n; a Third Culture Kid (TCK) is a person who has spent a significant part of his or her developmental years outside the parents’ culture. The TCK frequently builds relationships to all of the cultures, while not having full ownership in any. Although elements from each culture may be assimilated into the TCK’s life experience, the sense of belonging is in relationship to others of similar background. (Pollock)
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Joy is an Arab-bred tropical girl currently living in Edinburgh. She’s fascinated with shawarmas, the occasional wanderlust moments, climbing (trees, walls, and mountains), creating her own wor(l)ds, and using the third person POV. This is one of the places where she aims to secure a place for herself in the universe: where she talks about where she’s gone, where she wants to go, and how she struggles – and makes friends – with life as it comes.
There’s more to come, of course; but until then, you’re welcome to hang around.
[All photos and entries are the properties of Joy unless otherwise stated.]
Of perpetual finds 
Hi Joy!
I have nominated you for the Liebster Award!
For more details check out my post:
Happy Blogging!
Hey, Christina! Thanks for the award! 🙂 I’ll try to accomplish this, too (even if I have no idea why you chose me to be one of the lucky few). See you around — at least virtually!
Hi Joy. I’ve been travelling all over your blog. I love your writing – about travel, about growing up, about places.
Thank you for following our blog. I hope you enjoy the stories of our journey, both inner and outer. And do please feel free to join the conversation.
Cheers, and happy travels, Alison
PS Philippines is definitely on our list!
Thank you, Alison and Don! I was already a lurker on your page way before I had a WordPress account, and I’d like to tell you that you two are great inspirations. That, and that because of you both, I now look forward to having someone in the future who’d love the things I’m passionate about, too. Haha. Cheers! And the Philippines would be pleased to have you over!
Hi Joy! Thanks so much for visiting our blog and for following! We hope you enjoy what we share. We love meeting fellow bloggers who have such similar interests as us. We look forward to your future posts 🙂
Haha, thank you, wisemonkeysabroad! Really really interesting choice of blog name. Haha I’d like to believe I’m a monkey abroad, too… just not sure about the wise part. 😛
Hi Joy. I just wanted to stop by and say thanks for following my blog. You have such an interesting story and even though my trip has been travelling long term rather than studying abroad, your post about reasons why people should study overseas really resonated with me.
Hi, Jo! Thanks for stopping by! 🙂 Yeah, I think that post about being an exchange student is also translatable to travelling/living abroad for the first time/being away from home/etc. Glad you found it as much of a personal realization as I did!
Sometimes I love being a third culture kid and sometimes I hate it, I still need to figure out how to reconcile my cultural identity
I know what you mean! Sometimes when people ask me where I’m from, I can never come up with a non-complicated answer. Haha… people usually just want one-word answers and no explanations.