A Brief Glimpse of My Background

On a personal note, I feel that it is crucial to examine one's background in order to better understand their perceptions and "how things work" and function in their worlds. One's interests, feelings, experiences, gained insight, and relationships all combine to create who she has been, who she is, and who she may want to be.

I began writing at a very young age, primarily for the purposes of creativity and self-expression. As a child, the imagination runs wild and is in its purest state--letting all things become possible. I was emotional--I expressed laughter, tears and joy when I felt them, and I relished in all life had to offer. Writing moved me, as well as the music to which I performed classical ballet, and creating art was always a desire of mine. Living a life of the arts at such a young age was all I knew, in combination with the great love my family had shown me. I began my self-development in a very precious, secure, loving and warm life that contained a great exposure to the arts. In my mind, this was life.

I pursued writing through my entire educational career, both academic and personal, as well as loving to create art and experiencing life to music through my dancing. This allowed me to express my emotions--getting in touch with who I was becoming, and perhaps who I wanted to become. My desire to write had peaked in my early college years when I decided to declare myself as a member of the school of liberal arts at my undergraduate institution. This step would allow me to continue writing deep into my future. My favorite period to study became the knowledge and affect-rich Renaissance period where Shakespeare was gracing the world with words of love. The Impressionistic period was my second my favorite, where Renoir and Monet later blessed our eyes with beautiful portraits showing ideal pictures of how life was (and perhaps should have been) according to their own perceptions and desires.

While studying the liberal arts, I pursued my fascination and study with the humanities--art, philosophy, history, myth and folklore, and a realm of literature as well as the critical analysis of all. Here, I realized the crucial role of humanities in our world, our society, and our culture--and the many ways in which it is used as a tool of communication. Feelings, emotions, beliefs, and cultural norms found in literature, and the historical and socio-cultural symbolism found in art, are represented in our worlds every day.

Furthermore, upon teaching American literature in a secondary education institution, I gained clarity on the importance of traditional American literature in the role of young teen lives and the relation of literature to their lives today. The incorporation of today's culture with teaching the traditional literature--the "canon," a term used to describe the core body of literature taught to all students today--is crucial in gaining a better understanding of both our history as well as our current culture.

We see elements from the humanities everywhere--we see form and function in the architecture of buildings, we hear philosophical reasoning in news, politics and business, and we see beautiful art on billboards and on the sides of buildings. We hear the music--cultural sounds--of our world today on the radio, and we experience a combination of each of these coming from one collective institution: advertising, simply.