Jessica's+Page

 
 * Hello everyone my name is Jessica Saum. I recently graduated with a B.S.E. is Early Childhhood Special Education from Arkansas State University. I live in Cabot, Arknasas with my husband Shane, but I am originally from Columbia, South Carolina. I am excited to be a part of the Great Bear Writing Project Summer Institute, but I'll admit a little nervous about being "out of my league" in an amazing group of educators and writers. I'm excited to learn from and with each person here and cannot wait to see my own personal growth! **
 * In my free time I love to spend time with my friends and husband and I love to travel whenever possible. On the weekends I am always found at the lake swimming or hanging out on our boat! **

Jessica Saum

Biography GBWP-SI

Born and raised in South Carolina, I think that it will always be home for me. I grew up with the knowing that my parents would genuinely make every effort to be at my games and school activities but when it came to Saturdays in the fall, those belong to Gamecock football games. My parents are the most amazing example of a husband and wife that I could have ever hoped for, although my marriage is modeled nothing like theirs. I am my father’s daughter through and through, and according to my husband I like to “run the show” (it’s not that I want to run the show it is just that my show runs so much more smoothly than his) My parents are still married and have grown into dear friends and mentors. I have a younger brother that I still enjoy bickering with when I’m home over things such as who gets the front seat in mom’s car, who got better grades, and who is taking graduate level classes this summer.

I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do with my life after graduating high school but I planned on growing old somewhere along the Carolina coast. I attended the University of South Carolina, I de-“party”-ed the University of South Carolina. I had a few interesting jobs that opened exciting doors for me, but nothing I was going to make a good living doing for an extended period of time. After wasting a little more time not knowing what I wanted to do in college I ultimately went to school to be an aesthetician. Please let me clarify, this means that I can give you facials and a bikini wax, not administer anesthesia or any of the other misconceptions you may have (I’ve been called Dr. more than once, but who am I to correct them?). Oh yeah and then there is that part when somewhere around 2004 I met my husband. He tricked me, I thought he was just a handsome semi-professional hockey player; turns out he was but he is also an air force pilot. Just over a year later I was moving from South Carolina to Del Rio, Texas, then to Corpus Christi, Texas and finally settling in February of 2007 in Cabot, Arkansas. I am fortunate that I was able to immediately find a job and by the summer of 2007 I had finally realized the importance of a college degree. I started over at Arkansas State University in Beebe, really dedicating myself this time and studying early childhood education (it’s amazing how good grades are really attainable). I graduated with a B.S.E. May 7, 2011 in Early Childhood Special Education, 10 years after I initially started college.

In my (nonexistent) free time I am participate in many activities on the base and within my husband’s squadron. To my husband’s dismay I genuinely enjoy planning things which keeps me (overly) involved in social functions. We attend First Baptist Church in Cabot where I volunteer in the special needs room and children’s ministry. As soon as it is warm enough I spend every weekend at the lake on our boat or floating somewhere nearby. I have 3 dogs Belle, Bubba, and Buster. I love to read, I love to shop, I have cried over macaroni and cheese, and I genuinely believe there is very little that a good glass of red wine can’t fix (and honestly it really doesn’t even have to be that good).

**__Time__** Time. Creeps by. Does not stop. Never enough. The same every day. Twenty four equal parts. Each part is sixty minutes, Or thirty six hundred seconds. I often wonder where this time goes. Or why the hard days never seem to end.

June 17, 2011 They're just turtles. . . . media type="file" key="PhotoStory1 Turtles.wmv" width="300" height="300"

Workshop taught by Pam Chain Poem June 16

Mirror. Standing bare, in the presence of my own reflection. A look past self into soul. The preservation of the girl there once was. The lasting lines, of the woman at present resides. Is love the reason? Are the rewards eternal? The grace once envisioned, now absent. Yet the grandeur surviving, evermore.


 * Saturday **
 * A Limerick **


 * Sunny day at the lake, float on a raft **
 * Drink in hand with sunscreen on **
 * Wearing my big hat, I pray for a draft **
 * The sun is soon gone **
 * Disappearing slowly behind the aft **

Warm Up June 14, 2011

Campfire Stories

What a difference in upbringing can mean to ones understanding of what camping actually is. Now, my camping is probably like most of your own experiences. Over summer break, my family along with another family or two would call a campsite and reserve a nice little spot, preferably by a lake for the kids to swim in and we would drive there. Upon arriving we would set up either a tent or sometimes even a pop up camper. This was really “roughing it” and in order to survive the great outdoors we would trek a quarter mile to a bathroom and shower facility. Hopefully be arriving we purchased enough wood to keep a good fire going long enough to stuff our faces all night with s’mores and then have another good fire in the morning where Mr. Bowers (a family friend) would make us pancakes in the shape of our favorite New Kid on the Block.

This is what I remember from camping and how I genuinely believed everyone camped, that is until I met my husband. I will never forget when we were just dating and we decided to go camping for the first time. He pulled out a map and started looking for good places to hike into and explore. I do not really know if I even thought he was serious at first, but he most certainly was. Born and raised in Alaska, where they hunted or caught all of the meat his family at as a child, this man had never once paid for a campsite and thought that it was just a scary story, told by his dad, by a campfire fire, inside an igloo, on a cold winter night.

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