I am a product of small-town America. Born in Salisbury, North Carolina, my siblings and I grew up in a town of less than 5,000 people called Welcome. Recently, my hometown has been in the news due to the election of Sheriff Gerald Hege, whose extreme treatment of criminals and suspects has often been called into question. Nonetheless, Welcome is a charming town seated deep in the heart of tobacco country.

I attended Welcome Elementary School, North Davidson Middle School and graduated from North Davidson High School in 1996. During my high school career, I was active in the high school band and orchestra, where I learned to play flute, french horn, and mellophone. Although I haven't played any of these instruments since I graduated from high school, I consider music instruction to be a priceless and infinitely rewarding addition to any child's life. After a brief visit to Chicago in 1994 I fell in love with the city and applied to Bradley University during my senior year of high school. Originally, my intention was to study fine arts, communication or journalism.

However, during the summer of 1996 I volunteered with an organization called International Teams which is based in Prospect Heights, Illinois. Although my original goal was to travel with the organization to Bolivia, I was instead assigned to work with an inner-city children's camp called Club Arco Iris in La Villita, the south section of Lawndale. During this time, I was given the opportunity to work under the direction of a group of individuals who were incredibly devoted to the lives of Lawndale citizens. After living and working with the children of La Villita, I learned about the dire conditions of some city schools and the desperate need for good teachers. When I began school at Bradley in August, I changed my major from Fine Arts to Elementary Education with a concentration in Spanish.

During the Spring of my sophomore year (1998) at Bradley I was given the opportunity to study for a semester at the Universidad de Sevilla in the southern region of Spain. I lived with a wonderful Spanish family while I attended the university, taking classes in everything from Contemporary Spanish Art to Spanish Syntax. I traveled to various cities throughout Spain, my favorite of which was Ronda. The laid-back, sun-scorched Spanish attitude is something that I miss every day. Through the efforts of my native friend Maria Carmen Domíngez Pacheco, I was an active participant in both the celebrated Semana Santa and La Feria de Abril.

I returned to Bradley in August and continued my studies in education. After living and working in Peoria throughout the summer and school year, I was anxious to get back to North Carolina for the summer. The summer of 1999 I was hired as a whitewater rafting guide by Cherokee Adventures, a rafting company based in eastern Tennessee. I lived on the Cherokee Adventures property in a shanty (affectionately called a "bungalow")with several other guides. My boss believed that the best training was experience training, and so each morning for two weeks, four other trainees joined me in a raft barrelling out of control down the class IV rapids of the Nolichucky River. It was during this time that I met my roommate and best friend, a stray kitten who was drowning in the flood-stage water. A friend and I discovered her when we were kayaking and I adopted her. Another guide named her "Noligator" after one of the hideously over-used river jokes made during the daily safety talk.

I returned to Bradley in August, where I began novice teaching in the third grade with Mrs. Heinz at Glen Oak Primary School in Peoria. Later that year I started my student teaching semester, working with Mrs. Reynen at Mossville School in Chillicothe, Illinois. I had a delightful semester teaching and being taught by the students in my class. Working in a rural community like Chillicothe provided an interesting contrast to my work in the Peoria City Schools.

I am living in Baltimore, Maryland working as a third grade teacher at Harford Heights Intermediate School, which is part of the Baltimore City School System.