work

Financial Wellness & the Modern Office

The obsession with paper media to track accounts and organize workflow is a wildly inefficient, yet weirdly consistent obsession I've encountered at more than one office. Since my start at UCLA in 2018, I've been the driving force behind our use of Cloud systems, and a serious reduction in our reliance on paper media. The result was an absolute readiness for telecommuting, and a seamless transition to working from home once the quarantine was enacted in March 2020.

My work at UCLA is well-suited for a work-from-home model: I'm part of a team of people who counsel students and alumni on how to assess their financial health, and guide them through the often complex process of repaying their student loans.

Talk to me about promissory notes, federal student loan repayment, and how to modernize your office workflow.

Teaching English as a Second Language

After earning a Master's in Teaching at the University of Southern California, I spent a year in Japan teaching ESL, and was called back to the US to teach at USC and Cal State LA. There, I created attendance systems still in use by both schools, a centralized resources database for teachers, dozens of online activities associated with popular American podcasts, re-invented USC's research class, and gave two presentations at TESOL 2018 in Chicago.

Talk to me about improving your department's organization, scaffolding your lessons across the semester, and technology you can use to make your teaching easier for you.

My store includes:

Loads of podcast activities
My attendance system used by USC and CSULA
TESOL 2018 presentation: Harnessing the Popularity of Tabletop Games: Authentic Interaction and Assessment
TESOL 2018 presentation: Using Dialogue-Free Videos to Get Students Talking
Free handouts with ice breakers, mini-lessons, and more

Art History

A fascination with the Maya drew me to Belize in 2004, where I spent a month digging an ancient ballcourt deep in the western jungle bordering Guatemala. Several years later, while teaching English in Japan in 2012, I offered a variety of specialized courses in philosophy, beekeeping, and art history, which naturally included the ancient Maya. While researching for the class, I wrote an article for the Ancient History Encyclopedia, and later made an accompanying video.

Talk to me about the ancient Maya, archaeology, and writing to a specific audience.

History Channel Host: FOUND

My contribution to the Ancient History Encyclopedia caught the eye of Past Preservers, where I'm a Featured Expert. From there, the History Channel called on me to host on a show called FOUND where other experts and I travel around the country, studying artifacts owned by average Americans, and providing them answers to the mysteries behind them. Watch a few episodes of FOUND here, and like me on Facebook.

Talk to me about working on set, challenges of being on-screen talent, and where to start with artifact research.

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