About Me

If I was to define myself in internet tabs, these would be them.

 

 

1)  Blogger: Saman... I'm a writer.  I can remember identifying as such since the 4th grade, when I won a statewide writer contest for my age group.  The story was about a royal mouse romance, a furious frog, and a cow that played the banjo.  My favorites forms of writing are journaling and letter writing.  Blogging is something I do by default of my thirst to share and my generation's easy ability to do so.  I don't particularly like sitting in front of a computer screen for long durations of time... but, oh well.

2)  Big Future - My Or... ganizer.  I like to be organized.  I try my best and I am constantly learning new ways of organizing, prioritizing, and goal-setting.  This tab would bring you to the CollegeBoard website.  I left college (Elon University, private liberal arts school) after 2 terms & and the realization that I couldn't afford to stay without accruing massive amounts of debt.  I didn't like the idea of being fresh out of the financial starting gate, and already digging myself into a hole of debt.  I worried that potential debt would keep me tied down from traveling and lots of the experiencial work opportunities that I deperately craved.  I decided that if I was determined enough to get my education, I would find it wherever I went.  When I went back to school, I decided, I would do it with a financially responsible gameplan.  After leaving college, I did a great deal of traveling.  Shortly thereafter, I was accepted to two of the nation's greatest domestic community service programs.  More on that when we get to the fifth tab.

3) 25 worlds most be... autiful libraries!  I want to visit all of them.  Libraries are my happy place.  Library work is my passion, second only to living, and tied with writing.  I love that there is an institution where knowledge is made accessible to everyone regardless of who they are or what they can afford.  I want to work in some of the world's greatest libraries and I would like to earn an education helps me make greater contributions to the world of libraries.  Combine that with my thirst to travel the world, explore and understand culture - and you will often find me browsing sites like this one.

4) Welcome to Faceb... My generation's collective attention span is shrinking.  Of that I am afraid.  With the shrinking came a great revolution of the way humanity communicates in my developed chunk of the world.  Facebook.  Pin.  Twitter.  Tumble.  Tweet.  They sound more and more like pet names, less and less like conversations, sharing, and meaningful interactions.  Alas, there is pros and cons to everything.  There's a growing challenge to balance your time on the computer and your time out in the world.  It is a balance that I suspect I will struggle with for the duration of my life, but I am greatly appreciative of all the sustained connections that the realm of online social networking has enabled.  With this appreciation, I must confess that I greatly look forward to reprieves from the great and beautiful social networking mess.  I feel lucky to have known the world without it.  I feel like to operate in a world that has it.

5) AmeriCorps is an incredible national service organization, the funding of which should never be cut from the national budget.  AmeriCorps first came into my life when my grandmother casually mentioned having heard of it.  When she mentioned it, I was in my junior year of high school and I was trying to figure out how I was going to afford my tertiary education.  I remembered AmeriCorps when I made the decision to leave college.  I found the AmeriCorps NCCC program and applied for it.  After applying to be an AmeriCorps NCCC corpsmember, I was invited to apply to a sister program: the Backcountry Trails Program.  I applied and was accepted to both.  From April 2012 - September 2012 I lived and built trail in the woods of San Jacinto State Park and Yosemite Nat'l Park.  It was easily the most incredible summer of my life.  In October 2012, almost immediately after my service with the BTP, I began my service with AmeriCorps.  My community service and leadership development work with this organization will continue in the SW region of the United States until my tentative graduation in July 2013.  With these programs, I earn scholarship money for school, job/life experience, countless skills (from wildland firefighter & dry stone mason to Boys and Girls Club activity facilitator and library volunteer), and friendships (with a diversity of people ages 18-24 from all over the country) to last a lifetime.

6) Tolland Public Sch... ool.  Tolland, CT is part of me - no matter how far I travel away or how complicated it becomes to answer the question, "Where are you from?"  Both of my parents were raised in Tolland.  It is the same town in which they decided to raise both me and my brother.  I belonged to the same school system from the time I was in pre-school until the day that I graduated.  My angsty teenage self did not appreciate what a beautiful opportunity that was until the day I graduated, walking down an aisle in the high school gymnasium.  I was surrounded by faces I had know my entire life.  My best friends were in the room.  Teachers who I admired and respected filled the front row seats.  The valedictorian and the salutorian were both people that I cared for a great deal; both people that I would seek out and visit in my post-college travels.  Tolland is the hometown that, when I go back to it, I run into countless memory stained places and too-long-since-seen faces.  I will always appreciate the upbringing that I received there.  "It takes a village to raise a child," they say.  I say that, in Tolland, CT, I got that village - and more.