About Me

Jesi   (Writer/Founder)

I count myself as a lucky one. We didn’t do big grand vacations to Disney World or weekend road trips to Niagara Falls, but I did have a nomadic aunt, and was able to visit a handful of different cities in my youth. Thanks to my travels I knew that the world was a big ole place and that I was a just a little piece of it, but I also believed with all my heart that we all reserved the right to see as much of it as humanly possible.

When I graduated high school in 2004 I wanted to get far away from Paris, KY, out of state, out of gossips reach, but finances and skyrocketing college costs landed me at a wonderful in-state university (Western Kentucky University) where I received a full tuition scholarship and a Bachelor’s degree in English (2008).

 

A broken heart and a failed dream of writing for film and television forced me to take a teaching job in South Korea, as I hoped to get as far away from any semblance of what people thought I was supposed to do and be. 8,000 miles and an ocean between me and home bought me freedom and opened my eyes, once again, to the world that I so dearly wanted to explore.

An exciting study abroad experience in the U.K. during undergrad was quiet compared to my jungle trek in Thailand, my hostel stay in Vietnam and making S. Korea my new home away from home, but I realized that all of it mattered, and that all of it helped me grow and learn.

My love for writing never died, so I went to Northern Arizona University to receive a Master’s degree. There I blogged a little, published a novel online, blogged some more, gave up on writing altogether, blogged a little more, graduated and moved back home in 2012 to blog a little more. I then moved to Florida and nearly considered another degree before it hit me. “Let the beauty of what you love be what you do” (Rumi): I love traveling. I will travel.

Almost every single day of my life since 2005 is documented in a journal entry, and out of all those entries, my happiest moments, the ones containing the most clarity and insight, are the ones in which I am traveling. Writing doesn’t come to me, I must go to it.

I am a writer, a traveler, and a dreamer, but I seek to also be a community educator. I want to encourage kids that look like me, kids that come from where I came from, to look up and out of their current situations at the world around them, to not be discouraged by the lack of color displayed, and to dream, despite the odds and statistics.

Ghandi said, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”

I want to see little black girls and boys seeing other little black girls and boys see the world. I want them to want to see it, feel it and heal it themselves.

In 2013, I founded Chocolate Compass. With the help of generous donors, family and friends I hope to launch my program in 2014 and send our deserving youth on the educational and inspirational adventure of a lifetime.