My answers to some very good questions

What is your purpose?

I am here to heal people's souls by helping them to understand each other and their place in the world.

What do you love, and how do (or will) your actions demonstrate this?

I have two great loves in my life, food and literature. That being the case, I love to read and to cook. I am living these loves in several ways. I am a graduate student in English literature, studying how words enrich the lives of communities, connect us to others and demonstrate what a group believes. I believe that reading and writing are key to understanding our fellow humans. This love of reading overlaps with my other passion in the form of cookbooks, which I read and collect. Cookbooks, especially historic ones or ones describing a local area, give me a view into other people’s customs and traditions through food. For me food is a connection to community, and so I love to cook for groups of people, whether it is a large gathering of friends or just my house-mates. Food is also a connection to our earth, which provides for us, and we have the responsibility to use its gifts wisely. With that in mind, I have joined a Community Supported Agriculture farm in an effort to keep my food sources local. This connects me to my food on a deeper level, lessens the impact of agribusiness exploitation and pollution from transportation and packaging, and places me in a community of others who share my values. My passion for learning and people shines out in my love of food and literature.

Write your ideal job description.

A day in my ideal life would not be much different from how I try to live now. I would like to live in harmony, or as close to it as possible, with a group of people whom I love and respect, for our differences and our similarities. I would like to work with my friends and family to raise awareness of injustice and the effects of personal choice in the world. Personal choices on a local level affect the world at a global level, and more people need to think about the ripples that personal choice make in a world that is so interconnected on all levels. Building community through food and communication is, and would continue to be, my role in this group of advocates for awareness. The current state of our economic system makes compassionate, local, organic food harder to access – a luxury, not a human right – and that should change. I would like to continue to study literature’s reflection of and impact on cultures and individual lives. Literature provides access to other’s thoughts, ideas, and world views. This access can help us to better understand our place in the world, if it is examined thoughtfully. To provide context for my place in the world, I would like to travel and experience other ways of living, eating and reading the world around me. Most of all, I would like to continue to live in a way that is mindful of the world and all of its inhabitants.