Hello world!

Hello world!

Once again I seem to be committing the act of starting a blog. This time I'm hoping I last longer than three posts. I'm going to introduce myself briefly and then continue on to something more interesting:

I am a 24 year old female-identified person living in Western New England. I've been in a relationship for the past six months that is so far going fabulously. During the day I work as a paraprofessional in an autism support classroom in a neighboring town. You'll hear a lot about my work on this blog, but I'm going to be really careful about identifying characteristics for my privacy and the privacy of my students. When I'm not at work, I also tutor one of my students in his home, and I do respite work for several other local families who have children with autism. There are things I love about my work and things that I really hate. I definitely have a complicated and at times conflicted relationship to it. All of this will become clear as I post more and more.

Additionally, I am a bike riding enthusiast. I live in a particularly bike friendly area and have been privileged by growing up in a similar area, with a mother who really pushed me to learn how to ride a bike even though it was difficult for me. I commute to work whenever possible and throughout much of the summer I don't use my car at all. I started bike riding for financial reasons, but it turned into an obsession- bike riding makes me feel healthier, more confident in myself, and gives me some time to myself that is so hard for me to find otherwise. Many of my ideas about everything, especially education come first from bike riding, hence the title of this blog.

Another interesting fact about my life right now is that I've just been accepted into a school in Toronto to earn a Masters of Education. Part of the reason I decided to begin keeping a blog was so that friends from home would be able to stay abreast of my life in a new place. I have also found the emigration process really scary and frustrating so far, so I figured it'd be good to have a place on the internet where other future ex-pats can go to see how the process works. I also thought that having something concrete like that to blog about would get me used to blogging and writing regularly again. That is kind of the point of this project so far- I need something to get me to start writing again.

I don't pretend to have the answers to everything, but I'm hoping to ask lots of questions and address them through this blog. I welcome lots of feedback from everyone. I also appreciate you taking the time to help me sort through my thoughts. One of my goals in this blog is to learn how to write succinctly without many extra words. So with that, I think I'll move onto the next post. Thanks for coming along with me!