About Me

I’ve had this website for years, and still to this day, the ‘About Me’ section remains the hardest to write. Because how do I answer the question of who I am, if I myself don’t know?

I was born in Poland, but immigrated to Ireland as a child.

I love to write even if I only sit down to do it twice a year.

I’m a certified TEFL teacher who holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Chemistry, working for a private pharma company.

From reading, candle making, woodburning, table tennis, and a failed Etsy shop, I’ve tried hundreds of hobbies and interests, only to hold on to a few.

I explore, I make, I fail. I learn. I’m not perfect, but I think I’m a decent person. One with good intentions and too big of a heart, one that perhaps the world needs but damn…is it a heavy one to carry.

Every laugh, every failure, every heartbreak – I am everything that happened to me, and how I chose to deal with it. I’m all the pieces made and put together through everyone I’ve ever met and everything I’ve been through.

I love onion bhajis because my ex ordered them for me to try when I didn’t know what to get. I like skiing because I got to try it on a trip organised by my university that year. I know my natural response is to fight rather than flee because of an emergency situation I got caught in. I know I have a cat allergy because I decided to rescue a stray kitten from under the shed.

I’m a lot, but never too much for the right people.

I’m Joanna. And it is so lovely to meet you!

First created in 2016 under a different name, this blog’s primary purpose was to serve as a platform to vent about awful books I’ve just read. Created on a whim, while on a family trip in Rome, Italy, I was annoyed that I wasted days reading this one horrible book, which shall not be named, and I had no one to voice it to.

Since then, the website became a project I gave up on many times before, only to come back to it again and again. Each time in a new form.

As time went by, my passion for blogging reignited, building it up to what it is today. But I’m no longer an introverted, silly teenager who only reads romantic fairy tales, though; I am now a full-ass grown, extroverted introvert, silly adult, unashamed of the erotica and true crime novels I read.

I also went from never travelling before to building up a travelling reputation amongst friends and family within the last year. For the majority of the time, I travel solo because the circumstances are never perfect. It took me a long time to realise that, but when I did, gosh, did it open up the world for me.

You don’t always have a partner. People don’t always want to go to the same places as you, they don’t want to do and see the same things, they might not have money or time to go either. The moment came when I finally said to myself, ‘Fuck It’, and booked flights to The United States. It doesn’t sound like much, but for a stingy Eastern European that I am inside, who’s never gone further than her homeland, this was a big deal. And it marked a turning point.

Did I suddenly stop being afraid? No.

Is it easy or safe to be a solo, female traveller? Not always.

Did I do it despite the fear and anxiety? Fuck yeah. Because my fear of standing still, both physically and mentally, became stronger than my fear of doing it alone. No more wasting time wishing things were different, wishing I had someone to go with. The time is short, and the time is now.

I travel to find It.

Wish I knew what I was looking for. I will let you know if I ever do. For now, all I know is that whenever, wherever I go, I feel a little closer. To It, but also to myself.

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