Site Update: March 2008

Live from L.A

This month’s Site Update takes place from Los Angeles, where I’ve been hanging out at a conference for entrepreneurs that I’ll write about soon.

Each month I look back at what’s happened with ChrisGuillebeau.com in the previous month. If you’ve missed some articles, you can catch up here.

March was my first full month of writing and posting essays for the site. I published the three essays a week that I’ve committed too, along with a few real-time updates from my travels in India and Hong Kong.

Writing

LIFE – I wrote about The Decision To Be Remarkable, The 14,600 Hours to Virtuosity, Creating and Live by Your Own List of Values, Focus on What You Need To Know, and How To Recruit a Small Army.

WORK – I wrote about How I Really Got Started in Business, Are 70% of American Men Lying?, On Returning to Wal-Mart after a Four-Year Absence, and a critique on franchise businesses called Do You Want a Business or a Job?

TRAVEL – I wrote about Why You Should Quit Your Job and Travel Around the World, my choice between 100 Countries or an S.U.V., Airport Adventures from Bucharest to JFK, three essays on my trip to India, and a short update from Hong Kong.

Gratefulness

In March I was especially grateful for the chance to travel after being in the U.S. for several months. The high point was spending two weeks in India, and I was also able to visit Japan and Hong Kong.

(I had also planned on traveling overland to Dhaka, Bangladesh, but unfortunately I had to put those plans on hold due to visa concerns. I’ll have to save Bangladesh for later.)

It was very cool to go back on Singapore Airlines, my favorite airline in the world, after a long absence. I didn’t mind any of the 11 hours I spent flying to Tokyo. The second day, when I had to turn around and fly 10 more hours to Mumbai, wore me down a little, but in the end I made it safe and sound. Then on the way back to the States, I came through Hong Kong on Cathay Pacific, which was also nice.

After five quarters at the University of Washington, I completed all the requirements to receive my M.A. degree in International Studies and a graduate certificate in International Development. I had a good time at the UW, but I’m also grateful to be finished.

Lastly, many of my friends and readers wrote in to say that they are enjoying the site. Your comments mean the world to me—please keep reading and writing.

What’s Coming Next

I’ll get back to Seattle on April 6th, but I won’t stay too long. Three weeks later, I’ll head out on another extended trip, this time to South America and North Africa. I plan to visit Easter Island (not technically a country, but a cool place nonetheless), Argentina, and Uruguay first. Then I’ll cross over to Amman, Jordan as part of my OneWorld Round-the-World trip, and begin a week of overland travel in North Africa from Tunisia.

Essays

The thrice-weekly essays will continue to be posted each Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday. This month I’ll write about the following topics, among others:

• 35 Minutes of Homelessness in Central London
• The Flip Side to Self-Employment and Freedom
• How and Why I Travel
• Five Trips to Cotonou, Benin
• How To Respond to Critics

I hope you enjoy my writing, and I always welcome your feedback.

Audience Participation

You can participate in the development of this project in several ways:

Leave a comment at the bottom of any essay. I haven’t actively promoted the “comments” section in the posts yet, but it will be upgraded in the near future and all previous comments will be retained. Feel free to share your comments and include a link back to your own site if you have one.

Send other feedback. Use my contact form here to tell me what you think so far. In the future, I probably won’t be able to respond to every inquiry, but right now I can.

Join my newsletter announcement list or add me to your RSS reader.

Tell your friends, or tell the world by voting for my writing at Digg, StumbleUpon, or other social networking sites.

I appreciate the time you spend here. Don’t forget to change the world the way you think it needs to be changed.

-CG