Tag Archives: American University of the Caribbean

Busy Writer!

July 7, 2016American University of the Caribbean, Expats, Expats and TCKs, International Travel, Spouses Organization, UncategorizedAmerican University of the Caribbean, articles, AUC, Caribbean, fiverr, freelance, freelancer, posts, rev.com, work, writingbreanamjohnson@gmail.com

As every freelancer knows, there are up seasons and down seasons when it comes to work. Since I can’t get a work permit as an expat where I live, I do a lot of freelancing, especially writing. I usually sell my skills on Fiverr.com under the username BreJay. Lately, I’ve been getting a small avalanche of commissions, which is why I’ve slowed down a bit on posting here. Well, that and the daily power outages. But don’t worry– I’m not giving up on blogging!

If you want to read a bit of what I’ve written lately, you can visit a few sites here:

Luxurious Eco-Friendly Resorts

Underwater Observatory

6 Wild Places in Florida

You can see my complete portfolio here.

The work has been slowing down my blogging a bit, but I certainly can’t complain. I’m so thankful to be at the point where I feel busy with work. It can be so discouraging to not have a full-time job, but I’m on my way to building a sustainable freelance business that I can stick with for a long time. I also recently got a “freelance” job with Rev.com, which allows me to fill my extra time with transcription work. I’m praising God that after a year of no regular income, I’m getting the chance to take a bite out of all that student debt we’re accumulating! That first paycheck from Rev was the best feeling ever.

See you soon with more Sint Maarten posts! I have a ton of photos on my camera just waiting to be uploaded for you all. Until then.

Dear America, Love an Expat

July 4, 2016American University of the Caribbean, AUC, Expats, Expats and TCKs, International Travel, Uncategorized, United States4th of July, America, American University of the Caribbean, celebration, cultural, culture, Eating, Expat, moving, overseas, travel, US, USAbreanamjohnson@gmail.com

Dear United States of America,

Happy birthday! You’re looking good for 240. Sorry I had to miss celebrating this one with you, but I hope to be there for the big quarter-century next decade.

You know, I think I like you better now that we’ve been apart for a year. I guess I sort of took you for granted when I couldn’t get away from you. Now that I’m gone, I appreciate you a lot more.

You’ve done some strange things lately, and there’s a lot we should talk about, but today’s not the day for that. Today’s a day for me to tell you how much I love you.

I do love you, I’ve found. I never really loved you until I left you. I guess I didn’t have anything to compare you to. But let me tell you, I know now how lucky I am to be a part of you.

America, you are beautiful. You have virtually every kind of biome within your borders. You cover the plains, the hills, the mountains, the deserts, the tundra, the beaches, and the tropical forests. Even better, you have every kind of people within your borders. You are beautiful.

America, you’re great to live in. International comparisons say your food kind of stinks, but you do well in quality of life, equality, innovation, education, and freedom. And you’re always pushing to do better.

America, you stand out globally. Of all the nations in the world that receive immigrants and refugees, you’re among the best at integrating people and upholding their well-being and their rights. It’s expected of you, and you do your best to deliver. I didn’t recognize that until I left. I didn’t see how unusual it is, because to me, it just makes sense to operate that way.

America, you’re a good place to be able to go home to. It’s nice to know that I could always go home without any trouble. It’s good to have a passport from you that opens so many doors. It’s good to be confident of the freedom to move from place to place, to speak without fear, and assemble with others as I please.

America, I miss you some days. Some days I don’t. But I’m always glad to know I belong to you. I keep the Stars and Stripes on my wall, right next to the flag of my new home. I used to see the flag every day, and I never thought twice about it. Now, I am glad whenever I see it. It’s strange; I usually see it everywhere on your birthday, but today I only saw it on a Digical ad and on a French man’s t-shirt! I miss seeing it fly high and proud on a pole on every corner.

Happy birthday, America. I hope you make good choices this year. It’s sad to think that this could be one of your worst years, but I’m praying that it will be one of your best. Happy birthday. I’ll see you soon!

Love, an expat.

8 Things I Took for Granted Before I Left the U.S.

June 25, 2016AUC, Expats, Expats and TCKs, International Travel, Uncategorizedadventures, American University of the Caribbean, arizona, AUC, Caribbean, countries, cultural, culture, Expat, International, Island, learning, Med school, medical school, moving, Saint Martin, Sint Maarten, st martin, St. Maarten, SXM, travelbreanamjohnson@gmail.com

Before I left the United States, there were a lot of things I took for granted. I guess everyone thinks their own life is pretty typical until they get a taste of something else.

1. Traffic lights. We have a single traffic light in the entire country of Sint Maarten. It spends half its life blinking yellow. Here, we have few intersections and a lot of round-a-bouts. It’s actually a much better system, and a lot fewer accidents occur because of it.

2. Refrigerated milk. You can get refrigerated milk here, but not every grocery store carries it. I always buy ultra heat-treated (UHT) milk. It’s cheaper, safer, and easier, especially since we get so many power outages. Also, I can stick several cases on the fridge and use them as I need them.

3. Electricity. Speaking of power outages, we get them a lot. Our single power plant can only handle so much at once. So we go without water and/or power on a regular basis.

4. Air conditioning. I grew up in Phoenix, Arizona where air conditioning is literally vital for life. Here, we like to use it now and then but we could certainly live without it. Our apartment complex took almost two months to fix our unit last summer when it died. We were OK; we have a nice trade winds breeze that we welcomed through open doors and windows.

5. Multiple traffic lanes. Unlike Phoenix’s six-lane highways, Sint Maarten has a basic two-lane road going all the way around the island. Passing anyone is an adventure.

