A MINI NOVEL

Moment by moment, I am overwhelmed that I have the gift of sight. What a joy to witness the purple hues bleed into one another in the painted morning sky or the creases bordering my mother's eyes deepen as the years go on. I am captivated by the story of life carried by each individual while seeing similar themes in all. The ability to deeply feel, love, learn, and relate is created by the thread of simply being human. I want to capture the story of humanity occurring around me from multiple different vantage points, revealing that divine common thread shared.

After a few months of chores and a whopping 20 dollars saved, I finally had enough money to purchase my first portable CD player. It was the summer going into second grade, and not uniquely things at home were complicated. My new lime green treasure was christened with NSYNC’s "No Strings Attached" album, I could not have been more elated. I still resonate with that moment. In the evenings, I would take the CD player with me to the top of our fort that towered over the golden ocean of wheat and gaze at the transforming sky. I would sit on the wooden platform, waiting for the fireflies to begin their dance while each one of the twelve tracks of my only album enhanced the beauty of the moment.

My journey to attempt to capture the beauty in the simple and complex includes studying human trafficking, poverty, and war in Hawaii and South Sudan and gaining a deeper passion for justice. Combined with photography and storytelling, I aspire to use this powerful tool to shed light on social issues. This led me to pursue a degree in photojournalism at the University of Minnesota, with a focus on Arabic and youth and education leadership.

PHEW.