This picture was taken when I was skyping with my friend who I haven't seen for half an year.I have lived in my hometown for 15 years and went on a one-year exchange program in US.I was homesick,shy,and lost the first time I stepped on this strange field.I held my words carefully so that my shabby accent doesn't come out often,I stared at those strangers of different races,frustrated and sad.My first time out of the country alone was such a scare to me.However,when I take a look around,it was not as bad as what I've being imagining.I tried to talk to people,started to make friends,and built up a positive attitude with the help of them. And the time I began to contact my old friends,I can finally smile out.I realized that every obstacle was not that hard to overcome as long as you deal with it with courage and smile.And all I wanted to give to them is a big heart,to show that I appreciate everything I met,things that occur around me.They made me who I am,affect my ways,my choices,and will lead to a future I'm looking forward to.

My avatar is a picture of Paris that I took from the top of the Eiffel Tower about two years ago when my family took a trip to Europe.  Since the moment that I decided I would become an art history major, there was this powerful draw to visit Europe.  As overdramatic as it sounds, it felt like my heart ached for to see the historic cities that housed world-renowned Renaissances paintings and Greek Hellenistic sculptures.  Stepping of the train in Paris was like coming alive in a place that somehow managed to balance the modernity of a big city with the beauty of historic tradition.  It was during my first visit to Paris, those first few moments after stepping off of the Eurostar train, that I realized how many places in the world that I wanted to travel to. 

I chose this picture of the Paris cityscape because it represents everything that I want to do after I graduate from Bryn Mawr.  As a sophomore about to declare herself an art history major, there are a lot of anxieties about making the right decision but every time I look at this picture of Paris I know that I am confident in my choice.  I have to go back to Paris some day (hopefully to work in the Louvre and be a curator for some of my favorite pieces).  After visiting Europe and working in a museum this past summer, I have gotten a taste of what I can do with my life some day.  This photo is just a reminder of what I want.

My avatar is a picture of the most distinguishing landmark of the other place I call home: San Francisco, CA. Although I hail from Virginia, where I have lived for the past 16 years, I spent the first few weeks of my life in The City. These few weeks were the end of three years in which my parents lived there, rent paid for by the US Army. The stories they told of it enthralled me, and, three years ago, they took me back to visit. I felt an instant kinship with the place, with its colors, unusual architecture and landscaping, and sheer sense that the inhabitants are whoever they want to be, no restrictions imposed.

Once, I caught myself remembering the beauty of San Francisco, and told myself that it was just my memory making it seem more beautiful than it actually was, as has happened with other places. I returned to my photo album, and discovered that no, in fact, my memory was actually dimming the beauty.

Without the help of the military, I will not be able to live in San Francisco again unless I find a very well-paying job--the cost of living there is greater than in London. However, I have not given up hope that I will find a way to return.

Hello ladies! My name is Samantha Plate and I'm excited to explore the wonderful city of Philadelphia with you.

My avatar is a picture of me and my friends on a train track. Not too exciting- but the day holds special memories for me.

After our last day of finals this year my friends and I spent the day together, creating memories that will last a lifetime. We had brunch together and then drove to a place called Carousel Gardens where we took tons of fun pictures. The grounds are picturesque and we played on an old tractor that was there. We then ventured to an abandoned train down the road. We took pictures and explored as much of the train as we were able to access.

For the most part, I would hardly call the people in my picture my friends.  I knew them for one or two years at most as they passed through the theatre program at my high school, but I rarely got to know more about them than their names and vague impressions of their personalities.  Still, for every back turned and face blurred in that picture, I could tell you a story about that five minutes in two years that I got the chance to talk to them.  That five minutes has left a lasting impression on my memory.  Moreover, I could tell you about this moment in the picture when the entire room was silent, and each of us closed our eyes while our fellow cast-members surrounded us.  The exercise was simple: match the breathing of the person next to you.  After it ended, I went backstage with the realization that I could trust the people around me.  In an existence marked by fleeting relationships and unknown people, this was a moment when everything stood still, and I did not have a single doubt in my mind about anyone in the room.

