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I've worked a lot of different odd jobs and it's contributed a lot to my worldview and personality. I've had the opportunity to meet so many different people from all walks of life and I've also been able to see some of the best and worst sides of people. It's also helped define my politics and how I think we should be addressing our national problems.
I spent a couple of days doing some roofing with my dad one summer in high school. It was unbearably hot, I was terribly afraid of heights and we were working on a roof in West Baltimore where we heard a lot of gun shots and saw a lot of horrible poverty. That experience taught me just how rough some people have it and that I should be grateful for having the opportunity to do something else with my life.
I worked as a bank teller while I was in college. I interacted with people who had millions of dollars in their bank accounts and others who were massively in debt. I was also constantly pressured to push credit cards and other loans on everyone including those who already had significant debt and were impoverished. I hated working there and it reinforced my views on wealth inequality and corporate malfeasance.
I love dogs and I've almost always had a dog that was a significant part of my life. I'm a physically active individual who enjoys being outdoors so my dogs usually compliment those personality traits. I also do consider myself someone who cares a lot about the welfare of animals and a big reason for this is likely my attachment to my own dogs, although my ideas on animal welfare extend beyond just dogs.
Bobby was my first dog. He was a Jack Russell Terrier who I owned throughout high school and college. He was extremely energetic which I thought was awesome. He could be difficult sometimes and he certainly challenged me as a first time owner (no one should get a JRT as a first time owner) but he was still an amazing pet who helped me grow and mature. When Bobby died I was devastated and I never wanted to own another dog again.
Charly is my second dog who I adopted from a shelter. I thought I'd never want another dog again but after about a year of Bobby being gone I realized I'd probably be the kind of person who just always has a dog. Charly is the complete opposite of Bobby, she's very calm and even shy sometimes, where Bobby was very bold and gregarious. She is my best friend and serves as a constant reminder of why I love animals so much.
I read a lot of books and if I'm not reading, I'm often watching authors speak or give interviews on YouTube. I've read a lot since I was very young so it's always been an important aspect of my life. The books I've read have had a profound impact on my politics, my worldview and also how I think about other people. The stuff I read usually affects my mood too, which I need to be mindful of when thinking of what to spend my time on.
This book is about a boy named Boris who is living through the siege of Leningrad in 1942. I read the book in the fourth grade and it gave me a realistically bleak depiction of the reality of warfare (war tends to be glorified to young kids especially boys). The book also sparked my interest in World War II and led me to do a lot of side reading on the war. This was one of the first historical books I read so I credit it with being an early influence on my interest in history.
This book describes how the US Justice Department has been unwilling to prosecute any Wall Street executives for the multitude of corruption scandals that have occurred since Enron went down in the early 2000s. Reading this book increased my cynicism towards the government and the legal establishment in general, and further reinforced my political views.
My family is a very important part of my life. I often do things with my family in mind and I don't make major decisions without considering my parents. Almost my entire extended family is here in the DMV so I grew up with all of them around me. My core group of friends have also grown up with me so now as adults we share a very close bond. I spend almost every weekend with my friends, which is a bit difficult to do for most adults but is an important priority for me.
As I was finishing my teaching degree I interviewed for and was hired by a school district just outside of San Francisco. I was very excited to go but my mom made me promise her that if Montgomery Blair offered me a job I would stay (she lives very close by). Of course, Blair offered me the job so I stayed here. As excited as I was about the prospects of living in California, I'm happy that my parents are happy I'm close to home. They are super important to me and in my culture it's usually very important that the children take care of their parents when they're adults.
My sister works for the State Department so she gets sent to work at different countries. She was in the Dominican Republic for two years and I got to visit her last year. I took my best friends with me and we had a great time. I don't get many chances to travel since I work all year so it was a really fun experience for me. I appreciated being able to see my sister and spend time with my closest friends.
I went to the University of Maryland after high school and it was the site of many of my formative experiences. I met a lot of people, made great friends and went out of my comfort zone to do lots different things. I matured a lot during college and became more of who I am today.
As an elective I took an introductory Electrical and Computer Engineering course. I'm not great at math and have only basic competency with computers so I didn't think I'd enjoy the class but I took it because it was different from the social science courses I was used to. The course ended up being incredibly interesting and engaging. We did a lot of hands-on projects and the professor made the seemingly complicated very simple and straightforward. It ended up being one of my favorite courses I took which I didn't expect at all going in.
I participated in the Summer Transitional Program which is when incoming freshmen are allowed to take courses starting in the summer to get a head start on their college careers. We stayed in Marie Mount Hall and it was an amazing experience. To this day many of my closest friends are those who I met in that program. We did a lot of fun social stuff but the academic component was also very beneficial for my college readiness.
The five major personalities in the movie Inside Out are sadness, joy, fear, disgust and anger. These emotions manifest themselves in me in a number of different ways.
Clinical depression runs in my family so I try my best to take care of my mental health. However, I do still sometimes feel sad about things. I recently read Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad which describes a mans journey deep into the Congo Free State and all of the horrible things he saw there. It's a sad story and it made me feel a little sad reading it.
Everyone likes to feel happy and fortunately I've had a lot of fun experiences. One of my favorite experiences was turning in my senior thesis paper in college because it was my final undergraduate assignment and it took me almost a year to write. I felt a huge sense of accomplishment and it's still one of my proudest achievements (picture is of Antonio Gramsci, a philosopher who influenced my thesis paper topic)
I have a pretty bad fear of heights. Working on roofs as a teenager was a scary experience for me and to this day I feel a lot of anxiety when I go on flights. I manage the fear pretty well and I don't really let it affect my life or travel, but it's still something I deal with.
I once met a guy who worked at an egg factory in southern Virginia. He described the horrible conditions the hens lived in and how miserable the work itself was too. I felt physical and moral disgust for the conditions of the factory and the treatment of the animals and workers. It reinforced my negative opinion of the corporate food industry.
Unfortunately a lot of things make me angry especially in American politics. Something that makes me angry is climate change denial because to me it's more than just ignorance, it's willful malevolence from our corporate overlords who choose to prioritize their short-term profits over the long-term survival of our species. They know better, and choose to act the way that they do which is different from someone who truly believes climate change is a government hoax.