Hi, my name's Oleksa (the Ukrainian version of my proper first name, Aleksy). Currently, I'm a third-year studying diverse subjects at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. My concentration is in philosophy, but I'm also pursuing courses in linguistics, French, poetry writing, and so on. I want to do graduate and eventually doctoral work in philosophy; my goal is to be a professional philosophy writer and university professor. I adore the romance languages; I'll be working on learning Catalan in the fall.

I began writing my senior year of high school, dabbling in haiku and blank verse, devouring Cummings and Williams. At that point, only two thoughts made me continue starting poems: first, I can't be that terrible if I know I'm terrible, and, second, I may get less terrible if I perservere. So I did. I took an introductory poetry writing course with Michael Madonick last spring, during which I wrote many of the poems I was comfortable keeping-- including 'Life In Layers,' which ended up winning the Undergraduate Poetry Contest at my school.

I feel I have a long road ahead of me, especially as far as my poetry is concerned. Le vent l'emportera.   

 

Nice to hear your story. A writer of philosophy, eh? You are brave.

;)

A career in the university is among the best there is, IMO.

Oleksa. I was born in Tarragona and I understand and speak some Catalan. You will have to send me some messages when you get the hang of it. Fast paced jabber. 

Your school life sounds busy. Good luck with that as well.

D

I just went back to school after dropping out 10 or so years ago....but Elementary School Teaching is a bit of a way from Philosophy...lol  ...was nice to see your bio.....xo Michelle