“My professional life had started and here I was at a professional dinner full of uninhibited drinking.”

“It was one of those striking moments in life where you find familiarity in the inexplicable.”

“Somehow, we were passing the boundaries of language and finding clarity in shared thought, even if we were just talking about beer!”

“And so we went. And so it went. And, slowly, I began to learn: speaking in the same language does not equal communication, especially when there is a cultural divide.”

“My professional life had started and here I was at a professional dinner full of uninhibited drinking.”

“I looked out again at the rising moon and I let the weight of my day, my week, lift away with the rushing wind as I was blown into the depths of myself.”

“There were signs everywhere but none that I could read or even hope to decipher. These multi-lined symbols unhinged my familiar world.”

“I’d learned so much from traveling to familiar places that I figured I’d learn twice as much by going to a place I knew nothing about.”