It is long overdue that I sit down and reflect on the year. Each year I am required to do so through the Honors Program at the University of Cincinnati, but it could not have aligned more perfectly with where my life is right now.
Let me begin with one word, chaos. 2016 was straight chaos. Maddening, exciting, escalating, stressful, and empowering chaos. When I last reflected on my year, it was around this same time in 2015. I was in the midst of the summer of a lifetime, serving as a SOL (Student Orientation Leader) for the University of Cincinnati. Being a SOL was dramatically life changing. I had the time and resources to learn a lot about myself, UC, and others. I was able to better find my role within the university. It was extremely rewarding, I learned so much, and it made me extremely grateful to be a student at such a remarkable university. My SOL team are my SOL-mates and they are like family to me. I genuinely mean it when I say I would do anything for them. The experience of being a SOL also made me extremely aware of my weaknesses, my points to grow.
I was just like my university in many ways, young but maturing, curious, learning, and undergoing an experience that would forever change the way I thought about life. Like my university, I may have faced many challenges but I wouldn’t change a thing and truly feel I am where I am meant to be.
Since that summer, I moved down to Clifton, on Bishop Street. I am nestled next to Burnet Woods and the EPA. At the same time, my mother moved out of my childhood home into a more appropriate house very close to my brothers' high school and much closer to Clifton. This was a weird thing to see happen, especially because I really wasn’t part of the process. I feel like all of my things were just put into boxes and I haven’t really seen them since the move. However, I like the new house and am happy to be moving on from the past a bit. Its good to see my mom in a new setting.
During my first semester I took some great courses but two really stood out. One was Interpersonal Relationships. It was taught by Dr. Evan Griffin, a dynamic and energetic teacher and one I think that all professors could learn from. His expertise was evident and his passion was contagious. This class was a nice mix between psychology, sociology, and communication theory and it was a lot of fun. It also was with one of my best friends, Veronica Nuñez which made it more entertaining and also really helped when it came to studying. Veronica has a great work ethic and is very organized, and I learned from being around her in a classroom setting. I am very thankful for the life lessons I learned from Evan on being compassionate, a present member of society, and lastly and perhaps most important to me a skilled mentor. I got the chance to share his wealth of knowledge combined with my experience consulting student organizations at the annual UC ElectHer Conference this year. Getting to speak in front of a plethora of women, many who inspire me, was very humbling.
The other course that really impacted me was Writing About Writing, an honors Intermediate English course with professor Gary Vaughn. The class focused on writing about other pieces of writing, from scholarly articles, to poems, to short stories. The class truly brought me back to the pen, and gave me a lot of confidence in my ability to write with voice and clarity. I learned valuable research methods, further engaged with the honors community, and reflected on many experiences on my own life while articulating my passions onto paper. Professor Vaughn was very passionate about his students and kept class fun and entertaining with daily jokes, bits of media on writing techniques and more. This class paired really well with a course I took on PR writing. Both of these courses really helped me develop the habit of writing consistently and using good writing techniques and habits. While I have always written in different forms from papers, articles, poems, etc, this got me back in the habit I had sort of slid off from. I am very thankful for this experience and for the gracious letter of recommendation that Professor Vaughn penned for me that helped me win an awesome award (that many other people deserved more than me!) this year. So, if you're reading this, thanks again!
Possibly as a partial side effect of being a SOL, I became very involved on campus this year. I continued to be involved with Student Activities Board, a board of 25 students whose job it is to help create new organizations on campus, promote and regulate current student groups, and register organizations every year. This role was particularly challenging as I served as a liaison between University Funding Board and Student Activities Board and was faced with challenging what the role is and what it’s purpose was. Through the input of myself and other people on UFB and SAB we completely changed what the role will look like going forward to hopefully make it more effective and a positive experience and relationship between boards. I am excited to see this change go about. I am very proud to be on SAB at this time because I think now more than ever we are questioning our role on campus and trying to make ourselves as accessible as possible while streamlining the registration process. I am proud to serve as the External VP for the upcoming school year. It has been tough to balance this summer with an unexpected (but welcome) Co-Op opportunity, but I am grateful all the same. I also served as a co-marketing director for the Undergraduate Student Government. This role was very eye-opening and I feel that it taught me a lot about how SG at UC operates. We were presented with a very dynamic year at UC, and I think we responded well. I feel like this gave me a great opportunity to meet the amazing leaders on UC’s campus. I am proud to say I helped initiate a campus wide newsletter and helped in the initiation of the #SGWorksForYou campaign. To be honest, if I could go back I would try to be more involved and put more effort into the position. I am glad to have this experience and realize this because it will benefit me moving forward. I know where I think I lacked and I plan on growing in those areas. Leadership training through SG also showed me that I have a number of strengths. In my Strengths Finder test, some of my top 5 strengths were adaptability, empathy, WOO (winning others over), communication. One of the areas I can improve is focus and organization.
