My Life in America

My family: I have 3 younger sisters and 3 younger brothers

My siblings and I with our puppies: Phoebe & Beatrix

   

My friends and I at a local baseball game

Duke: my brother's hat has been passed down throughout the family. Duke is my family's favorite basketball team and we enjoy watching Duke basketball games together.

My sister and I enjoy running 5Ks together

My horse, Charlie: a thoroughbred retired race horse

My friend from Northern Ireland and I explore Chicago from the top of one of the nation's tallest Ferris wheels

My friends and I vacationing in Florida for our Spring Break

One of my favorite meals: a traditional breakfast meals that my family often eats for dinner

A traveling carnival set up in the mall parking lot in Maryville

A family tradition: picking out and cutting down our own Christmas tree each year

Smoky Mountains in the winter: hiking is one my favorite hobbies

Photo Essay: My Life in America

To start with, this is my home city: Philadelphia.  I grew up in the suburbs around the city and have come to love days of just going to the city.

Also back at home is my dog, Samson.  As you can see, he loves grinning and playing outside!

 Samson's not the only one who loves playing outside!  I adore my second home in the Smokies and enjoying bringing my family hiking when they visit.

Here is my dad and my brother -- they got dragged along for horseback tour of the Smokies!

 Sometimes I'll even drag my friends out into the woods to go camping back home!

 Traveling to national parks has become a favorite pastime of mine.  These pictures were taken in Yosemite (left) and King's Canyon (right) National Parks in Northern California!

Bringing it back to Tennessee, this is my campus in the winter time.  It can sure get cold, but it leads to a beautiful snowy campus!

 In addition to taking tons of pictures of my surroundings, sometimes I even do schoolwork.  As a biology major, I get to do tons of cool things in labs!

 It also means I get to play with fun animals!

But of course, being a science major is a lot of work.  When it's a nice day, it's always nice to study outside instead of being stuck in a library!

At the end of the day when the work is done, I can kick back with my friends and head to a local rodeo!

My Life in the US

I wasn't sure what to put on this post but as I started looking through my photos I started getting a good sense of what I wanted and how my life in the US could be different from those in other cultures.

This is from one of the events on campus that we had where the winner got to get a cash prize. She was making it rain.

This is a group picture of our Student Programming Board here at Maryville. They are some of the best people that I know on campus and it would be hard to imagine being here without them.

I go home from Maryville about twice a month and this is the view I get at my halfway point in Cookeville Tennessee. It's not much to look at, but I thought it might say something about the US.

These are the cars that my family has whenever all three of the cars are in the same driveway. My mom's Ford, my dad's Honda, and my Mustang. No, I do not drive that fast in it.

This was at one of the events last semester where a brief dance break. Paul was having fun with a couple of the older SPB members who have since graduated.

I went home this past weekend and this was one of the views that I was able to see from the Plaza in front of the Capitol. Unfortunately, I didn't take a picture of one of the state buildings. 

This is the walkway to Thaw Hall, which is our library on campus. It was very foggy which might make it look farther than it actually is. From where I was standing, that's about a two minute walk.

This is one of the classrooms that we have on campus. The chairs are never this straight so I needed to take a picture for propriety. We normally do lecture style classes on campus though there are some lab based classes, though those are normally for science lectures.

This is one of the views from one of the windows of one of my classrooms. I thought it was pretty. 

This is Pearsons, the dining hall that we have on campus. It is mostly buffet style for the salad bar and pick-what-you-want for the other stations that they have like the hot line and sandwich line. Not pictured is the area where you can eat which has square four-person tables and a bar if you want to eat alone.

This is the coffee shop/convenience store we have on campus where you can get whatever you like with the Flex dollars we have built into our meal plans. 

I was doing laundry today so I decided to take a picture of the washer and dryers on campus. We are fortunate enough that we don't have to pay for the services on campus, but finding a time when one is available is a trick in and of itself. 

My Life in America

Soccer takes up most of my time here at Maryville College. Most of my days revolve around balancing soccer practices, classes, and homework.

 

This is our soccer field here at Maryville College. It is so beautiful here in the fall!

This is the soccer team (men’s and women’s) on our trip to Italy the summer of 2014. The soccer team is like one big family and we do almost everything together.

These are my roommates and a couple of my best friends at Maryville College, and they are on the soccer team with me. 

The library in Thaw is where I spend a lot of my time throughout the week doing homework and socializing with friends. I actually have a lot of fun in there procrastinating from all of the work I should actually be doing.

Winter is my favorite season because I love the snow and building snowmen! My friends and I built this one on the soccer field.

I love the mountains in Tennessee. I am not an avid hiker, but I don’t know what I would do without the mountains practically in my backyard.

This is me and my dog Lenney! I have had him since I was 9 years old and he is my best friend <3

Lenney is obsessed with tennis balls and playing catch and the ball can barely fit in his mouth!

This is my little sister, Kristjana. She is 17 years old now and a senior in high-school.

This is my older sister, Linnea. She is 22 and recently graduated from UT with a degree in Accounting.

This is my awesome mom, Si. She was born in Canada and moved to the US when she was in her late 20s. In this picture we are at an Ice Bears hockey game in downtown Knoxville! My mom a stereotypical Canadian- she loves hockey, maple syrup, and she’s a super nice person!

This is downtown Knoxville. I think Knoxville is a beautiful city. It is home to me and I have grown to love it here.