Jill Foster

Thanks Terri Holley aka @CreativeBlogs and founder of Creative Blog Solutions for this video chat. And thanks to friend Geoff Livingston for producing the fine Blogpotomac trilogy and bringing together DC social media and communications folks all in one place.

Thanks Geoff Livingston and Doriano Carta aka Paisano for the tag.

So here’s to seven micro personal stories…:

1. (one of my mom’s favorites) … I was born in 1970, California, two months premature with a collapsed lung. Parents were not permitted to touch me for months until those protective Catholic nuns gave the green light;

2. I love speaking in public and for whatever reason, didn’t inherit that related fear. Conveying one’s story with confident ownership empowers those telling and those listening. And I want to be more of service in this regard in 2009. P.S. Dr. King’s talk of The Dream and his symphony of brotherhood is like spiritual silk caressing the brain.

3. Scuba diving inspires a degree of fear, a large degree.

4. I grew up in Oklahoma where my mom was raised with her six siblings on wheat lands near Ft. Sill. A favorite family story is when my Grandmother Simpson went with many of the then young kids to the cleaners (small town of 2,500…gas station, cattle, Cherokee tribes, 10 baptist churches, that’s the setting then and now). And for whatever reason, the manager at the cleaners that day refused Grandmother service. She sent my 10 year old uncle to fetch Grandad, a farmer. Grandad drove up, walked to the manager, and tossed him out the window.
Note: good customer service p a y s.

5. Love the OU Sooners. Jan 8th!

6. .. Digging deep here but it made a lasting impact: My first major sweetheart (in Oklahoma high school) was with a guy in drama club; we were different races. The name calling, judgment, and threats of exile stunned my view of people at the time yet it all taught this: a.) people act out of ignorance, habit, and fear and that’s forgivable (even if it being changeable is preferred); b.) Experience as an outcast no matter how brief or at what age teaches relational politics; c.) Practicing love, even with its hard knocks, is the only game in town.

7. Edith Wharton’s Age of Innocence remains a favorite book.

Random extra: I want to be an international spy with ninja ability and have since a kid. It seems a -very- natural career choice to which I’m perfectly compatible … besides the fact of getting the giggles when in tense situations. Otherwise, I’m so her.

And to these seven, would you share your seven-point story?
Scott Stead
Jonny Goldstein
Jill Miller Zimon
Jeff Hibbard
Todd Jordan
Mayra Ruiz McPherson
Jeff Turner

photo, OK wheat fields by rhowell74, Creative Commons 2.0 A-NC-ND