The following is my very first homework assignment for the semester. My History of Psychology professor wants to get to know us better and therefore asked for a one page autobiography. The assignment amused me and I thought perhaps I would share it...
Hi my name is Hannah! I love being a palendrome though personally I never feel that symmetric. It all started a fateful February Sunday almost 21 years ago. After trying to make my own path someone finally suggested to me that I make a left turn and I was born. I was raised in Medina amongst a veritable zoo of three siblings, countless animals, and a backyard full of faeries. Throughout school I dreamt of being a veterinarian and everything in my life seemed to nurture that yearning. My grandfather worked with injured and nuisance wildlife and many a time I traveled along with him to catch a hawk or a goose or the random rogue emu. Later I started volunteering at Medina Raptor Center helping care for birds of prey and thrilled when they could be released to the freedom of the wild. My mom worked as a zoo keeper for a few years, then at a pet store, and then finally at a veterinarian's office. At fourteen my mother's boss deemed me old enough to work in the kennels and my dream towards vet-hood grew stronger. By the time I was eighteen I was doing the work of a vet technician but it had lost its shine. I felt like I could do more to benefit the world then pamper people's pets!
I started college a year early through the post secondary program. I was delighted to get away from the doldrums of high school and doing so allowed me to get a coveted internship at Cleveland Metroparks Zoo. I worked in the education department interpreting to the visitors and was just as intrigued watching the people as they were the animals. After a year I moved into the Show Department and learned to train the animals for the educational shows. As I was bombarded with ideas of operant conditioning, positive reinforcement, and psychological appetite, I discovered the joy of animal behavior. It was almost magical the way it allowed not only for me to communicate with the animals but for the animals to communicate with me too!
As college progressed I discovered that I disliked anatomy and that organic chemistry disliked me even more. And thus my decision to steer away from vet school solidified. With a major in biology I intended to pursue animal behavior and do research. The typical chemistry minor was out of the question and the logical and highly enjoyable alternative was psychology. As I said, I love animal behavior and psychology is all about the behavior and cognition of one high profile animal. And just as I endeavor to use natural sciences to understand the physical world around me, I find psychology very useful in navigating the human world as well. This should be especially useful for me as I have recently set my sights on the lofty goal of changing people's attitudes about the environment and conservation as a priority in our society. I had the immense luck to travel to Kenya a year ago and fell in love with it. I would like to eventually buy a large amount of land there and start a wildlife conservancy. In the meantime there is more work to be done first. I will hopefully be traveling to Ecuador this fall to participate in amphibian population surveys and harvesting for captive population to help protect against mass extinctions being caused by the Chytrid fungus. Just one activity in a long line of conservation activities to come...
And perhaps I shall still become a doctor one day. Graduate school and a doctoral program are in my plans somewhere but I am anxious to get my hands dirty first. In other news, my main hobby for the past seven years has been live action medieval reenactment in which I participate in a full contact sport utilizing foam padded representations of weapons. Basically I dress up like a dork and beat on my friends! Anything but the average, I always say.
