Introductory letter

My birth name is Trinidy Mitchell, I go by Shelly.  I am from the Southwest and still have family ties to that area. My Grandfather and Grandmother retired in the Mesilla Valley of New Mexico and raised pecans and pistachios among the many fruit trees that thrive in the desert air.  Orlando and Daytona have been my home base since 1985 and hopefully will be until retirement.   I have two dogs and a monkey; my dogs are one older Corgi and a rescue puppy from the Orlando Shelter.  Phinneas is an aborial tree monkey from the new world. She is a cotton top tamarin , a squirrel sized monkey from the Callitrichidae family. She is three years old , and a major handful defiantly not a good pet.

I am in my senior year at UCF and my major is Psychology.  Women’s Studies interested me because I eventually want to work in the area of Social Work involving women and children of abusive family circumstances.  I would like to learn how to show women, girls and young boys that many of the cultural views of women need to be re-learned.  Women are the basis and strength of many civilizations and learning to impose this strength without creating anger to certain groups or individuals would be an accomplishment.  My granfather did most of his career in liquid natural gas production in Algeria, Northern Africa.  When we visited him and my grandmother, my mother, myself and my two sisters were not allowed to leave the airport without a male escort, we were not allowed to go into restaurants because we were female, he would go in and buy us a soda and some bread and bring it out to the sidewalk for us to eat.  In the evenings, only men were out of the homes and women were not allowed to drive.  His explanation of the cultural differences was a lifelong lesson and a valuable one.  He taught me and my sisters that we should not judge other cultures but instead, learn the differences and conduct our lives in a manner of acceptance of these differences.  He also expressed to never accept treatment from any individual or group that would make us look or feel inferior because of our gender and to do so without creating a hostile environment that could cause bodily harm.  He stressed that education of both genders creates equality but not to the extent that he would consider fair to the female.  He made that statement years ago and although I have seen improvements in the struggle of equality for women in the United States, I have also noticed other cultures beginning to break through the binds as well and would have to contribute this movement to universal communication and education.  I make the claim of noticed improvements from watching my mother go from a company with no female upper management to all but one female management staff in a course of twenty years.  I remember her saying that she would never be chosen for a job because of the “good ole boy syndrome”, which seems to have been squelched more than just a little bit.