I thrive on structure and routine. Pre-COVID-19, a fair amount of the structure and routine in my life depended on external factors. School, spending time with friends, going to the gym. I still am doing those in some form, but the specifics of what they look like have changed radically. It’s been an adjustment, for …
My brother’s birthday is two days after Christmas. Every year I’ve lived in Mississippi, I’ve gone home for Christmas, and stayed for my brother’s birthday. This year, for his birthday, my brother wanted to do brunch, and he wanted to have eggs benedict at his brunch. That morning, when my mom was getting ready to …
I started working on my Master’s degree in Elementary Education in Fall 2018. I got in to the Teach For America Graduate Fellows Program, and it meant that I would have the opportunity to pursue a master’s degree and a social entrepreneurship project. Grants would cover my tuition and be available to fund my project. …
The first time I heard Hamilton was in 2015. I was in college, and one of my roommates shared it with me. I was hooked quickly, listening to it non-stop for a few months, then still listening to it really frequently throughout the next several years. When Hamilton was going on tour, A friend of …
I’ve been fascinated by thru-hiking for years. It started when I was at church camp and saw part of the North Country Trail, with it’s blue blazes through the woods near camp. Someone told me that the NCT was going to be a long trail, like the Appalachian Trail. Much later, I read Carrot Quinn’s …
It is always cheaper to fly out of New Orleans than Jackson. When I was making summer travel plans, I booked the cheapest flight out of New Orleans, which happened to be leaving New Orleans at 6:45 this morning. My roommate had agreed to drive me, but neither of us were interested in leaving Jackson …
I turned 26 three weeks ago, which sparked a significant realization for me: I’m not that far away from being thirty. In fact, I am actually closer to being thirty than I am to being twenty, even though me being twenty doesn’t feel that long ago. Still, there’s time to do a lot in the …
I am a profoundly future-oriented person. I obsess over it, I plan incessantly. I’ve made it through the first eighth of my two year commitment, so it’s feels very urgent that I work out what comes next. For some time, I was seriously considering going to seminary after TFA. That, or continuing to teach and getting …
Design is all about process, and that’s especially true of large, long-term projects. This semester, I’m taking Collaborative Projects, and we’re working with the Grand Rapids Public Museum to create a traveling exhibit. The first step in the our process was research. On the first day of class, we went to the Van Andel Museum …