Hello! My name is Alaitz Aritza. I know weird name right? It’s Basque, which is a region that occupies parts of northern Spain and southern France where my father hails from. If you read much of this blog you’ll find that almost everything about me is equally weird, but that’s what makes me so interesting! I grew up in Salem, MA (yes where the witch trials happened), but moved to Claremont California to attend Pitzer College after finishing at Marblehead High School.
While studying there I designed my own major, which I called “Music, Culture and Cognition”. My major encompasses three separate semi-overlapping fields (can you guess which?): music, anthropology and neuroscience. I almost called it psychomusicology, but decided it sounded too much like a rare brain disease. Want to hear more about how these seemingly disparate interests come together? Check out some of my college essays!!
When I tell people what I majored in I am invariably met with one of two responses: “wow that’s so cool tell me more about it!!!” Or “so what kind of job can you get with that major?” If I had to choose another field to throw in there it would probably be environmental science, I’m pretty concerned with what we as a species, particularly us first worlders, are doing to the planet. When I wasn’t in class you could most likely find me playing sports, hiking, making music or chilling with friends.
I love to travel, learn about new places, cultures, food etc which was probably sparked in part by trips to visit family in Mexico and Spain when I was younger, and a semester abroad I spent in Ecuador during my junior year of college. Since graduating last May I’ve been roaming around a bit, spending some time in Colombia and Thailand before settling (temporarily) in South Korea to teach English at a middle school on Jeju Island through the Fulbright Program.
I have always loved to write, and though most of what you will find here is academic or travel based, I have started to delve a bit into creative writing with journaling, fiction and even some poetry. I also play guitar and sing, if you like acoustic stuff check out some of the songs I've recorded on my sound cloud, linked in the upper right hand corner. Feel free to explore at your leisure and/or shoot me an email with questions or comments.
