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info for the context inclined

Me in the mirror

Last time I wrote an “About” page I chickened out and had my then college roommate write it for me. This is what she said:

*ahem* Abby is really cool. She loves history for unknown reason. If you want to know, that’s a good question to ask her. She’s imaginative and creative. She is very insightful and she is very easy to have deep conversations with, as well as giving great advice. She’s obsessed with Ireland, Spider Solitare, Blogs, her digital camera, Lord of the Rings, and any combination of peanut butter and chocolate. Eh, what the heck. I’ve lived with her for two years and I think she’s a pretty cool gal, even though she does have a tendency to skip around the room singing The Wizard of Oz…

While much of that is still true, especially the peanut butter and chocolate, I figure I should be old enough to knuckle down and face the difficult job of capturing the essence of Mennogirl. Fortunately 4 years of writing papers and paying 20,000 a year to become educated has left me with great bullshit skills.

I was born and raised in Lancaster, PA where I grew up amid cows, ancient computers, brothers, and plenty of cousins in my lovely Mennonite bubble. Then at age 10 my family and I packed up into our Ryder truck and moved to the other Mennonite Mecca, Goshen Indiana. There I ignored middle school, parts of high school and found myself in college. There I met good people, weird people, best friend kinds of people, and wrote some papers and became an expert in the field of non-US history.

Now I am starting my second year working in a school library in Chicago, IL and living with my lovely roommate Jess (only one floor above the rest of my former roommates) in a new apartment with a breeze-catchin back porch and an attention begging cat.  I don’t tend to write about much beyond the random thoughts that enter my head, so if you are looking for consistently amazing writing, biting social commentary, deep personal revelations you might want to look elsewhere. But if you are up for some randomness with a bit of dorkiness and a twist of wit, welcome.

Feel free to say hello, I love me some email, and I 95% guarantee a written response (as opposed to say a psychic one or artistic one)
themennogirl at gmail

10 comments

  1. Just to let you know, you have now been featured on Best Blog on WordPress at http://bestblog.wordpress.com.

    Thank you for blogging.


  2. Nice blog here….jus came to know via Bestblog’s blog….keep writing….just subscribed your feed…. 😀


  3. I found your ‘About page interesting’, especially the Mennonite connection.

    I have only known one of those, but have picked up dribs and drabs of information about them over the years.

    I am a Canadian (Mississauga), and the one Mennonite I knew (male) was from Kitchener/Waterloo (name changed from Berlin after WWI).

    I have also always been attracted to the philosophy, if you could call it that, of Diogenes of Sinope, although the loneliness of such a life would probably require more courage than most, including me, could muster.

    The Mennonites, OTOH, attract me in providing a social context to enrich the lonely self-sufficiency advocated by Diogenes.

    I have no doubt, however, that the Mennonites have problems retaining the loyalty of their young to their beliefs and practices given the many ways The Devil has to distract them nowadays (guessing that that is how they might express it). However that may be, I think a Mennonite background should stand a young person in good stead later on as advancing age changes their perspectives on what is important and what is less so.


  4. Are you still in Chicago? I’d love to see you again if you’re around. I’ll be at printer’s row on June 7 at 2pm and also at DePaul University on the 6th giving a talk at 11am on blurred boundaries, aka, what the hell is balance? Would be great to see you.


  5. I started my new blog today, and was on a blog kick, wandering around the internet, and found yours. I’m a Friesen (how’s that for a good mennonite name?) (Angela, woo, first names count too), although I was not raised mennonite, but still, I love me some Kielke and farmer sausage. Plus, I applied to two library schools and only got into the one that was far away (but, like, really far, across the country). So I felt a connection, to yours, which is lovely. Thought I’d say hi.

    Angela

    thenewisthetrue@blogspot.com


  6. Whoops. That @ shouldn’t be in there. I was trying so hard to figure out why that link wasn’t working. Oh e-brain. thenewisthetrue.blogspot.com

    DOT!


  7. Love your blog. Different!


  8. Nice blog you have here. You have a great writing style. Keep it up.


  9. I want to exchange my blog with you.


  10. Loving your blog! Just found it can can safely say I will be reading for a while! lots of posts to scroll down to 😀 yay!



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