I'm Anjeli. My name, the beginning by which you know me, is a hybrid of the names Ann, Jessica, and Elizabeth (thank you, Mom.) I repeat it a lot, and often go by Anjie. Either works; call me what you will.....within reason.
Regarding me. I cannot be alone in finding it extraordinarily difficult to condense the experiences, relationships, circumstances, lessons, challenges, passions, losses and gains which have shaped me, into a blog post. I'll take my best shot at abbreviation, but if you ever want to know more, chase me down and I'll buy you coffee. I love coffee. And conversations. (But especially together.)
Okay, in we go.
I am second, out of six children. This is my family:
We're all mostly the same height, save that little dude in the middle. He's eight years old, almost died as a toddler, and one of my favourite friends.
I was raised on a small family farm, in the Flathead Valley of Montana. My father was an arborist, my mother a teacher, and together they home-schooled us crazy bunch.
I had a black Labrador ages two through fourteen, when she died while I was away volunteering at a summer camp. Three years later, I got this ecstatic spaz-attack of a pup:
Her name is Charlotte, but she goes by Charlie. She thinks she's a backseat driver. I'm kinda in love with her.
I'm an English-Writing major, I work for the University Newspaper, and I think I'll add a Sociology or Physiology minor. People, society, trends, emotions, behaviour, it all fascinates me. I've been writing since I was a young child. It's a way to counteract and release the swirl of chaotic thoughts, ideas, and tangents which continually occupy my mind. Writing consoles me through trauma, strengthens me through depression, sparks me through mind-blanks, and allows me to express and organize myself like none other. Writing turns my ADHD into short stories, poems, and essays with purpose and meaning. Here's the link to my personal blog, if you ever want a peek into this spastic mind: <www.acaseforcourage.blogspot.com>
Also, I space at 1.5 when I write. It's the perfect amount of distance between lines to think, without deceiving myself that I've written more than I actually have. That's not actually important, but you get to know anyway. Also, I own more shoes than I should.
I'm a musician. I've played the piano since a child, the guitar through my teens, sing incessantly, and just picked up the cello. It takes courage to learn a new instrument, even as a musician. But it's so, so good.
Oh hey! There's me again.
Lastly, I need to mention my friend Aaron. He and I were students in Professor Down's WRIT 205 class last year. Aaron was an incredibly talented, deep, cut-to-the-core, eloquent, fantastic writer. I have emulated his style ever since I had the privilege to read and respond to it. Then one day, during spring break, I received this email that said he had been in an accident during a senior trip in London. The world was touched for a very brief time by a very bright light, and is dimmer because of his absence.
We all miss you, Aaron. You wrote with guts, and always encouraged me to do the same. This one's for you.
I know we don't need to reply to introductions, but I wanted to say this about Aaron:
ReplyDeleteI agree with what you said, but I didn't know him very well at all. He was in my Linguistics class (LING 238) with Dr. Minton as well as in WRIT 205 (the one with you & Doug) the same (fall) semester. In 238, Dr. Minton told our class about the spring break Shakespeare trip in London as well as the info sessions for the trip. Aaron was set on going. In contrast to 205 where he sat directly across from me in our circle, he sat one desk in front of me in 238.
I remember he told a woman who sat next to him that he liked Shakespearean literature and was looking forward to the trip. ... I never told anyone this, but a thought crossed my mind one day when I saw him talk to Dr. Minton: "But what if you don't come back?" I felt bad for thinking that and so I tried to remove that thought from my mind, but I couldn’t really... Sometimes and scarily so, I get premonitions about the future. (Death, pregnancies and divorces are the main ones) In fact, during that week when the spring break trip was going on, I had a very bad feeling about something, but I couldn’t place the feeling at the time. Then… after I got an e-mail from my advisor telling me about Aaron’s passing, my gut told me exactly how he passed away and showed me a couple images (I don’t know if those images are accurate and honestly, I’m almost afraid to ask..).. I didn’t ask my advisor for any specific details because I didn’t think it was my business to ask. Then the next day in my LIT 300 class someone told me how Aaron passed away. It turned out that I was 100% correct …
I was truly saddened when I heard of his passing because he seemed like a nice person when I talked with him and I liked reading his discussions posts for WRIT 205. I remember (with amusement) he wrote one post when he was drunk and he said something about knowing it was 10 am and he was already drinking. I also really liked that chicken video he posted a link to on D2L – It was so random and I loved it lol. I also remember how he didn’t read any of the focus questions, but just wrote whatever he wanted over the articles we had to read in the discussion section of D2L. He seemed surprised, but laughed when he learned there were focus questions he was (sort of) supposed to address in his discussion posts. Also.. There was one time before class in 205 when he was taking a nap in one of chairs in the lobby area outside the classroom. Class was to begin in about 10 minutes and instead of letting him be late for class, I chose to wake him up. :). RIP Aaron.
Also, Anjeli, I'm sorry for your loss. I hope what I said didn't make things harder for you. I just felt the need to express my view and I hope that was okay.