Traveling Ph.D.

Hello World! Greetings and Salutations! Hola! Hoi! Ciào! If you have clicked on this page, then you must be wondering about this crazy woman who has started a travel blog. At least, I’m vain enough to think you might be interested in reading about me. See that picture to the right? That’s me, MT, political science professor extraordinaire, standing in the Museo Nacional de Antropologia, Arqueologic y Historia del Peru in Lima. I tend to take these crazy tourist type pictures wherever I go.

You have been warned.

So, what do you really need to know about me? I consider myself to be a southern gal, even though I’ve spent most of my life living in the northern reaches of the United States. Upstate New York. Chicago. Ohio. Alabama. Louisiana. Indiana. These are all places I’ve lived during my 40-something years on this earth. Right now, I live in southern Indiana where I work as a professor (tenured, thank you very much!) and play with my critters. I have nine of them: 5 cats, 3 dogs, and one spouse who shall remain nameless (because he’s easily embarrassed). One day, I hope to win the lottery so I can move to an Earthship in New Mexico.

In my past (professional) lives, I was a houseparent at a residential school for disadvantaged children. I was a life quality specialist in southern Louisiana. I was a newspaper editor in small town America. I worked in a toll booth on the Florida Turnpike. Heck, I was even a security guard at a foundry in northwest Ohio.

I can tell you unequivocally that being a professor is the best job I’ve ever had. Sure the hours can be long, but I’m a crazy extrovert who loves that performance art otherwise known as teaching. I love to research just about anything related to the politics of:

wetland loss | the dead zone | food issues
ecotourism | gender | popular culture
nuclear politics | first ladies

In my spare time — what little I have — I like to fool around with my collection of vintage cameras, take pictures of really random stuff, lose myself in novels, and sleep buried under a ton of blankets with a cat or two for company. I like to think that I have a green thumb and I’ve joined a CSA to help reduce the impact of my food choices on the environment (even though I love a good steak now and then). When I was a kid — back before I got married — I used to think that I would be a travel writer, cruising the states in a Jeep with my collie named Blue. Having this blog is the next best thing.

That’s all you really need to know about me.

Thanks for reading,
MT, a.k.a., The Traveling Ph.D.