An introduction to my service dog, Kaya and me too!

     Hello fellow travelers of World History. My name is Leslie, and I am writing to you from my home office in Yuba City, California. 

     Those are my husband's feet. He sits with his dog in the recliner while I work at night. Next to me sits my trusty service dog, Kaya. She is a glorious black lab. My family and I live in a quiet neighborhood filled with the most amazing flowers. The city is bordered by acre upon acre of orchards, so it always smells like flowers here. Usually, I complete my coursework from my office, but sometimes I hangout back by the pool and watch my boys swim. 

      Last year, after retiring from the Air Force I made the move to California.This picture is Kaya and me making a coffee stop somewhere in the middle of Texas.  Prior to last year, I had spent 10 years in the panhandle of Florida. My husband and I were stationed at Hurlburt Field, where we spent our final years in the military flying. My time in the service was filled with deployment after deployment to Iraq and mostly Afghanistan, 11 trips in all. At the end of my career, I had been a crewmember on more than a dozen different aircraft, and spoke Hebrew, Swahili, and Pashto. I also speak a passable dialect of English. I would say that my love of culture and language was deepened by my experiences, but it has always been there. 

     My father is a retired Green Beret, and so I spent my childhood trotting the globe. Most notable in my memories were Okinawa, Washington, and New Hampshire. I spent a good deal of time in Germany as well, but don’t recall much. When I was young, my dad was completing a Thai language immersion course. I always envied his language skills. Once I had the chance, I learned every language I could gain access to. In high school I studied Latin, Spanish, and French. I credit my training in Latin as the strong foundation I built the rest of my language skills on.  

     As much as I loved learning languages, my favorite class during that time was Ancient World History. From it, I found one of my favorite books Sarum. The book tells dramatized histories of the Salisbury Plain. I still have a copy in my office. I love the visceral storytelling. In hearing the history, it’s hard to imagine England as such a drab place. I feel if I can be excited about the history of England, I can surely be excited about the history of the world. 

     I hope to gain a stronger foundation in World History from this course. I am taking an Islamic Faith course concurrently, so I’ve just finished reading about the history of developing religions in Northern Africa, and the Middle East. I’m pursuing 20 credits this summer, 8 at community college to meet the Spring Graduation deadline. So far, all of my courses are playing off of each other nicely. Going over full-time this summer also means I have been able to get ready to apply for graduate school next fall. I'm looking at a doctoral program in Sacramento for Clinical Psychology. All in all, I'm tremendously excited about all of my courses this summer.