Lastly, I joined (another!) organization, called Programs and Activities Council. PAC is such an amazing student organization that also faced a tumultuous year. PAC is a student board that completely plans, markets, budgets, and executes campus wide events that are completely free for students. These range from comedy events, movies, special events (speakers, ziplines, crafts), to a huge spring concert. The people I met through this organization have truly become some of my best friends and it is tough to imagine UC without them now. PAC is so much fun to be a part of and I get to think about Marketing strategy, media production, and event planning for some REALLY cool events. One of the highlights of this was getting to hang out with the Upright Citizens Brigade at Keystone. UCB is an improv group from NYC whose previous members have included Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Aziz Ansari, etc. I am extremely excited to bring in some new PAC babies (as we lovingly call ourselves) this year as the Membership Co-chair. Trust me; if you’re a student at UC, you’re going to wish you applied to PAC.
Yada yada, the point is I’m very happy and proud to be a Bearcat and I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. Also folks, I officially declared my major. I am now a Marketing student (Lindner College of Business) with a Communications minor (McMicken A&S) and an Urban Planning Certificate (DAAP). This unique blend will help me express my creative side while also uniquely prepare me for nationwide and B2B markets. (I can explain more on this if you reach out to me!). One very cool thing I got to do this year as a part of this was an in depth study of the Cincinnati neighborhood of Northside.
Listen, I love Northside. It is one of the most unique neighborhoods in Ohio, and ultimately the country. Through the community meetings and citizens’ movements, they shut down both a highway project that would’ve torn their neighborhood apart and a Walgreens invasion. Northside likes to keep it weird, and they’re really good at it. Economically, it is not a poor or rich neighborhood but houses a very diverse mix of incomes. This is also true of race and religious backgrounds. It works through the committed efforts of the Northside community and solid community values such as uniqueness, family, and commitment to quality. There are weekly farmers markets, small businesses, a toy factory, and soon to be Apple Street Market which is completely funded by community members all over Cincinnati through small consistent donations of about $20 over the past decade. I got to work with Peggy Wood through this experience who is part of the empowering and experienced Wood sister duo. They truly embody Northside. Both were co-owners of the previous Northside book store, Crazy Ladies – a feminist literature store that existed before this was a “thing” in mainstream society. Now, Peggy works in Northside neighborhoods flipping homes. She knows more about construction that anyone I’ve met and she let me work with her for a bit – I learned a lot (and got my hands dirty). Her sister Maureen has advocated for education, families, and women for years. She has secured millions in grants for different organizations and currently lives in an art studio and dance hall in Northside. Unfortunately she has to sell her home (hopefully to a loving owner), but this Art Gallery/Home/Organization hall has walls that talk and tell the story of a woman who has been a hero for culture and women for decades. I also discovered through this experiment some of my own family history. My great grandparents lived in Northside, as well as aunts and uncles, we even have photo albums filled with pictures of the 1937 flood in Cincinnati. My great-grandfather worked in an auto parts factory during his teens that is now a trendy café called Ruth’s in Northside. I am proud of my blue collar, working class heritage and my Scottish roots. (With a little bit of Morningside, Kentucky and Virginia mixed in there along the way too). Fittingly, when my lovely Aunt Wilm visited from Seattle, I got to go to Ruth’s with a horde of my great aunts and uncles and listened while they shared countless stories of growing up in Cincinnati. If I haven’t said it already, I have truly fallen for the Queen City this year. Through various trips to different parks and restaurants, tutoring at Taft High School, and witnessing sporting events and performances happen here I couldn’t be happier to be in Cincinnati. I hope to express this further through a photo project called “Queen City Queens” - more information to be coming soon.
While I have articulated some really awesome parts of the 2015-2016 school year, it was also a very challenging year for me. I am still dealing with some obstacles in my personal life as well as constantly fighting to maintain my health as a type one diabetic. My self-care reached a couple of pits this year that were really eye-opening. I truly feel more motivated to take care of myself more than ever but get in my own way sometimes. Self-care is extremely important for everyone but especially for people with type one diabetes. I’ll explain a little bit more why…firstly, were just always at risk for complications from the disease. It’s a scary reality, but it doesn’t have to define someone as a diabetic. It rarely will if you work hard against it. Insurance companies and medical supplies companies will always be kind of a pain in the butt (and they can also be your best friends), and you have to be able to advocate for yourself through good behavior. Sad as this is, it seems that some people still don’t understand the life-threatening need for insulin for type one diabetics. We don’t have a choice. Read that again, we don’t have a choice. I went without insulin for several hours last summer, and it nearly killed me. I’m not kidding. You can ask my friends, especially Eric, a longtime friend and fellow diabetic who quite literally saved my life. Though I am not always the best friend, I am very lucky to have him in my life. Another reason is because poor management adds more stress and anxiety into your life. I experienced this first hand. This past year I went through some of the worst phases of anxiety/depression in my life. Some days I felt like no one knew what I was going through. There were full days when I didn’t leave my bed. And this wasn’t because I was feeling lazy, it was because I couldn’t find a reason to move. I’d lay still in my bed and be haunted by all the things that I should be doing instead of sitting there, but would still feel paralyzed. I debated including this in my reflection, but feel like it had an impact on the decisions I made this year and the relationships I made with people. It also helps anyone reading to better understand the way I operated and why I work hard to stay positive on social media and in person. I've never really been open about my mental health before but am inspired by leaders like President Ono who have been very open on the issue to be transparent in this reflection. These problems do not define me and I have them very well controlled through lifestyle changes and meeting with my doctor. Understand that it is not easy but it gets a little bit better every day and I am blessed with a very good group of friends and role models that keep me balanced.
