English Audio Request

Finding Me: The Journey of a Thousand Miles Starts with One Step
Once upon a time, there was a fundamental shift of focus from the flow of goods and operational efficiency to the flow of information and knowledge. As the sand sifts through the hourglass, this parable chronicles the evolution of my identity. I know where I am, but it’s meaningless if I’ve forgotten where I was and how far I’ve come.
This is the quintessential Kimberly Rose Waldbillig.
Instead of caring about buying the cereal with the coolest toy and finding the shortest, fastest route to the mall, I am completely immersed in learning and teaching. The passive-aggressive mentality proffered by academia has initiated this metamorphosis from child to adult. Chaos and crisis have characterized my experiences thus far. From cramming some semblance of a social life into an overload curriculum, managing and motivating free riders on group projects, to trying to find a decent job – the real world seems more harrowingly brutish now than it ever has.
Thinking about growing up in Savage, Minnesota sends me into nostalgic childhood reverie . Taking off my training wheels, ice skating (slamming into snow banks), belly-sliding on the front lawn down a thirty-foot ice slide, kissing my next door neighbor in his treehouse, finishing a 3D puzzle of Cinderella’s castle – it all seems so effortless, compared to today. I wish I had a mental archive of my thought processes from way back then. My hindsight is completely a blur . It’s wondrous to think that we all come out cognitively as blank slates, sponges waiting to soak up the wealth of the world. I might have been able to spell words like turmoil and strife, but by no means would I have used them to describe my life.