>> I went to Pomona.
I graduated in 2001, and I created my own major.
It was called political ecology, and the reason that I did that was because at that time,
there was no major in environmental analysis.
I worked, actually, with a few students and Rick Hasla to help create that,
and so I'm glad to see that it exists now, but I had to create my own.
That wasn't a bad thing for me.
I really enjoyed the challenge and the opportunity that it gave me,
in terms of developing my own course schedule and course load and really was able to focus
on the things that interested me.
After that, I spent a few years traveling.
I went to India for a year.
I was a yoga teacher, resulting went to Southeast Asia for six months.
Traveled a little bit in Europe, went back to Los Angles where I worked as a copy editor
and also as environmental education instructor at a children's museum.
At that point, though I loved my job, but I was sad because the salary was not high enough
to support me traveling, and so I went into the Peace Crops in Mauritania.
Left that and went to the South of France, where I taught English.
Left that and went to Moscow, where I taught English
and then essentially levied my foreign language skills into a job with the Foreign Service.