In my sophomore year of college I spent my winter vacation falling in love as I read and re-read through the archives of Carl’s blog. Although we had been friends for a few months, it was his blog that really sealed the deal for me. Not because of his elegant prose or because he quoted me in a blog titled “The insightful words of Lydia Medill” (although that is still up there in the ranks of my “greatest ego boosting moments”). I fell in love because he wrote about dissatisfaction through the lens of hope and he made his complaints with a commitment to investing in their solutions.

Five years later I am starting my blog – my investment in my passions, my exercise in hope. I am in graduate school for Linguistics, meaning that for now both my passions and my dissatisfactions center around academia and the social sciences. I want to see my research and my study manifest as tools, which benefit my community.

This is where you come in – because you are my community. Whether you’re reading this in Urbana, IL or in Phoenix, AZ, whether we bonded over eating semichka or over beer at the Piglet, whether you convinced me to care about Church or I convinced you to care about Phoenix Metro Islamic School, whether you are family or EXTENDED family, whether you taught me Uzbek or I taught you fractions – you are the people that I care about. And I do what I do because of you. Because I want to contribute to the work that you’ve been doing and the dreams that you’ve been dreaming. This is my attempt at writing things for the people that I love.

P.S. Since this is for you – send me your questions, your comments and your own set of dissatisfactions and hopes for my blog.