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What is your strongest personality trait?
- My go-to attitude. I am a doer. I don't sit around and wait for things to happen to me. And when problems occur, I like to think I jump to action and help drive a situation to its conclusion. I believe I get this from my mother. I get much of my drive and determination from her. I am the living, breathing result of a 1970's feminist child.
- (Interesting, I now feel frozen and indecisive. Will I be able to make a change in career?)
How would your friends describe you?
- She is driven. She is a bubbly person. She always tries to do what is right and helpful by everyone else, which can sometimes be detrimental to her sanity. In the process of doing what is expected or asked of her, she sometimes loses sight of her own needs. She is someone who has a lot to give, but sometimes doesn't know how to balance the pieces of her life to allow for that generosity to truly take effect. She doesn't know the meaning of the word, No.
What is a favorite book, movie, piece of art, etc? Why?
- Barbara Kingsolver's Animal Dreams. I'm not really sure why this is a favorite. Maybe I just read it at the right time in my life. Maybe I liked the relationships between the characters, the sense of loss and rebuilding of a life. I also really love the importance she gave to the place, its healing properties and magical, dream-like qualities.
- In general, I love things that make me look closer, once, twice, or twelve times. I love pieces that have an immediate but lasting emotional effect on me. Sometimes these effects and these pieces are unexplainable. I just want to be made to FEEL. I want my gut to respond.
Have you ever reached an epiphany in your life?
- Yes. RECENTLY. I realized that I have a tendency to get stuck in INERTIA, in a pathway that was my choosing and is respected/supported by everyone in my life, but then I realize that it may not be the right pathway for me. This is true in my professional and personal life right now. But at the same time, these questions fly through my mind: How dare I stand up for me? For my feelings?
- I must begin paying attention to me. NOW. Or forever hold my peace.
What are your greatest accomplishments? Why do you consider them so highly?
- Being a part of Samantha's life (my little cousin who ended up spending a year with my family, in a time of turmoil for her)--and I regret not being as strong presence in her life currently.
- Helping my grandfather and grandmother during his illness--I was able to be useful and caring and use my strengths to help them with things they struggled with. And I regret not spending as much time with my Grams now that she is alone.
- Going to school and doing well. High school, undergrad, and graduate school. For so long this was all I knew or expected of myself, and I committed to doing well.
- Creating groups of friends and communities in various facets of my life. I regret losing touch with some or many of them.
- Right now....the fact that I am actively and verbally admitting unrest. This is a first for me. I hope that I take this beginning and create the life that I really want. The time is now.
- Next...I hope the next big accomplishment will be making the change. Or, at the very least, beginning to make the change that I know I need to make.
What activities do you do outside the classroom that define you as a person?
- Directing/choreographing plays--I see these as vehicles for mentoring kids in an arena sometimes more meaningful than in a traditional classroom.
- ABC House--I am daily helping five boys in a very real, very tangible way. I am helping to provide comfort, family, and support to inner-city kids trying to find A Better Chance than they might find in their home neighborhoods.
- Ballroom Dance Club
- Advocating for a Theater and Dance program in a public high school.
- (......all of these activities are directed towards populations of kids who don't have an existing outlet in their communities or schools)
In what areas have you struggled and succeeded? Struggled and failed?
- BEST portfolio--to be certified to teach in CT, second year teachers face UNREAL pressures. I passed this portfolio, but not without much turmoil.
- Directing my first musical at this high-powered public high school.
- School, through all the levels.
- I don't have as many failures, but I think this is because I've played it safe. Maybe I need to stretch out of my comfort zone. For once in my life.
What are some difficulties you've had to endure and how have they changed you?
- This might be one of the most difficult things I will have to do--to break from INERTIA. I fear that this decision will help define me and my life hereafter. I just hope I make the right choice.
- I am proud of the difficulties I faced with Sammi and my Gramps--I love myself most when I do the right thing by me AND others.
Where and with whom would you like to be?
- Outside, walking or running with my puppy, with a notebook and my ideas in tow. Then, I would take a break, a long one at that, to play, bound, rest, and let my words flow. I want to let the writer's life take over. I want to commit to it, in combination with some yoga and dance. The more I think about it, the more I realize it could be. the. most. perfect. and. powerful. scenario.
How do you define success?
- Happiness. For me and for as many other people as possible. In thirty years, I don't want to doubt my path. I think I might if I staid in teaching. At least in an artist's life or a writer's life, I would have the opportunity to change and develop my focus, what I am working on. Could I go freelance?
- Success, to me, equals me as an old lady, sitting around a porch surrounded by my family (blood and gathered), laughing, telling stories, and loving life.
- I want a world of options and inspirations. A wealth of interest and knowledge and curiosity. Always. For my whole life.
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