Thursday, November 12, 2009

A Bit About Me

On the off chance that you are reading this and don’t actually know me, I will give you a little bio. If you do know me, well, you know I like to talk about myself, so here goes.

I am 25, living in Portland, Oregon, where I work as a Program Assistant/Office Manager for a refugee resettlement program. I really enjoy my job, even though I would rather be doing more direct service work (my bachelor’s degree is in Social Work). I love interpersonal work, and though primarily being a receptionist, I get to work with amazing people from all around the world on a daily basis. My coworkers are extremely diverse, many of them refugees themselves, and are all wonderful to spend time with.

I am currently in the process of applying to graduate school at Portland State University. I am hoping to enter the Masters of Public Health: Health Promotion program next fall. My goals are to work in nutrition and gardening education and efforts to get communities of all ages into the outdoors, being active, involved in nature, and reaping the physical and psychological benefits of being comfortable out-of-doors.

I currently live alone-- I have a small, beautiful Victorian apartment in Southeast Portland, which has always been my favorite part of town. I live close to work and almost all of my friends, have a great garden space, a home full of light, and live right on a busy bike route. My apartment faces south, away from the street, so it is quiet and sunny, and my garden gets several hours of direct sunlight every day in the summer.




My boyfriend, Matt, and I, try to get out of town and go adventuring as often as we can. For us, that means hiking, surfing, camping, or, should occasion require it, snowshoeing or rock climbing (ok, I’ve only done the rock-climbing thing once, but it was FUN). We are currently working on re-forging our relationship after breaking up this summer after a year together. It took some time, a lot of flip-flopping, and emotional hardship for us to get to where we are now. I know it won’t be smooth or easy for a long time even if we manage to see this through, and even though we have a lot of differences to work through and a lot of hurt to recover from, I feel good about our collective ability to love and communicate, and we are trying to form new ways of being together and compromising on the things that tripped us up before.





The basic components of my life in Portland besides work and boyfriend are 1) my awesome gang of friends, 2) making music, listening to music, and dancing to music, 3) gardening, 4) cycling, and 5) sustainable homemaking. This last one is a fairly recent endeavor for me, and something I will blog about separately, but it’s something that is very immediate to me and right at the core of my life right now. It’s a place in my life where I can put a lot of effort and see a lot of results, and where I can constantly make change.

So, there’s me, in a nutshell, if that’s possible. I am, after all, almost six feet tall and don’t fit in there very well.

2 comments:

Laurel said...

Wow, a whole bunch of stuff all at once. I enjoyed all your posts :)

Didn't know you and Matt were back together, but I think we are way behind in letters.

Heather said...

Glad you're starting/continuing this adventure. Glad I can be a part of it, by reading and following.