Presenting mystery and promising several layers, silhouettes are in many ways like humans; the intermingling of light and dark is analogous to the complexity inside us, a by product of the varying perceptions and emotions that contribute to our personality. However, reality is fluid as opposed to the stillness of this picture, and I want people to look at me and humans at large from this perspective, to have the urge to go beyond the outline and to explore what those shadows encompass. 

My primary interest in participating in the college/correctional facility partnership this year directly stems from the fact that I was a part of the program last semester in Jody’s Multicultural Education course. Before I joined the group, however, one of the first motivating forces I was able to identify was the strong desire to challenge my understandings of incarcerated individuals as well as the prison system itself. In my own life I have never had a loved one or anybody I personally knew go to prison, and that is a privilege in itself. There is a staggering number of people who are incarcerated in the United States and an even larger number of families and friends who are affected by the U.S.

peripatetic. a person who travels from place to place. one who walks.

I've always had homes in many places. Places I've lived for years, places I've lived for moments over the years.I grew up traveling. We moved every few years, we had friends scattered across the country and globe. There was always a connection to be made, a person to see or stay with. New people to meet. The web of little homes around the world has always been there to keep me warm. 

The act of travel is wonderful and important to me in so many ways. It's also a place to think, to socialize. It's a door into new experiences, new people, new cultures. Nothing is more important to my growth and happiness than the ability to be in a new environment.  

     I love STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). I have a passion for STEM. This passion has been leading my life for years. It led me to want to be an engineer. It led me to challenge myself in math and science. It led me to take a wide variety of tech courses throughout my high school career. It led me to participate in Science Olympiad, and the go on to coach it. It led me to join FIRST Robotics. It led me to go to an excellent college that will prepare me for engineering in grad school and beyond.

This picture, which for the past two years has been the background on my iPad, is a front cover of one of my favorite books, The Blue Castle, by one of my favorite authors, L. M. Montgomery. This novel tells the story of a young woman named Valancy Stirling who, having always been constrained by disposition, family, society, and fear, finally learns to live her own life. I myself am a timid young woman; I have often let fear get in the way of what I want to do, and many of my fears are based on the expectations of my family and others. Thus, I both relate to and look up to Valancy: She represents what I am and what I could become.

see revised packet, attached

I have come to the conclusion that I am blue; the innermost, fleshy middle of it where things are lost. I am bluey, and I appear bluish, and I have been blued. 

I found this pcture a coupe years ago, on a popular blogging site that I sed frequently at the time. When I first saw it, I was struck first by the resemblance the hills held to my own home, despite having been taken in Kansas. The Golden Hills of California, I've been told, look like nothing more than dead grass to many people from lusher climes, but in this picture I felt that the true beauty I found in them was visible for anyone to see. The Hills, after all, are especially prone to burning, and much of this past summer I smelled smoke from fires miles away. Despite that destruction, I've felt homesick for both the land and people I've left behind, and this picture reminds me of the beauty that blooms directly in the wake of the yearly devestation.