About Me — D. Sow
Spoken Word Artist, Community College Professor, 2x Monthly Bonus Recipient on Medium
Hi everyone!
Here are some fun facts about me:
- I’m 36 and recently earned tenure as an Assistant Professor of English at my community college. I’ve been teaching university and college students since I was 25 and absolutely love my career!
- I once rapped on stage with undergound hip-hop artist Sage Francis, and I used to freestyle battle other kids in high school. I somehow passed my Chaucer class in college by rapping my final project in Old Middle English.
- I can’t swim but I do enjoy jet-skiing.
- Quality milk chocolate is my weakness.
- I’ve painted a few murals. Love making huge statements on public wall spaces!
- I competed with Team Ventura at the National Poetry Slam when I was only 21. We lost early on in our rounds, but it was an incredible learning experience.
- I won first place in the Santa Barbara County Spelling Bee when I was in sixth grade and went to state finals (but to this day, I still forget how to spell “caribou”).
- I’m a talkative, highly energetic, and positive person! I also have a good sense of life balance and enjoy nature and pure solitude.
- I’ve studied and lived abroad in Cordoba, Spain. I was speaking Spanish fluently for a good while, too (wish I still was fluent).
- I used to speak Tagalog when I was little.
- My favorite Filipino food: turon, cassava, lumpia, chicken adobo, and pancit.
- Ethnically, I say I’m Filipino and Romanian. I’m also: Bolohano, Waray Waray, Cebuano, Chinese, and Spanish. I was born in NYC, lived in the Philippines when I was younger, and was raised in southern California.
- I’ve performed in a Polynesian Dance Club show. The group was called Iaorana Te Otea.
- I’ve enjoyed writing some “finance/real estate investment” articles on Medium because I love putting the spotlight on people who have taken risks and done well in this area (like my stepdad and my husband).
- I serve as the Co-coordinator for the Asian and Pacific Islander Committee and as Co-Coordinator for the Creative Writing Program on my campus. Both leadership roles are challenging and meaningful in different ways.
- Job positions I’ve had before becoming a professor: Mexican restaurant bus-person, Belgian Cafe waitress, Japanese sushi restaurant waitress, women’s boutique salesperson, non-profit organization’s tutor, traffic school company’s receptionist, and real estate software company’s Customer Care Specialist.
- My husband and I love our five-year-old little girl so much! We regularly take her to soccer practice sessions and watch her develop her teamwork and coordination skills.
- I recently finished reading: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Notes on Grief, Rebecca Solnit’s feminist memoir Recollections of my Nonexistence, and Joy Harjo’s collection of poems entited An American Sunrise.
- Currently reading: James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time, Jesmyn Ward’s The Fire This Time, Cathy Park Hong’s Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning, and Anne Lamott’s Bird By Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life.
- Some things that matter to me: family, good friends, student success, community, diversity, equity, inclusion, volunteer work, being vulnerable, taking calculated risks, serving others with my whole being, authenticity, writing, discovering and living in simple joys daily.
