About Me

                                                             Hello I'm Kelli!

                   I am 29 years old, a mother to 2 boys ages 10 and 7, and a first-year student at LBCC. I chose LBCC because it is located in the city I have lived in for my entire life. I grew up in Corvallis and Albany, my dad living in Albany and my mom in Corvallis. I'm not exactly sure what I want to major in just yet, but I'm leaning towards business, marketing, or computer science/ ethical hacking. I plan on transferring to OSU after I complete my two years at LBCC. i should have already made it through college but during my senior year in high school i was walking home one day and when crossed the crosswalk by the train station here in town, I was hit and almost killed. I was thrown forty feet and suffered a traumatic brain injury. my MCL and ACL ligaments in my left knee were destroyed and required multiple reconstructive surgeries including titanium screws being placed in my knee, to fix it. I was unable to walk, stand, or even move my legs without picking them up and moving them. My pelvis was also shattered so I couldn't sit up either, o was pretty much stuck laying down for months. I spent over a week in Legacy Emanuel Children's Hospital in Portland because of the level of trauma I was. 

             Once home, I realized the extent of my injuries and just how long it was going to take before I would ever see any amount of normalcy again. My dad helped me so much during this time in my life. By the time I  got home from the hospital, he had arranged his Livingroom to accommodate me. Where our couches were was now a hospital bed pushed up next to it for me and a bedside table with all my medical supplies I would need while healing. I even had my own wheelchair at home now, which at first I thought was cool, but after spending over half a year in that thing I hated it so much.  Eventually I relearned to walk after about eight months of physical therapy appointments and exercises at home, but it was a slow painful process. I went from the wheelchair to crutches, to a walker, and YES, I felt like an old lady! but I was just happy to be alive at that point. I ended up having to do a fifth year of high school to graduate because my accident happened in the beginning of November of 2013, my senior year, and I missed months of school afterwards, understandably so.

                 With this second chance at life, I persevered and worked my butt off that fifth year of high school and I DID graduate! I proudly display my diploma now as a bittersweet memory. I also got more exciting news that fifth year of high school. i found out I was pregnant with my first son! I gradated and Sthe weekend afterwards, he was born, two months early, weighing only three pounds four oz. So, no I did not go on to college right after high school, I spent a month in the NICU with my new baby and then stayed home to raise him and get my body stronger since it had been through so much the last few years. Five months before my first son, Connor turned 3, I gave birth to his little brother, Kaiden. He thankfully came on time and weighed five pounds fifteen ounces. A major difference with his little brother, not so stressful and scary, and we got to go home two days later. Now that they are ten and seven, I decided it's time for me to go back to school and get my degree like I've always planned on doing. I enjoyed their young years with them, I even homeschooled them for a few years. But they're in school now, so mommy is too

                         What am I most interested in learning about media and culture? 

             I would like to learn about how differences in how the same news told in either a positive or negative way, can make people react differently and how their behavior changes. I would also like to learn about how people live their lives and the choices they make depending on the source of the media and news they consume, and if it has a positive or negative influence on their lives. I also would like to understand how lobbyists can affect the media we consume, and what sources of media actually report the truth. HOW do we know for sure that its the truth once we do find it? With so much fake news and corruption how can we be sure the source we declare as reporting truth isn't actually apart of the corruption and been paid to make us think what they report is truth, but really is what someone WANTS us to think is truth?

                           Something I'm passionate about outside of college?

             I am passionate about bettering myself and my life, caring for my children and animals, and trying to become a better human every day. I am the type of woman that will rescue injured animals i find, or find kittens abandoned somewhere and take them home to foster them until they are old enough to be adopted. I spend time at the humane society whenever i can just visiting the animals and trying to brighten their day. I also love reading books, and I always have. I have a gigantic book collection at my house, and I read to my kids every night before bed. I absolutely love visiting the little free libraries around each town whenever possible and finding a free book to take home. When I'm done with a book, I like to return it to a free library so someone else can enjoy it, but I definitely have collected more than I have put in the libraries. Oops!

                                        My top 3 sources of information

                 My top 3 sources of information currently probably are TikTok, Facebook, and the news articles that come up on Google on my phone. I don't watch the news anymore because of many reasons. A few of them being I don't really watch TV much anymore, I have heard things about major news channels being corrupt or sharing fake news, even dealing with lobbyists and being paid to push a fake narrative. So, I don't really like watching the news on TV anymore, especially because a lot of the news reports are very negative. I will admit that it is hard to know for certain what is real and what's not when reading articles on my phone thru google or even Facebook. I like TikTok because there is a lot of videos of people recording things as they are happening, so with those types of videos it is easy to tell they are real since we can watch it happen. I am aware that videos can be edited and such, but you can usually tell if a video has been edited because of clips being cut off or a new clip starting, etc. I am definitely more of an "I'll believe it when I see it" type of person, so I like it when I can find videos where I can see what happened. instead of just having to take someone's word for it/ But I do realize no matter what that anything technically can be fake, and I do my best to validate things for my own knowledge if I'm able to.