about me.

general.

career.

family.

hobbies.

random facts.

contact me.

general.

I am a 34-year-old female currently living in Columbus, OH. I was born/raised in Las Vegas and moved to Columbus in 2002. I live alone (by choice) in an apartment and someday plan to purchase either a condo or house (so long as I have the money to pay someone to care for the outside), but I'm not sure it will be here (I'd prefer not to settle in Columbus permanently).

My apartment has a beautiful view of a lake that's home to lots of random critters, which is great because I love animals. I have a 13-year-old kitty named Tigger who thinks she's still a kitten and I can honestly say that I'll likely be a crazy cat lady when I get older. I have a small circle of very close friends who I am fiercely protective of and I am loyal, almost to a fault, to them.


    

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career.

I chose not to go to college directly after high school and, while I realize that most people think this is the kiss of death, it was really the best thing for me. I wasn't a happy student in high school and I needed some time to get myself together and decide what I wanted to do. When I went back to college about 5 years later, I had matured very well and was very well prepared for college.

I started at the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR) and then finished at The Ohio State University (OSU) twice; once with my B.A. in English Language Arts in 2003 and then again in 2004 with my Masters in Language, Literacy, and Culture. For about 8 months, I taught 7th & 8th grade students who had socio-emotional issues that prevented them from being taught in a standard classroom; I taught each student individually in private rooms at the local libraries. After that, I taught for 2 years at a local detention center for students who were behind in their education, ages 16-22.

Unfortunately, I got burnt out pretty quickly, so I accepted a job as a Digital Technology Editor with McGraw-Hill Education. I absolutely loved my work, there, and ended up deciding to stay in publishing, permanently, rather than going back to teaching. I worked there for 3 years and then accepted a higher position with Pearson Education. I am now a Media Project Manager for the Nursing Professional Education list. I love my work and find it very satisfying.


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family.

Although I do have cousins, aunts, uncles, etc., generally, my immediate family is very small and close knit. My mother, now living in Las Vegas, has been the only real constant in my life; the 2 step-fathers I had both died of cancer (one in 1990 and one in 2008). I have 3 step-sisters that I still converse with (2 from my first step-father and 1 from my second), a step-brother that I haven't heard from in 20+ years and a half-sister that I didn't know about until I was about 26.


My real father is an unknown, but I know that he was married at least once before he married my mother and had 2 children with his previous wife (a boy and a girl), and then of course there's the half-sister I mentioned earlier. My half-sister and I believe there's a possibility that we have more younger siblings, so we're always on the look-out for them and also for our older siblings that we already know about. We hope to meet them, someday.

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hobbies.

I went to a vocational high school and the vocation I chose was Computer Graphics. Obviously, the occupation has changed with with software and new methods of doing things over the years, but I've kept up with it, for fun, and spend time creating graphics for people (like the ones on the My Graphics page) and also do some supplemental freelance work on the side, which is some nice extra money here and there.

I like to sew (although I really need to figure out how to follow a pattern!) and have made all kinds of little things for people, as well as doing quite a few alterations to current costumes and clothing.


I love to play video games and currently own an Xbox 360, a Wii, a GameCube, an SNES, an NES, an Activision and an Atari 2600 (all in perfect working order). The games that I play the most, currently, are Left4Dead 1 & 2 (Xbox), RE5 (Xbox), and Guild Wars (PC).

I saw a movie trailer, once, where one character said of another "For most people, movies are what they do when they're bored of life. For you, life is what you do when you're bored of movies!" This is totally how I feel about movies! I absolutely love movies. I watch them, sometimes over and over, I own 400+ VHS & DVDs, I quote them, I talk about them, I watch movie trailers incessantly, and I spend lots of time on IMDb.com, learning all I can about the movies I've seen and reading about the ones I haven't. My friends think it's hysterical when they say something like, "Oh, what's that one movie with so-and-so in it, and they go to this-and-such place and do this-and-that?" and I say, "Oh, that's this-movie; it stars this-actor and this-actress and was made in this-year." So they go, "Oh, you've seen it!" and I say, "Nope." That's how much I love movies.


My favorite genres are sci-fi, action, suspense, mystery, and horror. I really can't say I have any particular favorites (there are just too many that I enjoy), but I have a computer program that I use to keep all of my movies in order that even uploads a list of them online; you can find it here: Duchess's Movie List. (Note that this list does NOT include any movies that I have on my computer...).

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random facts.

     

 

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contact me.

If you'd like to contact me, please use the form below (sorry, but putting my e-mail address directly on the page leads to spam...).

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