LKL's Life Story

After two months, I was out of money and hope, and I had to leave France. Even worse, I couldn't go back to California - I was so poor that I had no choice: I went to Illinois to live with my mother.

Leaving France and going to live in the house I grew up in was one of the worst moments of my life. It was the biggest setback I've ever experienced. Without a job, I couldn't live in France. Without living in France, I couldn't return to MIIS to finish my Master's. Without finishing my Master's, I couldn't become an interpreter. If I wasn't an interpreter, I had no idea what I was going to do for work. In addition, I was completely broke - I'd spent all my savings and had piles of debt: years of tuition, the hospital bill for my broken collarbone (because I didn't have insurance), everything I'd spent in France was on my credit card. And of course I'd broken up with my boyfriend. In short, a total disaster: personal, professional, and financial.

After a few weeks, I found a job as an administrative assistant. It wasn't well paid or very interesting, but it was something. I also found an apartment with a friend of mine from high school.

During the first couple of months that I was in Illinois after leaving Paris, I only talked to my ex-boyfriend on the phone two or three times. He was very busy with his new job: teaching high school Spanish. During that time, it occured to me to take the foreign service exam. I passed the written exam and flunked the oral.

And then all of a sudden my ex-boyfriend realized that he couldn't continue working in the high school - it was far too difficult. He quit and had a revelation (his word): he loved me and wanted to be with me. So he started calling and writing tons of letters, and soon he came to see me in Illinois. He was talking about marriage and asked me to move to California with him. And I said yes.

And so in January 1997 I quit my job and my boyfriend came back so that we could drive to California together. We had an apartment in San José - no more Monterey. :-( I again worked as an administrative assistant, this time in a civil engineering company. I started teaching French and Spanish at an adult education center, which I found very difficult.

I also started a Master's program at San José State University, with the intention of obtaining that degree and thereby at least "finishing" my studies, even though it wasn't the degree that I was trying to get before.

In 1999, I decided that I didn't want to teach or work in an office: I wanted to work freelance. So I bought a book on HTML and taught myself. A few weeks later, I discovered About.com (originally called Mining Company). I looked at the list of topics and saw something extraordinary: About.com was looking for a "guide" to French language - the subject that interests me most in the world. What luck!

Since June of 1999 I've been the French language site "guide" at About. It's perfect for me: I work at home, freelance, and I share this beautiful language with thousands of students and teachers from all over the world. I can't imagine a better job.

In August 2000, my fiancé and I moved to Morocco where he taught English as a foreign language. I had About for work, and in 2001 I began a Spanish site. And we finally got married in Gibraltar, a week before September 11.

We lived in Casablanca for two and a half years and it was really extraordinary. I wrote a series of articles on Moroccan culture which you can read here: Moroccan Culture Series.

And then in March 2003, we returned to the US and lived in Pennsylvania for 4 years, during which I wrote six books. More importantly, we went to Toulouse for 3 months and I realized that I couldn't wait any more: I had to move to France. However, France didn't agree - it took so long to get our long-stay visa that we were able to spend 9 months in Costa Rica in the interim, before finally moving to Hyères in March 2008.

And that's the story of my life up until I finally moved to France. The story continues on my blog: I write about myself every Tuesday and Friday.

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