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Welcome to Part VII of our ongoing series. This week, we introduce you to the two most recent additions to the mod team, laureth and SavoirFaire. Thanks again for all you do, mods!
In case you missed them, be sure to check out parts one, two, three, four, five and six.
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laureth
Dawn is a 39 year old renaissance woman living in Michigan with her husband of four years and their 15 year old Manchester Terrier, Digger. Someday, she’d like to add children, chickens and goats to the mix.
Favorite quote: “Comfort the afflicted, afflict the comfortable.” – Finley Peter Dunne
Education: I’ve been going to college on and off since 1990, usually one class a semester to fit in with my work and Fluther schedules ~. I hope to have a degree someday, perhaps by the time I’m eligible to retire. Yes, I’m an English major, but I try to be gentle when it comes to picking on others’ grammar and punctuation!
Hobbies/Interests: Knitting, spinning yarn, gardening, being literate, learning about old timey skills and permaculture concepts, history, economics, politics, and I’m also a “foodie”.
Day job: Data entry in the entertainment/music/media industry.
Dream job: Being a smallholder; that is, intensively managing a minifarm of 5-10 acres in such a way as to build the soil, provide for most of our household’s food and some of our fiber needs, and generally live in a way that I feel treads lightly on Mama Earth, maybe teaching others how to do the same. I don’t believe our current wasteful way of life is sustainable, and I’d rather that the eventual correction be more of a gentle powering-down by choice, than a disastrous smackdown of epic proportions.
Why do you volunteer your time to Fluther?: I’ve been part of online fora since about 1990. I enjoy the relationships that I’ve built with people online, most of whom I never would have met any other way. Knowing different kinds of people, and learning about slivers of their lives, even relatively anonymously, helps open the mind and promotes a less insular way of thinking. Fluther is an excellent place to find reasonable conversation and people speaking openly about useful things, and I’d like to help foster that if I can.
Is there anything else you’d like the community to know about you?: If there’s ever anything you wanted to do, you’re not too old or too far away from the goal to start – even if it’s just by making a baby step in the direction you want to go. Don’t give up! After a whole life of thinking I was too weird to ever find someone, I got married at 35 to someone unusual enough to be just right for me. It just took a while to find him! And at almost 40, I’m looking into giving up the desk job for something that makes a difference. If you stop moving and learning, you get nowhere. So even if it’s scary to change, sometimes you have to consider if it’s scarier to stay the same.
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SavoirFaire
Our resident philosophical guru, Matt lives in Virginia with his wife and their four chinchillas. He claims to be 916,466,329 seconds old. You do the math, please.
Favorite quote: “Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.” – Siddhartha Gautama
Education: I am in the third year of a doctoral program in philosophy.
Hobbies/Interests: Primarily martial arts. I currently practice karate, kobudo, and kenjutsu. I am also a classically trained musician, and lately I’ve been thinking of teaching myself how to play the violin.
Day job: I teach logic and ethics to undergraduates in the morning, take classes in the afternoon, and work data entry jobs in the evening or on weekends. Until recently, I had a job archiving historical documents.
Dream job: I sometimes think that I’d like to be a professor at a university with historical connections to one of my favorite philosophers, but I’m not terribly picky as long as I’m teaching philosophy. Unlike a lot of people in my profession, I really enjoy working with students. As bizarre as some of my colleagues would find this, I don’t think I’d accept a position that minimized the amount of time I spent in an actual classroom.
Why do you volunteer your time to Fluther?: I value the excellent mix of great people and great discussions that Fluther provides, so I was happy to volunteer when asked to help keep it that way.
Is there anything else you’d like the community to know about you?: I am Spartacus.
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Thanks, mods, for helping us get to know all of you a little better!
Two great jellies and great moderators!