Profiles

Small decisions change what people decide to do with their lives, what they study in college, what job they apply for, etc. Everyone is different and finding out more about people's lives and their decisions can guide someone in their life decisions.

I debated between a few different people of who to interview:

• Robert Huerubin: A vet who works at the local VFW who is a family friend. He would have a lot of interesting stories and would be fun to interview.
• Nancy Theis: a worker at my high school who used to work at my elementary school. She helped me through a lot of tough experiences and remembered me even after not seeing me for over eight years!
• Shona Campbell: A friend of mine who moved here from Scotland. I would have liked to know some of her experiences from when she moved here and her experiences from moving here.

Nancy Theis happily works with kids of all ages. When working with individual classes, the kids always remember the bond they form with her. On her birthday, with the help of their teacher, the kids give her a gift that makes her cry: a poster for her favorite sports team. The kids bring her so much joy, and working with them makes her happy enough. She spreads her joy everywhere she goes and makes sure to help everyone else as much as she can.

"Museum Missionary" exemplifies a profile essay because of the aspects of inquiry, motives, a unique subject matter, the structure of a story, with sources of information, which all incorporate different anecdotes of that person's life. Right away, Ballenger explains the importance of lobsters and the impact they made on David Mills's life. He answers the question of how he became interested in them (with an anecdote) and tells the story of Mills' life. He examines why Mills' works with lobsters and his interest with them, in general. Ballenger tells the story of Mills' life by focusing on his interest in lobsters.

"Museum Missionary" hints at Mills' religion in the second paragraph when Ballenger includes how Mills' referred to the bible and how the lobsters took God's word seriously when he said "to be fruitful and multiply" due to the mass of eggs under the female's tail.

I think that I would like to incorporate some of the experiences that I have had with her. She helped me through a lot when I was younger and I find it amazing that she remembered me and my name eight years later when I got to the high school.

Learning to Balance

I’ve always been known as a klutz. This alone usually gives me enough reasoning to avoid standing on something as unstable as wheels, or blades, or something as slippery as ice. Why would someone who trips over air try their luck at something with so much potential for falling?

As a Minnesotan with a Canadian mother, there’s no surprise that I love hockey. I even live next to an ice-skating rink! Yet, I’ve never tried ice-skating. My “grace of a drunken elephant,” as my family says, makes me rethink most things with added potential for falling on my face. When my mother tried getting me into hockey when I was younger, she always stopped herself when she realized that whenever I played floor hockey in elementary (and middle) school gym, I found a way to trip myself with MY hockey stick. I lack the coordination for something like hockey. So no, I didn’t try playing hockey. But, skating proves enough of a challenge for someone so uncoordinated.

First, I tried roller-skating, I figured that since roller-skates tend to have more wheels, that also are not in a straight line, that balancing might come easier on roller-skates than ice-skates. My dad, who worked at Skateville as a teenager, and I go to Skateville for a few hours. I make goals to stay on my feet and not thoroughly embarrass myself.

My dad (who is over sixty years old) ends up skating in circles around me. Literally. He danced in the middle and would finish at least three laps before I finished one. He dragged me around the floor, with him skating backward and me screaming at him to stop. When he finally let go after that experience, I try to keep up with him. I lose my balance pretty quickly and try to regain it with a dance resembling the can-can, only to fall flat on my butt. I made us leave promptly after that embarrassing fall.

I accomplished neither of my goals.

The next day, still in pain from my fall the day before, I decide to try ice-skating; I choose the think that, for some reason, ice-skating would come easier to me. A friend and I decide to go to one of the many ice-skating rinks around us. She mostly wants to see me fall flat on my face and prepares herself to laugh at my embarrassment. I arrive already worried about my inevitable embarrassment. 

As soon as I step on the ice, I know that nothing good will come from me stepping on the ice, but I continue anyway. I stick to the side walls and cling onto the barriers. I nearly trip over invisible nicks in the ice, but I somehow manage to keep myself on my feet by following the walls. I decide to take a risk; I move closer to the middle of the rink while I skate (I keep my friend next to me so that I can pull her down with me if I fall). I go in a circle or two before I gain some confidence. As soon as I feel more confident. I go faster. If you recall, that same decision caused my fall the day before. I started to feel unsteady, and rather than falling over, I sit down.

I never officially fell while ice-skating, mostly because every time I felt that I might fall, I sat down (would that be counted as falling over?). I kept myself from getting a worse bruise than I already had (both physically and emotionally), but neither experience made me all that excited to try again. I’ve decided to learn to walk on steady ground before learning how to skate.

Imagine That!

I was a cheer practice and we were working on our tumbling (like the floor routine of gymnastics). My coach told me to push off the ground more in part of my tumbling, so I planned on doing that. This picture was taken when I was starting the skill, a roundoff back handspring. I pushed off the ground more during the middle of my roundoff, like my coach told me, and suddenly, I felt like I was flying backward. Well, I never expected NEARLY that much power to come from it, so rather than going into the back handspring, like planned, I fell backward and skid a few feet further back. I hit my head on the ground and thoroughly embarrassed myself, but I only ended up with a bruised back, thankfully walking away without a concussion.

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Hope everyone is staying safe (and warm) with all the snow outside!