Well, the first blog is supposed to be about me. Admittedly, I’m not good at talking about myself. It’s so easy to write my resume here—where I don’t dive deep into who I am as a person. Part of my self-work for the new year (I don’t do new year’s resolutions) is that I show my vulnerability, my Brokenness™ with staff and students alike. I’m learning to navigate my Queerness in higher education, which will ultimately be it’s own post, but overall I’m learning to just love myself.
To give you a small insight into who I am as a professional, I’m currently a 2nd year graduate student in the Student Affairs/School Counseling program at the University of Nebraska-Kearney. There I work as a Graduate Hall Director. I supervise 15 resident assistants, advise hall government, do conduct and administer a mentoring program for my RAs. However most of my job consists of other duties as assigned.
I have been in Residence Life since undergrad. That means I know a lot about introductions and ice breakers and staff bonding activities that everyone groans at but secretly loves. Except name games. I hate name games. I’m sorry if you like name games, I just find them so difficult.
My other job on campus is as the Graduate intern in our Women’s Center. I have one of the best supervisors ever. Some of my opportunities that I’ve taken advantage of in the Women’s Center is to build in some research components. As a graduate research assistant on my institution’s National Institutes of Health research, I have my own project. It’s so incredibly exciting and overwhelming to be the ONLY master’s level student on this project. I get to work with some of the most amazing professors, activists, and community members to create some very necessary and important findings on Trans health care.
In all my free time, I work as the Campus Relations Coordinator for the Midwest Institute for Sexuality and Gender Diversity. In that role I get to work with Queer college students who are planning the nation’s largest LGBTQIA college conference. I act as an institutional advisor, resource agent, and I do contracts. Essentially I get to know everything about the conference and work with some of the best students any advisor could ask for.
My special abilities include spending money mostly on food or clothes that I don’t need. I excel at binge watching Netflix original series. And I either sleep for 4 hours or 12—there is no in-between.
I’ve learned that Mexican food and sushi are two of my favorite foods; although eating them together sounds like a bad idea. I’ve also learned that I’m either extremely funny or amazing at creating situations where people are laughing at me. If the second is true, I’m refusing to believe that and I’ll keep saying that I’m actually incredibly hilarious.
Blogging is something that I’ve always wanted to get involved in. I have never taken the time to sit down and really commit. This is going to be a great experience for me and I am hoping to tackle some important issues. I am also hoping to write some fun pieces. I am not someone who has had lots of success doing this but I’m excited to see what comes of it!
Until next time friends!
