A Little More About Me

Hello, blogging world! As you can see from the sidebar, my name is Angela and I'm currently living in Knoxville and pursuing a degree in teaching. That small bit of information doesn't share a lot about how or why I ended up here, however, so I'd like to give readers a little more background about myself.

Though I'm currently attending University of Tennessee - Knoxville to pursue a master's degree in teaching English at the secondary level, this is not my first experience with college by a long shot. One might say that I'm an educational junkie, which would be entirely accurate, but I consider that a good thing.

After growing up in Terre Haute, IN, and attending high school at Terre Haute South Vigo H.S., I first went to college at Illinois Wesleyan University (IWU) in Bloomington, IL. At IWU, I earned a B.A. in psychology with a minor in health. Immediately following my graduation from undergrad in 2001, I went to grad school at Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN, to earn a M.S. in health promotion. I completed my master's in 2005, and then I continued to work in health education at the university until moving to Tennessee in August 2007. While I was at Purdue, I had the privilege of working as the sexual health education coordinator for the University for six years, first as a graduate assistant and then as a professional. Following the move to Tennessee for my spouse's job, I worked at the Knox County Health Department as their rape and violence prevention coordinator between 2007 - 2010. I left that job in 2010 to return to school at UTK to pursue my teaching degree. 

After more than a decade working in various roles as an educator, I am ready to be a teacher in a school setting. Teaching at the high school level seems like a perfect fit for my interests and experiences, and I am excited about the opportunity to work with adolescents on a daily basis to build rapport, relationships, and knowledge over time in a way that benefits students. Though I enjoyed my work in public health immensely, my most recent job consisted of work done mostly within an office setting with very little contact with youth. It was then that I started thinking about ways I could use my career to connect with youth in meaningful, long-term ways, and I was immediately drawn to teaching and my first academic love, English and literature. I'm really looking forward to my education classes this spring and how they will prepare me for my internship in the fall.

When I'm not in classes or with my nose stuffed in a textbook, I'm most likely to be found...with my nose stuffed in a fun book. I do a lot of reading for pleasure, and I also write book reviews for Amazon and Goodreads as a hobby. My favorite genres are young adult paranormal and contemporary fiction. I'm also an avid birdwatcher (a "birder" for the uninitiated), and I'm the newsletter editor for the Knoxville Chapter of the Tennessee Ornithological Society. I also volunteer weekly with the Knox County Library's Friends of the Library association for their annual used book sale. After I'm all done with that, I like to spend some lazy time with our two cats, Lily and Solstice, and my dear spouse, Seth.

 (Solstice, top; Lily, bottom.)