Assignment #1

A Life in Transition

Nicole Chesney is a busy young woman. She’s been attending SUNY Albany for the last four years and is a Senior Psychology/Education major, living off-campus in a house she shares with two friends she met her freshman year. School keeps her busy, but doesn’t prevent her from having a social life.

Nicole enjoys music; as a child she played the cello, but gave it up when her parents moved to a town where the school didn’t have an orchestra. She acquired her taste in music from her parents and enjoys listening to performers from their generation like Tom Petty and the Allman Brothers.

She remains close to her family. In addition to a love of music, Nicole acquired a love of boxing from her father; Mike Tyson is her favorite. She’s still a fan and watches when she can. This summer she is working for her mother’s Private Service Bureau; they handle DMV paperwork for customers and car dealers, helping them avoid the inevitable DMV delays. This requires her to commute from Rockland County to SUNY Albany several times a week. She enjoys both work and school, “Only the commute is bad.”

She and her friends are always ready to socialize. Sometimes it’s a concert, sometimes they just hang out together. But often it involves going out and doing something; Nicole loves physical activity. In high school she swam all of the time. Today she especially enjoys camping and recently spent a week outdoors near Las Vegas.

Nicole will complete her degree this fall. “It’s [college] been a lot of fun.” She’d like to work with developmentally disabled people, or perhaps become a guidance councilor; she definitely wants to work with people. She’s keeping her options open; she may decide to go to graduate school instead. The one thing she doesn’t want to be is a teacher. Nicole sees her life in front of her, but she’s not in a rush. Whatever Nicole decides to do in the future, success will follow her.

Introduction to Erwin Bush

Erwin was born in New York City and grew up in a Long Island suburb. Since then he has lived in Delaware, Illinois, Pennsylvania, California and Rensaelear County, New York. He also spent 3½ years living on the U.S.S. Richard L. Page (FFG-5) which moved from Greece to Philadelphia, PA to Norfolk, VA; a year and a half was spent cruising the Mediterranean. He has an 18-year old son, Maxwell, living in Placitas, New Mexico and studying for a career in the film industry.

Over the years Erwin has been a patron of the illustrative arts and early member of ASFA (The Association of Science Fiction & Fantasy Artists,) a radar technician on a naval destroyer, a playwright and composer, a small press publisher, an editor of an academic journal, a book reviewer, a professional philosopher (who talked his way into a non-existent Masters Degree program at an Ivy League School), a spouse and business partner to a book cover artist, a computer repairman, a course designer and teacher, a technical writer, an early designer of CD-ROM based documentation, a steering committee member for the Silicon Valley Chapter of the Association for Software Design, an avid reader and book collector and a freelance writer. He spent 20 years working in the high tech industry, focusing on how to make technology accessible and understandable to ordinary people.

Erwin recently moved back east and is now living with his parents on 62 acres of what was once part of a small New England farm in North Petersburg, NY. He's gone back to school studying journalism; he's enrolled at Excelsior College, but is also taking classes from the University of Minnesota and at SUNY Albany. In addition, he's just started doing volunteer work for the Director of the Stratton VA Medical Center in Albany, New York.

And he's continuing with his freelance writing; he's had several articles published online by various writing and bookselling newsletters. He's also sold reprint rights to one of them to Amphora, published by the Alcuin Society in Vancouver, B.C.. More information about Erwin can be found on his website, www.erwinbush.com.