Ireland Bound

I seem to only be good at keeping up with this thing whenever I go through a major life shift. Lots of things have changed: I’ve left my role at Fair, I’m more than halfway done with the OMSCS program, and I’ve upped and moved to Dublin, Ireland.

Wait What? Ireland?

Yes, Ireland!

Why?

A variety of reasons:

• I was born and raised in the suburbs of Los Angeles. I went to university in Los Angeles. I started my career in Los Angeles. I’ve spent 10 years living in Los Angeles proper. I’ve pretty much lived in every neighborhood in the city, and I need a change.
• Donald Trump is president and all of the negative effects that that’s had on the US (I think this one is a pretty common one)
• National Guard was rolling down my block, because of the Black Lives Matter protests - I find my country’s response to these protests disgusting. Black people are just asking to not be murdered. Apparently that’s too much to ask of our police.
• My partner accepted a role in Dublin
• I accepted a remote role that gives me flexibility to work out of Dublin
• My partner and I want to explore Europe

Will You Return to the US?

I’m sure I will at some point. My friends and family are all out there and I’m going to miss them. (Though I think if the political situation remains as bad as it currently is in the US, most of my friends will probably also relocate to Europe…)

So Why Are You Writing About This?

Even though I only landed in Dublin two days ago, my partner and I have had to do a significant amount of prep work in the last two months in order to make this transition. I plan on writing about the expat experience (of the boring things like taxes, setting up bank accounts, etc.) so that hopefully others who want to follow suit can do so without the amount of digging I had to do get set up financially.