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Became a human
I was born almost a full month early:) -
baby nerd
I had two older sisters who loved to read to me from a very young age...my sister Lisa said I loved to hold the book:) Both my parents would read to me to get me to take a nap or before bedtime...I guess I had no choice but to become a bookworm. -
Reading on my own
According to siblings/parents I was hooked on reading The Poky Little Puppy..it was the only book I would want to read. -
Other childhood books
I always had a book in my hand. I also was obsessed with glasses. I would steal my mother glasses and try to read with them on...im guessing I wasn't too successful. -
Eagle's Program
At my school students would take tests at the beginning of the year to help teachers put them in the right classes. Those that tested high would be put into the Eagle's Program which would cover more advanced topics in the area of Math, Science, English, and Music. -
Forensics
My parents forced me to participate in forensics. I never really wanted to join, but my teacher suggested it and then my parents made me do it. I competed in the storytelling category and won almost every year. -
Newbery Medal Books
My Eagle teacher, Mrs. Phelps, suggested I read books that had won a Newbery Medal. One of the first books I read from that list was Walk Two Moons. I pretty much made it a competition with myself to see how many I could read. -
My first complete collection
By this point I had a new book obsession which was The Chronicles of Narnia. I had already read all seven books at least 2 or 3 times, but was just checking them out at the school's library. Finally for Christmas my parents bought me a really nice set. -
The Westing Game
My teach required that we read this book for her class. This book was rather difficult for me, not because of the material that I had to read, but there were so many characters and I kept getting confused so eventually I had to get a notecard and write down info about the characters as I read. -
African American Literature
My 7th/8th grade teacher, Mrs. Buckholz, was one of the first teachers I remember teaching me about African-American Literature. She also really enjoyed quilting so she combined the two and requierd us to research/read about particular individuals and then made us make a patch about them. -
Espanol
This was the year that I started taking Spanish classes and absolutely fell in love with learning a new language. I loved how learning a language not only taught me the language itself, but also the culture and history. -
9/11
I was a junior in high school and I was just entering Spanish class when the teacher brought in a tv and let us watch the news of what was happening. I just remember everyone being completely silent...even throughout the day people just didn't talk. -
French Class
At this point I was doing fairly well in Spanish, so I decided I wanted to learn another language, French. I think learning multiple languages really helped my English, both written and spoken. I would continue to take french throughout college and of course I fell in love with le Petite Prince. -
ESL Classes
By this time I was a sophmore at St. Norbert College. I was a double major in Business Administration and Spanish. I absolutely loved the Spanish courses I was taking and eventually started to volunteer around town by offering ESL classes/tutoring. -
Mexico
The second semeseter of my sophmore year I moved to Guadalajara, Mexico for 6 months to finish some of my spanish requirements for my degree I was fairly fluent, or so I thought, but once I moved there I realized my reading, writing, and speaking skills needed a lot of improvement. It made me realize the limitations on your quality of life if you can't speak the local language. The picture is from a weekend trip out to a friends villa in Sayulita. -
Summer School
In order to graduate in a timely manner I decided to take a few summer school courses. Since I went to a Catholic university I was requierd to take two religious ed classes. I chose to take Women in the Bible for one of them and was really surprised by how much I liked the class. I was even more surprised by the amount of literature dedicated to women in the bible, with The Red Tent being of my favorite books. -
HARDEST ASSIGNMENT EVER!!
For your Spanish senior capstone, every semester the professors decide on the topic that will be discussed throughout the semester. Students are then required to pick a topic relating to the current topic studied in class and write about it. I had to write a 45-50 page essay on racism and its effects on nationalism in SPANISH as well as give a 30 minute presentation (in Spanish) with a Q&A at the end which basically allowed for the professors to grill you about your topic. -
Graduation
Graduation! I was the first kid in my family to graduate from college...my sisters, who helped teach me how to read, had gone to school, but dropped out only to go back in their later twenties and graduate, so technically I was the first. -
Moved to South Korea
I had been working at a surety firm, but was bored out of my mind. I wanted a challenge, so I accepted a job as an ESL teacher in South Korea since I had done some tutoring throughout college I figured I'd give this a go to see if I would want to pursue a career as an educator...I would later come to find out that teaching was not for me:) -
Volunteering
Before my return to the US, I decided to go visit my friend who was running several orphanages in Thailand. At the time they were trying to build a freshwater pipeline near a new school that was being built in northern Thailand near the Myanmar border. The focus was on helping these kids learn to read and write in the native language and English....English was the key to finding good employement opportunities in Asia. -
College...Again
Another round of college, only this time I knew what I wanted to be when I grewup....an engineer. I decided that I wanted to pursue a degree in Industrial Engineering and although I was older, 28 at the time, I was ready to become a college kid once more. Even though I had only been out of school for 5 years, I still had trouble getting used to bein in school and learning how to learn again. -
Writing technical papers
the toughest part of being back in school, particularly as an engineer, is the type of papers I have to write now are completely different from what I had to write for my previous degrees. These papers/reports were much more analytical and technical which requires a different style/technique in writing. -
social media
I'm still refusing to use most social media...with the exception of facebook becuase it's much easier to stay in touch with friends overseas.
