A Carrot, a Bear, and a Margarita
A Snapshot of a Day in the Life of Kara Margaret Cavalli
I am the daughter of two teachers and the sister of two younger brothers. I am a granddaughter, a niece, a cousin, a friend. I treasure all of these titles and relationships. I am a junior majoring in Elementary Education and minoring in Nonprofit Leadership. I have never wanted to be a teacher because I wanted to teach my students about a particular subject area. I have always wanted to be a teacher because I wanted to teach my kids period. Yes! I love learning! I have some level of interest in seemingly every subject area, but what I find even more exciting and rewarding than knowing things is knowing people—knowing their stories, seeing and acknowledging their hurt, recognizing their strengths and potential, dreaming with them about their future, and cheering them on from the sidelines and sometimes holding their hand as they dare to bravely take that next step. This is part of my heartbeat—knowing kids and watching and helping them grow into becoming the people they were created to be.
I enjoy being physically active, but I am not disciplined in making it a part of my daily routine. I love being outside—I love adventuring and exploring, traveling and camping, swimming and getting wet, and backyard games of volleyball and football. I enjoy playing sports but tend to be very competitive. Usually my frustration is not with other people, but with myself and my mistakes and inability to meet the perfect standard I irrationally hold myself too. My brothers are my favorite people to be active with I think because they are the people I am most comfortable with in the world. I’m not afraid of messing up in front of them. All of our activities are filled with laughter; they challenge me to take new risks and help me to not take myself too seriously.
I think the greatest influence on my physical activity level is time…or at least my perception of my time. And to be even more honest, the incredible amount that I sweat. And while we’re at it, let’s just call it like it is…I’m lazy. I do not prioritize exercise or physical activity because I cannot conceive having enough time in each day to go to the rec, workout, shower, and make myself presentable before my next activity. My evenings are mostly booked and it just does not seem feasible to workout in the middle of the day. I’m not the type of girl who can sneak in a quick thirty-minute workout and go about the rest of my routine. One of my great life sorrows is that I sweat like a man and believe me a shower is necessary and that just takes more time.
I think the fact that I am a white middle class girl raised in rural Kansas has definitely impacted how I think about and experience physical activity. Physical activity for me as a kid was going out and exploring in the creek or playing volleyball with a garden hose “net” stretched between two trees and these are the types of activities I still enjoy doing. There wasn’t a rec center in Lincoln, KS, USA. That lifestyle has never really been modeled to me and it honestly is still a little intimidating and overwhelming to me.