As a direct result of this and my diabetes tenth (!!!!) birthday I started a blog called Diary of a Diabadass. This blog can be found here. I write in it occasionally with the purpose of reflecting on my own care and the hopes that someone else with diabetes can read it and find some solace or advice. It has been a beneficial experience and so far I've received an overwhelmingly positive response.
I think if anything, all of what I’ve dealt with have made me more empathetic and aware of how my actions impact others. If anyone is still reading this and needs someone to talk to, my ears are always open.
So I've talked a lot about all I’ve done this year, let’s get to where I’m at right now. (NOW WHAT)
I started off the summer with almost immediately attending Bunbury Music Festival on the Banks in Cincinnati. Pictures of this can be found in the slideshow above. This may not seem like a hugely significant event, but it was one of the most joyous experiences of my life. I am so grateful for the friends I've met this year and going with one of them and seeing some of my favorite artists perform such as X Ambassadors, Elle King, and Florence + the Machine was absolutely amazing. I will never forget the chills that rode up my spin when I first heard Florence sing Shake It Out to a crowd of thousands. She truly was one with the stage and the experience, leaving us only with the request to love one and other. It was truly beautiful.
This summer I have been blessed with not one, but two amazing internships for remarkable companies. The first one is an internship with Camp Joy in Clarksville OH. Camp Joy is like home to me. There are no words to describe the incredible impact that camp has had on my life, but if you're looking for some, I will be posting about Camp Joy and Camp Korelitz very soon on my previously mentioned blog. Camp Joy is a 300+ acre heaven that hosts thousands on thousands of people each year. Their summer camps are very special in their own ways and each has a little bit of #CampJoyMagic. Each week we host a medical camp and an agency camp. Medical camps are sometimes in partnership with Cincinnati Children's or another nonprofit, they are camp programs for kids to find a network and support from people just like them. They range from the diabetes camp I've attended, to heart conditions, juvenile arthritis, and amputees. The kids I get to meet each week are so inspiring. Camp Joy does an amazing job of fitting the needs of the individual and making all of their guests feel important and at home. I get the privilege this summer to take pictures and video content of all of the camp programs and manage their social media platforms. This includes Facebook, twitter, instagram, LinkedIN, etc. It is the best. job. ever. in. the. world. I am so lucky and blessed to have it and the only worry it causes me is if I'm doing a good enough job to represent such an amazing organization. Truly, check out Camp Joy if you haven't already. Everyone deserves a little Joy right now.
Secondly I am working for EyeMed which is nestled into Luxottica. I am in the sales department of EyeMed helping prepare RFP responses and learning so much about the industry as a whole. I got very lucky and I am thankful for my professor Dr. Sojka yet again for encouraging me to attend the event that led to getting this position. This company has such a refreshing perspective on business and what's important and I am very grateful to be here.
Lastly, I have traveled around a little bit this summer. Due to my schedule they have only been weekend trips but still. I went to Red River Gorge a couple of times and Nashville, TN. I am very excited to be going to Chicago this weekend for my 20th birthday and to visit my dear friend Katie Ferchen. The following week I will be going to DC with Student Government and then straight to Camp Korelitz. It's gonna be a crazy couple of weeks but I am very excited.
Alright, I'll wrap this up with my areas to focus this coming year:
1. Self care. Once again, I feel I must get better control of my diabetes and need to start exercising more regularly. I hope to do this by getting a CGM and being more strict with myself.
2. Travel. My goal is to plan a trip abroad. Hopefully for a couple of months whether it be for school or work. I feel a very strong urgency to get out of Cincinnati for a little bit and discover who I am outside of the Queen City. The sooner, the better. The cheaper, the sweeter.
3. Build relationships. Enough said.
4. Make more time for nature.
5. Refocus on boosting my GPA and performing well in school. Now that I'm settled in a major, it's time to make things happen.
Thanks for reading. It's been real.