When I was in the third grade I wrote a short paragraph describing an imaginary ruffian. I described his shaggy hair as being mahogany-coloured, having fallen in love with that particular colour after discovering it in my jumbo-sized box of Crayola crayons. My teacher was so impressed she read my paragraph aloud to the class, pausing to explain the word mahogany to a bunch of bored eight-year olds sitting on the rug at her feet.

I grew up in South Africa, a heart-breakingly beautiful country with a tragic history. In high school I discovered I was a poet, but never asked to be one. I was far too young to realize that those years would be the most formative ones of my life…

When I graduated I went travelling around Europe. My first job was working as a dishwasher in a Jewish old age home in England. I was too slow for the kitchen and day-dreamed a lot. A Rabbi caught me cleaning a tea-cup with the sleeve of my shirt and I got into trouble. I switched jobs and worked in a pen factory in London. I made 1500 pens in one day.

When I came home I studied communications and psychology for a year before emigrating to Vancouver, Canada. I worked in a print-shop for a while then switched to retail and sold ties at the Tie Rack. I now own an impressive collection of hand-sewn silk ties. I studied at Douglas College for a few years doing university transfer courses. After that I did some travelling and backpacked through Zimbabwe for a few months.

I came back and worked at Canadian tire before going to UBC. I studied there for a few more years and got my B.A. in anthropology. I wrote many essays on such topics as the cultural significance of Japanese tattoos to the rise of the Shining Path in Peru to the relationship of landscape and ancestral knowledge in First Nations toponomy.

I struggled with post-graduate angst before moving to Korea to teach English for a year. I lived close to the Demilitarized Military Zone (DMZ) that separates North Korea from South Korea. I have a piece of barbed wire fence from the DMZ hanging on my wall. One day it will be worth as much as a piece of the Berlin Wall.

After returning from Korea, I have worked at a private school for a few years as a writing instructor. But I’ve always been happier writing. After enrolling in Print Futures, I stopped teaching and started working freelance writing TOEFL textbooks for my old school. During my studies, I interned at alive magazine as an assistant editor. I’ve since graduated from Print Futures and currently work as a technical writer for Vtech here in the beautiful city of Vancouver.