanks for the comment on my content. I had dreams of being a travel writer or vlogger. It’s sparse because sometimes just juggling my daily life of surviving takes all my time, and I’m not able to keep up with the content. I’ve wanted to be consistent, but it’s been difficult. I have so many stories from my travels, and life abroad, plus my husband and I (we met in Korea) traveled across the U.S. a couple of years ago, and I have youtube videos waiting in the queue to post, but I just haven’t been able to keep up. To be truly honest, I didn’t think anyone other than myself was interested. So, thank you. You’ve given me incentive to finish posting the videos I have in the YT queue and keep up on the writing.
Your timing is perfect as I made a deal with myself that I was either going to keep up on this blog or give it up for good. I’m giving myself this year.
I have some videos from life in Korea that I’ve sitting on which would be fun to share. I was living in Korea during covid, so we were not able to easily leave the country for travel, so what we did was travel all of Korea. I’ve seen most of the coastline and been to places not a lot of travelers visit. Once we went to a drive-in movie theatre right on the boarder of North Korea. We could see barbed wire in the water and North Korea from the top of a hill we hiked up. I should write it all down before I forget.
Speaking of forgetting. I’m not sure about the corn tower. Haha. It has been awhile since I’ve revisited any of my videos or even this blog, a corn tower is not jumping to my memory. Now I need to go through all my writings and videos to remember this corn tower.
I think about my time in ZZ often. I lived in the CBD at the time and I watched it turn from one of those ghost cities into a very busy place. I imagine it’s really crowded now.
I’m honored you took the time to leave a comment.
Thank you, Kevin.