Self Assessment

An activity during the two college courses I took with Mary Lou Kish, one of my favorite professors at Ithaca College, was a self assessment. Part way through the semester, we would write about our experiences so far and what we foresaw for the rest of the class. In today's entry, I've decided to lay out some similar text I composed earlier this week as part of a response to a craigslist post. I figured you'd also enjoy a catchup to where I am today in my life.

Part of my passion is in the technical industry. Specifically, it lies with the Mac, and I spend much of my time following this realm. Part of my work is also committed to a handful of local individual users whose computing experiences I help improve with patience and guidance. Another passion is for environmental awareness and Earthly care. This clashes somewhat with my Mac interests due to the toxins and heavy metals used in computer production so far. However, I do my best to balance the two.

Two of my other jobs engage me environmentally: Part of the year I work for the DC Government on green programs; the other part I've started spending with the Teva Learning Center, a Jewish environmental education program for day school students in New England. The latter is the better because it keeps me outside a lot, hiking trails and talking to people about cool, green possibilities and more, and because I get to engage with an awesome community.

My third deep interest is in effective communication, which guides my work described so far. My fourth job, meanwhile, is at the Adams Morgan Farmers Market; I feed my desire to be fed numbers—in addition to delicious food—and speed customers through the line, and I get to prove my Tetris skills while loading the truck at the end.

Free time? Sure, I've got that, too. I love bicycling and use my bike both for exercise and for getting there. Frisbee and tennis are my favorite other athletic activities. Indoors, I follow a handful of TV shows (mostly crime and sci-fi), love to cook delicious meals that don't take too much effort most of the time, and spend hopefully not too much time playing driving games on my PS2. Better to drive recklessly on the screen than in real life, let alone drive at all. And then there are movies, best watched at home with company, and with cinnamon-infused popcorn (a new specialty) made moments before and smoothies.

To account for my desire not to drive due to a personal impact on fossil fuel use, my politics are quite left and fuel my drive to spread common sense in the world. My overarching goal in life: to educate people from an environmental perspective and influence them to move from pieces to peace.