Once upon a time not so long ago a little baby girl named Morgan was born. Her parents were proud of her lack of abnormal physical traits, and were happy to have conceived such a little wonder. Twenty-five years later as she is still finishing her Bachelors degree, has moved back in with them, and spends all her money frivolously on her “not very lady like hobbies” like surfing, travelling, “weird e-lec-ton-ic” music and “funny looking” clothes.

Shortly after she moved back in, her loving parents began doubting their parenting skills and began thinking “maybe we did something wrong”. To ensure they were not viewed as “bad parents” or even worse “failures” they began questioning little Morgan about “where she her life was going”. Shortly after this leery-line-of-interrogation began, Morgan surprised her parents and got herself a career job, not only a proper job but one that could make any father proud. However, Morgan objective was slightly different than what her parents hoped for.

Unbeknownst to her now content parents, Morgan began siphoning a small portion of her earnings to “the get out of monotonous fund”. Within a few months she brought a plane ticket to the other side of the world! She not only was leaving her stable government job, but she was also leaving the safety of the first world to spend months honing her surfing, sunning, laughing, bullshitting, and procrastination skills in South East Asia. Her parents scared for their “silver lining”, and began conceiving a plan to scare her from fleeing.

On a weekly basic they would present Morgan with horror stories of bird flu, earthquakes, wars, terrorism, shark attacks and whatever sensationalized news they could get their eager hands upon. If they only knew the affect these snippets had on Morgan, they would certainly stop this modus operandi. However, Morgan would do her best not to argue and instead read the articles and reassure her mother. She would argue “that earthquake was in Sumatra mom, I’m travelling in South Indonesia”; “MUM, you can’t get bird flu from eating cooked birds, only from being around live birds. I promise I won’t try to get too friendly with any winged friends.”; “No mom, I WILL be careful…I really don’t think any pirates are going to attack me while I’m surfing” (Ok the last one is made-up, but you get the point).

As the time to depart got closer and closer Morgan continued to read all the information she could find on her destinations; watched National Geographic highlights on the ancient cultures of South East Asia; drowned in fantasies about what she could learn and where she could go; and spent as much time as she could with her friends doing fun things like going out and dancing her ass off at Limerick Junction, Celebrities, and Republic, helped friends find lost balls at pitch and putt, went to climbing gyms, rode around on her bike as fast as she could, sent too many text messages, got involved with the wrong boys, and generally had fun and was very happy.

On Sept 9th Morgan landed in South East Asia, and the story goes on from there.