“It’s your road and yours alone. Others may walk it with you, but no one can walk it for you.” – Rumi.
Hey Everyone! My nama is Lisa. Somehow, I have lived in Tallahassee for the last 15 years; I still don’t know how that happened. Currently, I am a PhD Candidate in the Religion Dept at FSU with an expected graduation date of Spring 2026. (If I suddenly disappear from this course in a couple of weeks, my suspicions that a doctoral defense will kill me were confirmed.) I am slightly amused that I just mentioned one of the banished words for this course by answering the question of what I am studying. I work as the Undergraduate Academic Program Specialist in FSU’s Math Dept.
I grew up on 500 acres in mid-Michigan and earned my BA in history and French from UM-Flint. I paid for my undergrad degree by milking cows. I moved to Tampa in 2002, earned my MLIS at USF, and was a GA for the department. I spent a couple of years in both Gainesville and Overland Park, KS where I worked as a school library media specialist before I in landed here in Tally. It was supposed to be “temporary” move. (For those not “in the know,” we are home to the world’s strongest magnet, and it keeps people from leaving and hurricanes from landing!) During this time, I also earned my MDiv from Asbury Theological Seminary. Because, why not?
My hobbies align with every other middle-aged lady blog post on the Internet: hiking, gardening, reading, cooking. Last summer my husband and I combined our passion for walking and our preference for “under tourism” to complete the Wicklow Way. It was a success as we saw thousands of sheep and only one other American!
Something that interests me about this class is that when I took its ancestral equivalent in one of my past lives and at that time it was mostly about PowerPoint. That leads me to why I am here this semester. What I hope to gain from this course to lose some of my obsolesce and antiquarian ways. I just spent the last 3 years reading the diaries of 19th century priests. Since I am not adjunct teaching for FSU this semester, I have some “free time” with only a full-time job and a manuscript to edit. I am really looking forward to being creative and learning some new skills with you.
Hello, fellow history enthusiast! I wanted to say that I scrolled through the links you provided, and I greatly enjoyed the one about the list of banished words. I can honestly say that I use every single one of those words in my day-to-day vocabulary. I think that might be a Gen Z thing (I was born after 2000).
As further evidence of how I’ve happily torn the English language apart, I take the word “perfect,” which appears on the banished list, and reduce it even more, transforming it into “purr.” So rather than saying, “Oh, that’s perfect,” I’d casually say, “Oh, that’s so purr” when speaking with friends.
I also absolutely adored the image you included! I’ve worked with a private collection of documents from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and I’ve always loved the sweeping curves of historical cursive. The flow of the handwriting feels so romantic and whimsical, there’s something deeply charming about it!
Hi Lisa!
Congratulations on you impending degree! A Ph.D is quite a large feat, how exciting! Best of luck as you work to complete, and I hope this class can serve as fun way to wrap up. I really appreciated the little fun fact about the world’s largest magnet. If I make the trip to Tallahassee for my graduation, I might just have to stop by. I’ve met a lot of librarians-in-training in the classes I’ve taken so far so I’d be very interested to hear about your studies and current research!