About me and my blog
Sonoma Valley in August 2011
The history of The Little Jogger is a long story. In short, it's a healthy-living blog written by a dietitian. To get more of the background, why there was two-year hiatus, and the reason there are so many posts about Australia, continue reading.
Many years ago in 2010, I started this blog to share my day-to-day life as a Chicago-born American expat abroad in Australia. I moved there in 2009 to be with my Australian boyfriend-turned fiance-turned husband Alastair (or Al, for short). We met in Los Angeles in December 2007, started dating six months later, and the rest is history.
We didn't always intend to live in Australia, however. He moved to Chicago in 2008 to try to start a life there, but he couldn't get a job with the economic crisis. I was in graduate school for psychology at the time, embarking on a five-year clinical Psy.D program. Unfortunately, I was miserable in school and realized after a short while that 1) I was not ready for graduate school and 2) I did not want to be a psychologist. I figured that moving to Australia with Al would give me time to figure out what I wanted to do. Plus, how many opportunities do you get to live in another country?
My idea to write a blog came over a year after moving there. I was terrible about updating my Facebook page, but I still wanted my friends and family to know what I was doing. I was reading a lot of healthy living blogs at the time, and as a person who has always been invested in exercising and trying to eat better, I incorporated that into my blog. It was through working on The Little Jogger that I figured out my career path: I wanted to be a registered dietitian. In this post, I announced I was moving back to America to pursue a very different career path from psychology.
After two wonderful years in Australia, I moved back home to start the rigorous schooling process. I took a full year of prerequisite courses since I never took biology or chemistry classes as a psychology major. I was accepted into University of Illinois at Chicago's Coordinated Masters in Nutrition program for Fall 2012. I graduated in Fall 2014, passed the RD exam in February 2015, and started working in March. (Stay tuned for more in-depth posts on the RD process.)
Sadly, my blogging discipline waned when I moved back to the U.S. I put all of my focus into my school work and neglected my passion project. The more time I spent away from it, the harder it was for me to start writing again. Now feels like a better time than ever. Let's DO this!
As for the name of my blog, I am a small human at 5 feet and three quarters of an inch tall who likes to jog. I'm planning to run my first half marathon this summer.
Thanks for reading!
-Jen
Many years ago in 2010, I started this blog to share my day-to-day life as a Chicago-born American expat abroad in Australia. I moved there in 2009 to be with my Australian boyfriend-turned fiance-turned husband Alastair (or Al, for short). We met in Los Angeles in December 2007, started dating six months later, and the rest is history.
We didn't always intend to live in Australia, however. He moved to Chicago in 2008 to try to start a life there, but he couldn't get a job with the economic crisis. I was in graduate school for psychology at the time, embarking on a five-year clinical Psy.D program. Unfortunately, I was miserable in school and realized after a short while that 1) I was not ready for graduate school and 2) I did not want to be a psychologist. I figured that moving to Australia with Al would give me time to figure out what I wanted to do. Plus, how many opportunities do you get to live in another country?
My idea to write a blog came over a year after moving there. I was terrible about updating my Facebook page, but I still wanted my friends and family to know what I was doing. I was reading a lot of healthy living blogs at the time, and as a person who has always been invested in exercising and trying to eat better, I incorporated that into my blog. It was through working on The Little Jogger that I figured out my career path: I wanted to be a registered dietitian. In this post, I announced I was moving back to America to pursue a very different career path from psychology.
After two wonderful years in Australia, I moved back home to start the rigorous schooling process. I took a full year of prerequisite courses since I never took biology or chemistry classes as a psychology major. I was accepted into University of Illinois at Chicago's Coordinated Masters in Nutrition program for Fall 2012. I graduated in Fall 2014, passed the RD exam in February 2015, and started working in March. (Stay tuned for more in-depth posts on the RD process.)
Sadly, my blogging discipline waned when I moved back to the U.S. I put all of my focus into my school work and neglected my passion project. The more time I spent away from it, the harder it was for me to start writing again. Now feels like a better time than ever. Let's DO this!
As for the name of my blog, I am a small human at 5 feet and three quarters of an inch tall who likes to jog. I'm planning to run my first half marathon this summer.
Thanks for reading!
-Jen
