I’m a 29-year-old woman. I was born in Westchester County, NY (an hour north of NYC, on the border of Greenwich, CT), went to college in central NY state and settled in Rochester, NY. I have been married for nearly 6 years to a wonderful, supportive man, whom I met at college 10 years ago. We are the slaves of two 7-year-old siamese cats, Stewie and Leela.

I love to read (mostly romance novels, but also mysteries, classics, and anything else I get my hands on), I love to learn, I adore languages,and I can be a little silly.

I have wanted to be a math teacher since I was 2. And, as the daughter of two neuropsychologists and the sister of a third, I am also special-education-certified with coursework in neuropsychology. I began teaching at the age of 24, after getting a double M.S. in mathematics education and teaching students with disabilities from middle childhood through adolescence (4 NYS certifications). Until now, I’ve worked exclusively at semi-private schools for students with learning-disabilities-plus. Now, I work at a public school, teaching applied algebra to students who have barely passed Algebra 1 and Geometry, which feels very similar to my previous work except that my class size sextupled.

Unfortunately, I also have fibromyalgia, which has interfered with my home and work life significantly over the past 4 years. This is a Add to that a clinical diagnosis of “Major Depressive Disorder” with a side of mild anxiety, which I have had as long as I can remember. In the spring, I was hospitalized and (since no cocktail of meds we’ve tried for the past 13 years had been effective for me) received ECT treatments. As a result, I have barely any memory of Spring 2008-Spring 2009. This affects my daily life as much as the fibromyalgia pain. It was like I woke up and someone else had been using my body… poorly. Although my fibromyalgia was in remission (what stress can there be, when you have no daily memory for a month?), I was over 50 lbs heavier than I remembered being.

So, I felt better and decided to return to the classroom, hopefully in a public school, teaching what I love. That happened, but at first my body ached from the increased muscle use, and then with increased stress, my fibromyalgia began to flare.