David Ranzolin
Posted: February 12, 2009

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Heather Lanier claims to love her home California. However, this is difficult for her friends to believe, since she is constantly brooding to escape it. Heather is, by her own definition, a "wide-eyed globetrotter." Vacationing at home is just not her style.

This is not to say Heather is a mere, simpleton tourist. She is emphatic that the role of a "wide-eyed globetrotter" is quite different. "A real wide-eyed globetrotter" is not just anyone who takes pictures to just show off to their friends when they get home," she assures me. "It's about looking hard for the things you've never bothered to see - in yourself, and in the world."

Seeing the world has become somewhat of a life philosophy for Heather. "I have always embraced change," she says. "I fly into a new country and I forget that I lived anywhere else. I pick up the customs, the jargon, the taste for the food. I shrug off one life and step into another as though it were as easy as trying on clothes in the dressing room." Thus, globetrotting is also a method of self-discovery for Heather. "I travel to see more of myself," she says.

The traveling bug caught Heather at a young age. She remembers long jaunts with her family across America when it wasn't exactly the destination that excited her but that she was going somewhere. "It was the feeling of seeing more that got me addicted," she recalls. This desire to see more has led Heather all over Europe and the United States. As a junior nursing major, she hopes to get involved in mission work.   

There is still obvious tension between loving her home and loving to leave. "I'm struggling hard with the idea of being free and belonging to something, to someplace, to someone. I guess I'm just trying to find that balance," she laments. It is that sense of belonging which keeps Heather in California and at PUC, albeit momentarily.