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A Bit about the World Traveler...
"As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more."--Psalm 103:15-16, KJV
Well, you've probably gathered from my index page that I'm a student. My home institution is Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. A native of the Hoosier State (ask me about the various folklore regarding why we call it that), my family moved to Colorado in 1993 and came back to Indiana in 1996. In 1999 I graduated from Heritage Christian School in Indianapolis, and in the fall of that year I enrolled at BSU with a full-ride academic scholarship.
I am currently a German and history major. This has changed several times, but it is unlikely to do so again, unless I decide to add some minors. (I am only three classes away from a biology minor, which is oh so tempting.) In addition to German, I have studied Russian for about two and a half years. At BSU, I managed to gain senior status in just two years of undergraduate study, so this is the first senior year of a probable three--sounds a little ridiculous, I know, but I desire a liberal education and don't mind taking five years to get that broad base before probably moving on to graduate school.
I love BSU and am a proud member of The Honors College, in which I have served as Director of Speakers and Campus Events on the Student Honors Council. I have also served as president of Ball State's German Club, whose website has unfortunately not been updated this year. However, you can still look there to see some of the things we did when I was President, if you care to. There are, for example, pictures of our production of Friedrich Dürrenmatt's Die Physiker.
Another great thing about BSU is its many study abroad programs. The school's initiatives in this area are of course what made it possible for me to spend a semester in Germany and a term at Harris Manchester College, Oxford, which will begin in mid-April. I love traveling, learning foreign languages, and studying history, geography, and other cultures. Life can be one of the best teachers of these things, and that's why I'm very happy to be able to see so much during this year overseas.
My loving family has helped a great deal in making my past travels, as well as my current travels, possible, and I'm very grateful to them for that. They have always been supportive, and my parents and family encouraged me to develop my intelligence when I was a child, although I used to read so much that my mother occasionally had to tell me to stop reading. ;-) In all seriousness, my family helped me to believe that I could become academically accomplished, and they, along with many teachers and professors, deserve a lot of credit for the fact that I'm living out academic success and cavorting about Europe these days.
In addition to travel, language study, and history, I also love literature, and my dream is to become a writer. Another hobby of mine is dancing, and by this I mean real dancing, i.e. ballroom. While I enjoy a little tango, cha-cha, and walzing, I am in love with swing dance, one of the great American dance forms developed along with our truly American music, jazz. Dance is a great way to express yourself creatively and an excellent method for partners to develop communication skills. I am also an avid theatregoer, and I enjoy acting. My most recent on-stage endeavour was to play Kriminalinspektor Richard Voss in Die Physiker at Ball State. Putting on the play in its original German was a great challenge, and the cast and crew had a lot of fun!
Take a look at my galleries!
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Back to Chris's Travel Photo Galleries 2--The Sequel!