6. Self-defense weapons. I used to carry mace everywhere I went. That’s just what you do in Phoenix if you’re walking around alone. I can’t carry anything here– not mace, not a pocket knife, not even a chair. Well, realistically I can carry a chair, but not legally. If you could whack someone in the head with it, you can’t legally carry it down the street. People will make weapons with anything, though– the supermarket next door once got held up by a guy with a stick.

7. Private beaches. There are no private beaches here! Every strip of sand on this island is public property. I took my dog to one of the less beautiful beaches this afternoon. There were a dozen locals there and me. And it’s a Saturday. If that beach was in the States, it would have been PACKED because so many good beaches are privately owned and the rest are perpetually filled. Here, you can enjoy the most incredible strips of paradise no matter your paycheck. I love that about Sint Maarten.

8. Sales tax. Yes, there is no sales tax here! Hooray for no math! Oh, and for not paying extra for stuff.

No matter where you go, there will always be something better and worse about it than the last place you lived. I guess the moral to the story is that wherever you are, enjoy the good things about that place instead of focusing on the bad things. There’s so much to appreciate in life!

Zika. We Have It Here.

June 17, 2016American University of the Caribbean, AUC, Caribbean, Expats and TCKs, International Travel, Saint Martin/ Sint MaartenAmerican University of the Caribbean, AUC, Caribbean, Expat, International, Island, Med school, medical school, mosquito, overseas, Saint Martin, Sint Maarten, st martin, St. Maarten, SXM, travel, virus, zikabreanamjohnson@gmail.com

Yes, we have Zika. Our little island has joined the rest of the West Indies and is now home to this nasty virus. How common is it? Not too common. How bad is it? Depends.

The most obvious thing that effects our community is that some people have contracted Zika. There have even been a few students at American University of the Caribbean who have had it. You hear a lot of horror stories about how awful it is, but honestly, it varies from person to person. Some people have hardly felt a thing and didn’t know they had it until they were tested. Others have had severe flu-like symptoms that put them behind in their studies for a week or so. Ben and I may have had it and not known it.

Zika is known to cause birth defects in unborn children. The World Health Organization has recommended that women carefully consider delaying pregnancy. This really stinks for the families in our community who were trying to have children. It’s been hard on a lot of people.

Zika is scaring some of our visitors away. Many of us had friends who planned to visit, and some of them cancelled their plans because of pregnancy or fear.

I’m not particularly worried about it. I did take a few pregnancy tests to make sure I’m not pregnant, and they were negative. So we’re just going about our business as usual and being sure to wear bug spray and keep the door closed after dark.

So just in case you were curious or worried, we’re OK. Like any other epidemic, Zika is a little scary, and the media makes it sound much scarier than it is! But life goes on here and we battle the mosquitoes the same way we always have to for more familiar viruses like dengue.

Faces of Carnival

June 2, 2016Uncategorizedadventures, American University of the Caribbean, Bible, Caribbean, Carnival, countries, cultural, culture, Dutch Side, Expat, faces, feathers, International, Island, Saint Martin, Sint Maarten, st martin, St. Maarten, SXM, travelbreanamjohnson@gmail.com

Carnival is the biggest event of the year in the Caribbean! The island of Saint Martin is no different, and we’re lucky enough to get it twice: once on the French side and once on the Dutch side. Unfortunately, I missed all the festivities on the French side, but I did catch a few things on the Dutch side! My friends and I went to the light parade and Ben and I went to the children’s parade. We also went to the apex of Carnival: the grand Carnival parade!

The parade is filled with elaborate costumes of feathers and glitter. The colors swirled around us and music pulsed in our ears, drawing us in to the heartbeat of the festival.

The parade (and most of Carnival, really) is centered around the sensuality of a woman’s body. With so much focus on sensuality, I felt that the appreciation of people for who they are was lost somewhere behind the sequins and paint. Since this is a family-friendly blog, I want to present a different angle on Carnival than the typical. This post is a study on beauty: not the transient beauty of the revealed body, but the authentic, lifelong beauty of humanity. They say that the eye is the window to the soul, so I have decided to focus this photographic undertaking on the beautiful faces of the people in the parade. I hope that as you look at these beautiful faces, you will reflect on the wonderful miracle that is embodied in each person.

“There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations – these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously – no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.”
-C.S. Lewis

“So God created human beings in His own image. In His own image He created them, male and female He created them.” -Genesis 1:27

The Dean’s List Again

May 27, 2016American University of the Caribbean, AUC, Saint Martin/ Sint MaartenAmerican University of the Caribbean, AUC, Caribbean, learning, Med school, medical school, Saint Martin, Sint Maartenbreanamjohnson@gmail.com

We’ve started Round Three of medical school, and we’re celebrating two semesters of achievement in the books! Ben made Dean’s List once again last semester.

Tonight was the recognition ceremony, complete with a speech by the lovely Dr. Julie Taylor. I think Dr. Taylor is one of the coolest people I know– she’s had over 100 publications and a lot of important jobs, but she doesn’t act too important to talk to someone like me. I’m pretty low on the totem pole as far as the medical world goes. If I ever end up in a prestigious position, I hope I’ll remember to be like her.

Speaking of awesome people, here is Ben receiving his second Dean’s List certificate! I’m so proud of him. He has worked so hard these past eight months to stay toward the top of his class and, more importantly, perform to the best of his ability. He’s going to make one great doctor someday.

The night ended with an Asian dinner catered by AUC staff and time spent with friends. Here’s a photo of us on the patio of American University of the Caribbean. Don’t you love that view? Too bad the students have to spend more time staring at textbooks than they can staring at those mountains. But as you can see, it pays off!

Two semesters down, three to go!

Breana's Blog

A writer's adventures around the world