For many people, the idea of foreign travel carries the thrill of the exotic. When on vacation in some distant locale, they might sigh, “I could stay here forever!” However, most people do not seriously entertain the notion of living abroad. Naturally, there are practical reasons for this: people’s livelihood tends to depend upon the local market; they balk at leaving behind friends and family; those inscrutable foreign languages give them pause. Yet even if those obstacles do not apply, most people do not leap at the chance to move to another country. There is even a trace of disdain, even contempt, for those who abandon their terra patria for foreign shores. Of course, this disapproval is urbanely concealed behind exclamations of admiration and envy for the footloose wayfarer. Nevertheless, there are those who do elect to expatriate themselves. But why leave everything beloved and familiar behind? There follows a list of what are, from what I have seen, the primary reasons behind the choice to live abroad.*
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Have you considered working from home? Have you wondered how to do it successfully? Well, I can’t even begin to tell you how to work from home, until I paint the picture of my own home office scenario.

My name is Kari Klein and I am the Manager of Global Performance for a technology company in the Boston area. I live in an apartment in Cambridge, with my neighbors Harvard and MIT. My home office is a small room off of our kitchen at the back-end of our apartment. I have a great desk and shelving setup (courtesy of IKEA), of mixed metal and wood. The shelves cover 3 out of the 4 walls, leaving some room for two windows, a closet door and the entryway into my office (no door).

I have an eclectic mix of stuff on my shelving…everything from business books to old magazines and journals that I’m keeping, folders of information that I once thought was important, binders of materials from my recent graduate courses, office supplies, framed photographs and of course, my treasured Red Sox and Celtics keepsakes. Like anyone else who has a home office, I have combined the professional and the personal information into one large blob of stuff that is somewhat organized all over my shelves. Ironically, I usually can locate things in their exact location, so I guess it’s working for me!
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