I’ve written down my thoughts in some form or another since the time I could form sentences.  It’s as much in my veins as my red-and-white Canadian blood cells are.  So whether you’re new to following my journey, or have been for a long time, welcome!

My name is Kerri, and I’m a twenty-year-old university student about to enter my third year.  I began in my first year of school as an Education student, thinking I would graduate with a double major in International Development Studies and Developmental Studies, as well as my Bachelor of Education — though, I never wanted to be a typical classroom teacher.  Within my first International Development class, I was lost, and by my third I had called it quits and spent the rest of the class playing around on Facebook until the prof let us free and I went and dropped the course.  From there I focused on Developmental Studies and my first-year Education class.  By the end of the year, I received my student teaching packet in the mail, flipped gears, and dropped out of the Education program, much to the delight of many narrow-minded Education students who thought the only thing an Education degree could do was spend the rest of your life in a classroom.

Once that was done with, I attempted to focus on my Developmental Studies degree.  My developmental psychology prof was a guy who took a minute to breathe between each two words and we never accomplished anything.  I failed my first test [okay, so I didn’t do the readings] and dropped out of the class.  Oh yeah, I was also frustrated with his lack of addressing people with disabilities as people first, wrote him a lengthy but polite e-mail about it and then caught him correcting himself the next class!  At least i accomplished something there, right?

This left me with a plate containing two kinesiology classes and a sociology class.  By the end of my third year after unsuccessfully attempting to make a schedule to accommodate both a Developmental Studies and kinesiology major, I fully dropped the Developmental Studies program for now and am currently aiming for a Bachelor of Arts in Kinesiology and Applied Health.  I hope to enter the field of Occupational Therapy after I’m done undergrad, but of course, nothing is set in stone!

Aside from school, I work at a daycare as an early childhood educator assistant.  Yes, I get paid to play games and colour and have snack and stick the occasional band-aid on a kid.  It’s a sweet job.  I also work as a respite care facilitator for two amazing adolescent girls with varying developmental, social and behavioural disabilities.  I love them a ton, and they teach me so much!

In 2008, I was diagnosed with asthma.  While it’s had more of an effect on my life than I would have liked, it certainly hasn’t stopped me, but rather pushed me harder.  I’ve met tons of amazing people with asthma online, and this blog will also be a place for me to help share my experiences, in both living with asthma and in advocacy, with others.  It may be ironic, but because of my asthma I also became a lot more physically active, which perhaps is one of the reasons I’m a kinesiology student — it’s certainly not because I’m athletically skilled or talented!  I’ll be writing about the insanity that can be fitness in a place that can span from -40*C to 40*C on the positive side in a given year, about doing that with asthma, and about trying not to hate it too much. Come on, it’s much easier to sit in front of my MacBook and eat Cheetos.

Oh yeah, I think Jesus is a badass.  He’s the most powerful and influential badass ever, but He’s still a badass.  Come on, what’s not badass about loving people enough to help them to completely change the way they perceive and interact with the world?  He’s the reason I’m here writing this and the reason for what’s led me to where I’m at right now in everything I’ve written above.

So, here’s to the journey.  To friends, to travel, to learning, to experiencing, to laughing, to crying, to breathing . . . to living!