Hello. My name is Victoria Hess. I’m from the United States. I grew up on a farm and in a small town in the middle of nowhere. I’m 24 years old. I graduated from Olivet Nazarene University with a degree in Intercultural Studies and a minor in Teaching English as a Second Language. While I was there, I was apart of a jail ministry that I loved. I met some of the most amazing people during my time there and they helped mold me into who I am today. After graduating, I moved to Guangzhou, China to be an ESL teacher. Living in China turned me into an adult. There was no opportunity to live the #adulting life while living in a foreign country. #adulting turned into #adult. I learned so many lessons while living there. I met amazing people, but still to say that my life there was complicated would be minimizing it all. When trying to describe my China life, it depends on the moment as to how I view living there. In some ways, it was awful. In others, it was magical. Life kinda exploded a bit as I decided to leave my job last minute, which led to me taking a year off to evaluate what I wanted out of life and what my next step would be. This was a wise decision. During this year, I took a big step back from everything to rest and heal and begin to process all of the things that have happened in my life. Living back at home during this time was difficult as I transitioned from giant city life to small farm town life. But I needed it. I got to reconnect with my roots and my family. I was able to re-establish myself as an adult in the place where I had only lived as a teenager. But I had grown beyond the constraints of my past, which made things complicated. During this, I decided I needed to go to graduate school. I googled what grad schools would be good for me in Europe as it would be much cheaper to get a degree here than back in the States. I found the NOHA program which I was accepted into for a master’s in International Humanitarian Action. Now I’m living in Malta for my first semester and have never enjoyed school more.

This is a variation of what I use to describe myself in introduction as I meet people from all over the world from even more backgrounds. Sometimes I add more details in some areas and less in others. But it’s still difficult for me to condense my life down to just a (long) paragraph as a synopsis that is packaged pretty for others to start to understand me. In this, I usually leave out my struggles. I just leave things as positive and motivational as I can. When I get a little bit deeper, which I am not scared of by any means, I begin to explain some of my struggles (you can look back on my past blogs if you want more details about that). So much so that one of my friends here has decided that I’m cursed. Which I think is hilarious. I frame it as I’m blessed to have made it this far because there have been ample opportunities for me not to be around.

The real question is with this is who are you? How do you describe yourself? Do you take ownership of your past, both good and bad? Do you only focus on the veneer of your life while ignoring the structural issues beneath the craftsmanship of your life? Do you try to become the best version of yourself by stretching your limits in a healthy manner? Why?

If you can answer any of these questions, props to you. These are the kinds of questions that I live for. I can enjoy small talk for a while, but usually, I prefer to take things deeper. How do you define yourself as a success or a failure? What are the parameters within this internal viewpoint?

Imagine introducing yourself to a group of people you know nothing about and may have nothing in common with. What are the key features about yourself you’d want to highlight? Would you want to only highlight your successes? Or would you want to talk about your struggles and explain how you’ve begun the process of overcoming them?

These questions remind me of the prompts I would give to my students while teaching, but that doesn’t mean that they are any less valid. I may have even given some of these as writing prompts to my students. If you are able to answer these questions and understand the nuances of your responses, I believe that is the healthiest thing you could do. How could you expect others to understand you if you have never begun the process of understanding yourself? This process, which I encourage you to begin, could start right now.

Believe in and love yourself. Become your own advocate, so you can advocate for others. You’re not alone in this. I believe in you and your abilities.