Let Me Introduce Myself

Hi!

My name is Kiera. I'm your average twenty five year-old female. I graduated from Bowling Green State University. I have two cats named Finbar - like from Jumanji (2018) - and Baymax - like from Big Hero 6. I consider myself a nerd, a geek, pop culture enthusiast. I love to travel, read, and write. I'm not super athletic, but I am fairly active - I jog, I kick box, I play soccer once a week. I work at McDonald's.

On the other hand, I'm not so average. I have two and a half degrees from BGSU - a bachelor's in English, a master's in Literary and Textual Studies, and a certificate degree in Technical Writing. During my six year tenure at BGSU, I became a rabid BGSU hockey fan and remain so. I'm also currently working on completing a business degree via my career at McDonald's.

I've worked at McDonald's for eight years and developed what I call a strange passion for it. I started the job just like everyone else - my parents said that I had too much free time during my high school years and told me I had to get a job. Of all the jobs I applied to at that point, I can be honest that I felt that McDonald's was certainly not the job for me. However, my best friend worked there at the time and low and behold, I'm still there today as Assistant General Manager. My passion for this job comes from the challenge of being one of the top five performing stores in Ohio and the people who constantly challenge me to be better. I would have never thought that I would have been there so long, that I'd meet such great/weird/annoying/interesting people along the journey, or that I'd enjoy it like I have. While I am honestly still searching for a career that uses my academic skills like I've always planned, I could definitely see myself growing and excelling there - something that my inner 17 year-old self is bummed to admit.

I also mentioned that I'm into the pop culture scene, which saying I'm simply "into" it is a little short sited. Given my background in literary theory, in grad school I wrote exclusively about comic books and film representations of superheroes. I've written about all kinds of heroes - Deadpool, Wonder Woman, Jessica Jones, Black Panther, Luke Cage, Thor, among others. My thesis - posted to my main page - focuses on and dissects contemporary representations of women's aggression in Atomic Blonde, Ghost In the Shell, and Wonder Woman. I entered grad school slightly opposed to most feminist theories because of the connotations associated with it, and came out more sensitive to the plight of womanhood that I thought possible. Therefore, much of my professional writing tends to revolve around aggression and gender politics, which I find fascinating and relatable. As Captain Marvel says in "Rise of Alpha Flight", "I'm not an aggressive person, I just really like punching things, and I'm good at it." I'm currently publishing a chapter dissecting the comic series Thor: The Goddess of Thunder and the representation of masculinity within it, and I'm currently writing a chapter about gender bend characters (Hulk/She-Hulk, Captain Marvel, and Wolverine/X-23) and how aggression changes during the gender bend process. I'm terribly excited about all of this and can't wait to see them in final publication.

I've traveled all over the world, which I'm sure I'll reflect on at some point here. In the future, I'd like to return to England and travel to Scotland, Australia, Norway, Finland, Germany, and basically anywhere else that people ask me to go to. I love that traveling expands a person's worldview unlike any other experience is capable.

Given that Finbar is now trying to help me type, I suppose I've written enough about myself. Whereas this post is probably simply shouting out to the void of the internet, eh. Practice makes perfect, right? Hopefully at the end of the summer I'll be a better writer.

-K