It's Me Manifesto

This is my real resume.

The one that I could never submit anywhere, because it wouldn't be taken seriously, despite the fact that it's the most accurate representation of me I think is possible in a resume.

Cover Page

I’m an introvert who taught herself to be an extrovert.

I could read when I was four years old and they felt they couldn’t justify keeping me out of kindergarten at that point. Smaller than my so-called peers, I kept my nose in a book and never developed social skills; if my family culture wasn’t against psychological diagnoses I probably would have carried the Asperger’s label before they retired it. I was painfully self-conscious and easily bullied. I dreamed of being a farmer so I could talk to animals all day and read books by myself at night, but when I was seventeen I made myself learn to talk to people so I could counsel rape survivors. I did that until I realized it was breaking my heart beyond repair, and then made a series of stumbling, pre-adulthood missteps that netted me a lot of experience and a lot of reason not to trust people.

Then almost without meaning to, I rediscovered what it was like to learn. And not just learn but absorb, to catch the thread of something interesting and grab and pull and follow until I could wrap myself up in it. My first attempt at college hadn’t gone so well, and I’d decided that I was just simply not meant to go to college, but I tried again and realized that I simply hadn’t been ready. Everything was there, waiting to be learned, and college was the excuse to do it. I threw myself into academia, made the Chancellor’s list every semester, and realized that, far from being able to hide in books, I needed to be able to communicate with people even more. Every day, every second was a test of adaptation and communication: if I do this right, if I talk to this person in just the right way, there’s no limit to what they can teach me.

I got an internship at the [leadership teaching place] because I decided to ask for one – there was nothing posted, I simply sent in my resume and said, “I would love to intern for you.” I didn’t know at the time what I was chasing; in hindsight I would say that it was only a natural that I move from learning about things to learning about learning, that I would migrate from writing papers about the innovation I could see on the page in the transition from Victorian to Modern British literature to working in a place where they literally study innovation. I made a conscious decision when I started to learn how to “network,” as they say, and what I’ve learned is that if you’re honest, and open to what other people have to teach you, people will notice.

I’ve learned that the world is a really cool place. There are ideas happening all over the world, all the time, and it’s not that all of them are good ideas - in fact a lot of them are pretty bad ideas - but it’s the fact that we, as humans, our natural state is to have ideas, to come up with new structures and new ways of explaining How Stuff Works, Why Stuff Works, and How We Can Make Stuff Better.

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Kate

kaoine.to.fly@gmail.com | [rest redacted because this is the internet]

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Autodidactic, reliable renaissance thinker with a day job as a digital resources project manager for a multinational nonprofit and a night job earning a master’s degree in English literature, concentrating on editing and publishing, with a self-diagnosed case of ADHD that funnels excess brainpower to running marathons and learning about what amazing new ways of thinking are out there. Believes despite all evidence and a frequent, creeping sense of dystopia that people are good, and the world is amazing. Thinks that if more people could see that, it would be even more amazing.

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Key Skills

• Prolific Writer. Able to write to any audience from high academic to corporate clients to casual blogging.
• Detail Oriented. Currently earning a degree in editing and known to correct grammatical errors unasked; an attentive and responsive editor and beta reader when asked.
• Knowledge Management.  Experience acquiring, synthesizing and organizing knowledge content for easy retrieval.
• Research. Skilled in databases and research tools; close friends with several research librarians besides.
• Technology. Native user. Remembers the days when she booted the entire WindowsOS from a floppy disk. Custom builds PCs for gaming, runs a LinuxOS off a USB stick, will begrudgingly use a Mac without setting it on fire.
• Communication. Known for ability to communicate across boundaries and tailor approach to suit audience. In a presentation for a rhetoric class, convinced a Ph.D’d professor that the aquatic ape theory held merit, despite the fact that the stated assignment was to argue in favor of a terrible idea.

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Professional Experience

[redacted because this is the internet, and I don't want people contacting my employers about a blog where I spork bad movies and talk about my feet]

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Education

UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT GREENSBORO – Greensboro, NC

• Masters of Arts in English Literature, Editing and Publishing – In Progress
• Bachelor of Arts in English Literature – December 2012
• Chancellor’s List
• Summa Cum Laude

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Interests and Skills

Running

• Completed two marathons in under 4 hours
• Runs almost daily
• Self-driven student of the science of running

Science

• May in fact be using ‘science’ as a blanket term for an insatiable need to understand How Stuff Works, Why Stuff Works, and Now What?

Culture, Pop and Obscure

• From Beowulf to Beyonce, I will own you in a trivia contest
• Audiophile with no real genre limitations.
• Science fiction nerd who likes Star Trek and Star Wars, but thinks Stargate could take them both in a fight.
• Is gay. Thought about being coy about it, but wants to believe the world is past that. Won’t claim to Understand All Gay People or anything like that, but makes an effort to stay plugged into LGBTQA culture, at least enough to keep up with the growth of the bleeping acronym.
• Gamer. Primarily a PC gamer, working knowledge of several MMOs and pays attention to industry news.
• Thinks West Wing was the greatest TV show ever made, but will sometimes also say ‘Firefly’ or ‘Veronica Mars.’ Is trying to watch more Dr Who but can't really get past the absence of Donna Noble. Sometimes watches reality television.

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The bottom line: I’m a motivated webcrawler who can take complicated information and communicate it in ways people not plugged into the feed can understand. If I don’t know an answer, I find someone who does. Every time.

Here are some links to things that inspire me. I have no way of knowing if you’ve seen them, so I won’t apologize if you have.

• The Fraud Police - Amanda Palmer’s Commencement Speech to NEIA’s class of 2012 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eA8XiC3m7vw
• Anne Hathaway’s Speech at the HRC Awards http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZuIdQVEVY0
• We Are All Cyborgs Now - Amber Case’s TEDtalk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1KJAXM3xYA
• And a bonus, something that makes me laugh every single time I watch it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-w-58hQ9dLk