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Hello, my name is Jada and I’m 18 years old. I was born in Chicago and raised on the south side. Growing up in Chicago was the best and worst. You had a candy lady on every corner in the summer, selling 50cent bags of chips and candy bags, a variety of flavored syrups to choose from for your icy, sleepovers with your cousins at grandma’s house every weekend, the Bud Bilikin parade, and boat rides on the river. So much to do, never a dull moment in the city. Growing up in the hood wasn’t as terrible as outsiders made it seem. Gun violence was and still is our biggest issue, but as someone who spent the majority of her life in that setting, I had more fun than anything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As I got older I realized that the streets have no age limit when it came to its victims, so I knew that It was better for me to get as far away as possible. I will forever have a soft spot for what was once my community because it played a huge role in who I am today. You see people that you love lose all hope and you can’t help but try to force them onto the right path. It doesn’t matter if you’re on your last limb or you grow exhausted, you still push because all of the love you have for a person clouds your vision; resulting in the numbing of any pain you feel. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
From this, I’ve grown into an optimistic, open-minded person because giving up is never an option, and there is good in every negative situation. It is also one of the reasons why I came to SIUE, I knew I wanted to remove myself from that environment but I couldn’t bring myself to move across the country from my loved ones. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I’m about 243 miles away from home which is not as bad, but it kinda is because I’ve never been this far away from my family for a long time. While I’m here I plan on joining many clubs that center around unity and sisterhood just so I can feel more comfortable with being in a new setting. I’m also working toward my Bachelor of Science in Nursing. With this degree, I plan on making a change in as many lives as I possibly can, mainly women of color. I feel as though the majority of their experiences with healthcare workers tend to be very negative so providing them comfort and creating a safe space at a vulnerable time will be my top priority. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Outside of academics and life goals, I do have my downtimes. I enjoy reading books, I don’t have a favorite genre I like all kinds of books. My obsession with reading began over quartine, at that time life seemed so depressing and books were my escape from reality. I enjoy listening to music, it’s like therapy, while I color. I only do this after I complete an exam, quiz or a great sum of work to reward myself or to just relax my brain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As of now, I’m currently working on strengthening my social skills, I didn’t feel like this was an issue in high school but now that I’m in college I’ve realized that if you want it you have to go out and network with people. So it is hard for me because going on to new people and starting a conversation is not the easiest thing in my opinion, but I do find myself holding a decent conversation with peers even if it does make me feel awkward and I’ve also built up the courage to ask a question during the middle of a lecture. To me, this is big because I would’ve never thought stepping out of my comfort zone wouldn’t be so bad. So if you do see me starring at you for a good second then looking away just for me to look back at you for a few more seconds just know that I’m either about to spark a conversation or I might just keep looking away and back at you because I put too much thought into it and became overstimulated. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Hello, my name is Jada and I’m 18 years old. I was born in Chicago and raised on the south side. Growing up in Chicago was the best and worst. You had a candy lady on every corner in the summer, selling 50cent bags of chips and candy bags, a variety of flavored syrups to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_sb_is_suggestion_mode":false,"_sb_show_suggestion_boards":false,"_sb_show_comment_boards":false,"_sb_suggestion_history":"","_sb_update_block_changes":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-14","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eportfolio.siue.edu\/jada-parker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/14","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eportfolio.siue.edu\/jada-parker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eportfolio.siue.edu\/jada-parker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eportfolio.siue.edu\/jada-parker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eportfolio.siue.edu\/jada-parker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/eportfolio.siue.edu\/jada-parker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/14\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":383,"href":"https:\/\/eportfolio.siue.edu\/jada-parker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/14\/revisions\/383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eportfolio.siue.edu\/jada-parker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}