In the past couple of years, I’ve slept in teepees, bungalows, apartments, beach houses, and cave rooms, on floors, couches, and unwashed mattresses. I was hosted by lawyers, professors, hippies, bikers and many more. I’ve cracked my head in France, twisted my foot in Hungary, got chikungunya in India while my best friend was drugged and robbed in Paris. Yet I’ve witnessed hotair balloons in Cappadocia during sunrise, invited to an air traffic control tower in Beauvais, rode a motorcycle up into the Himalayas, slurped fresh oysters by the harbor of Santa Barbara and would not change my experiences for the world.

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I was born in ’94, grew up with replays of the Teletubbies, Pokémon and the soundtrack of Titanic on the radio in my living room.

When I was 7, I learned how to type on our 50-pound office computer. When I was 14, MSN was the only way to hold late night group conversations. Scene became the ultimate fashion trend and my first few regrettable Facebook posts publicized my love-hate relationship with friends and foes.

I listened to Westlife and Britney then Fall Out Boy and MCR, Daft Punk and Pink Floyd and like my change in music, the 2000s became a fast-paced period streamlining happenings as if attempting to accompany the turn of the century

Suddenly, iPhones became an everyday object for 10-year-olds, contouring became a makeup technique for teens. Mid Snapchats and Instagram and Twitter and Facebook and Youtube, computerized drones visited homes of our neighbors.