Although I've been posting writing on Serendip since at least 2001, I've never put a photo here before. I've always felt as if my writing here was for the people I already knew who were also posting. But since lots of us are meeting for the first time and our assignment gave me an invitation to choose an image, I did. (I also wanted to prove to me and you both that I could actually navigate the process...)

This is a photo that was taken of me on the "set" of a performance that I made in Philadelphia. It took place over ten or twelve square blocks, featured the Benjamin Franklin Bridge as a character, and had about 50 actors in it. That play, which was called ACROSS, constituted the deepest playing in the city that I'd done up to that point. So, it felt appropriate for the work we are doing in our esem. 

I chose this picture of a sunrise over water because I believe that, as a frosh, I am able to begin again. In college, we can re-write who we want to be and start again, just like a sunrise beginning again every day. When I was little, we would go visit my grandmother in Maine in the summer time. I would always get up early, come up the stairs, and find my grandmother sitting in her living room, or on the deck with a cup of tea for me, watching the sunrise. She watches the sunrise every morning with her tea and this sunrise reminds me how she takes her time in the morning to slow down and enjoy the beginning of each day. The sun and the water in this picture both play a part in calming down life for me. I love sitting on the rocks in Maine and watching the waves crash around me. The ocean is a powerful force, but it can also be very calming, reminding me how small I really am in the world, and yet, how big an impact I can make if I really try.

There are a few reasons I choose a profile picture of a perched hawk. The first is, simply, I don't tend to put my face on the internet. Most of the people who I would want to keep in the loop regarding my everyday life, can just as easily get an email with a picture than they can look it up on facebook. The second reason, similarly, is that I really like birds of prey, and hawks in particular; they are among my favorite animals. This particular hawk seemed to be paying rapt attention, which seemed fitting. Finally, although this is rather subconscious, there is something fun about having a representation of the self that has certain cultural assossiations; a reference to something or someone the person with that picture would like the person seeing it to remember and connect to. I generally think that when one has a profile picture with cultural associations, then whenever the person with that profile picture demonstrates some small amount of one of the qualities associated with their profile picture, then that quality becomes strengthened in the reader's memory.

As you can see my avatar is a pan full of dessert. But not just any dessert, they are monster magic cookie bars! I'm very proud of these, they are one of my most successful and most delicious baking adventure products of the summer. It's a joke amongst my friends that before last spring break I did not know what boiling water was. And like most rumors, there is some element of truth to that statement. I grew up in a single-parent household where my mum did everything she could so my sister and I could have a number of opportunities. As a result when she came home from work she did not cook a meal from scratch, even though she knew how; she simply did not have the time after working all day to pay the bills, then dedicating the evening to our education. Thus, I never learned how to cook. But this summer that all changed. I spent the summer at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center(SERC) on a research base in rural Maryland, where there was no dining hall, no parents feeding me, I had to provide for myself. So with the help of my housemates and the internet (of course), I learned how to cook and bake a large variety of items ranging from delicious desserts of every shape and size to more savory options like calzones, steak, rice pilaf, and cultural dishes from Nepal, Columbia, and my home state of Texas, just to name a few. And I must have learned something great because not only did I survive the summer, but now I have a newly ignited passion for cooking and baking!

Anne said that we must introduce ourselves, so I guess I'll do it here. My name is Tessa, and I'm almost nineteen years old. I have lived permanently in Geneva, Switzerland since 2004 (before Europe was Chicago). It's always been the plan for me to move back to attend college in the States. My avatar is, at face value, an overfed ginger tabby sprawled out on a pink blanket. Said overfed ginger is one of my cats. His name is Merlin. I swear we haven't been giving him more food than his brother, Rémy. Merlin just prefers the sedentary lifestyle. I chose him because I was known in high school as the Cat Whisperer. I could get any stray cat on campus to snuggle up and follow me around. I love my kitties so much, I wrote my application essay to Brown about my tabbies (didn't help me get in though). Merlin is my spirit animal. We genuinely enjoy each other's company and always seem to know when the other is in distress and act accordingly. 

I miss him a lot. I know this all sounds odd, like I don't enjoy human company. That is not the case. I love humans. Just on some days, I enjoy cats more.