My Self-Portrait

Hi everyone! My name is Jessica Mitchell. I am a sophomore, Childhood Inclusive major with a concentration in English. I am from Homer, New York. Most of you have probably never heard of it before, as it is a very small town, but it is 3 and a half hours from Fredonia and about 30 minutes from Syracuse.

I am a person that has a hard time sitting up straight and not slouching. When I stand, my left foot never is straight, it always is turned to the side. My left knee has a large scar right on the knee cap. If you look at my hands/arms, you may notice that my pinky is quite crooked and that my left wrist is a little wider around than my right wrist.

These are all physical characteristics that I think of when identifying my body and they all have a story behind them. For as long as I can remember I have played some kind of sport. In high school I played soccer, volleyball, and softball. In soccer, the played the position of goal keeper (and still do today). My slouching and bad posture is a result of that. When playing this position it is important that you keep your hands low to the ground when in one on one situations, so I have been taught to slouch. It is an unbreakable habit. As far as the scar on my knee, I will save you the from the gory description, but a chunk of my knee was taken out with metal cleats while making a save. My crooked pinky? That was broken after a player kicked my hand instead of the ball, bending backwards and jamming it. My left wrist has been sprained many times, during many sports. The most embarrassing case was while back pedaling and in the process of trying to catch myself I crushed my wrist. My ankle was badly injured during a volleyball game when I went up to spike and when I came down and twisted my ankle, but to make things worse the girl on the other side of the net came down and landed on that same ankle as it was twisted. Let's just say 3 months later I was finally able to start walking on it.

All of these incidents may make it seem like I am an accident prone, but I like to think that these incidents have left me with physical characteristics that make me the person I am today. They show that I love sports, competition, and being active. Those are all characteristics that I would use to describe myself, and the physical characterisitcs that I have discussed help me identify myself in that way.

-Jessica Mitchell