A/N: Truthfully, I dug this piece up from a couple years ago - it was a Career and Personal Planning assignment called "Who Am I?" The intention was that we would write all the basic facts about ourselves, our hopes, and our ambitions for the future as something we could reflect on at a later date. Hah. I didn't believe that a person could be summed up into general facts and simple words and sentences, so I wrote this. It accounts what I truly think about the person I am, facts that I don't think will ever change because they are truly the underlying framework of myself. Despite being a drabble, I think it has some worthwhile writing and important ideas. Unfortunately, I received a bad mark on the piece because it was not what was requested in the assignment - the teacher obviously didn't agree with my theory.

Who am I? I am a name, a person; I am what I like, what I believe, and I am my own actions. I am a teenage girl not unlike other teenage girls, and yet I am entirely myself. I like autumn leaves and snowy days and rainy spring days that you can sit inside on and curl up with a good book and a cat and read the day away. I like walking my dog on clear nights and watching sunsets and starry nights and pointing out satellites and shooting stars. I like sitting in the boat on the shores of Shuswap Lake, listening to the bats and the crackling campfire; on the colder nights, I feel safe, swaddled in my quilt, when it is so dark that I can't make my hand out in front of my face; falling asleep to the eerie whistling of the trains passing across the lake.

I believe in the independence of mind, body, and spirit. I think that people should construct their identities based on their own beliefs instead of following the paths laid out for them. I believe in questioning everything, and learning the "why's" behind the "what's." I believe that a girl has equal right to take a boy out on a date as a boy does a girl. I believe that holding the door open for somebody isn't gentlemanly, but common courtesy. I think that man are just as able to speak passionately on a subject they love as a woman and that it doesn't make them any less a man for doing so. I believe in ethics, morality, and spirituality, but I don't have religion. I believe that the life we live is in the choices that we make and not in destiny. I have faith that mankind will learn the value of the life they choose and use it to better the lives of others.

I believe there is hope.

Like all other human beings, I act in the way that I do because I believe it is the right way to be. I am not always proud of the things that I do and sometimes my actions and my beliefs don't correspond. I dislike ignorance, weakness and arrogance, and I dislike bigots and people that force their views on others. Yet, I have sometimes found myself without answers and I make mistakes, I shy away from people because I don't understand them, and I am often stubborn and opinionated. I am a hypocrite. However, I stand up for those I love, I respect when the same respect is given to me, I love and laugh and joke with my friends. I have my faults and assets and I live by good intentions, and in all regards, I think this is what makes me wholly human.

The three most important things in my life are family, friendship and home. Family is important to me because my parents were very physical, loving, and compassionate with me when I grew up. I am closest to my father because he treats me like an equal and companion as well as a daughter; he is a good listener and teacher despite not being an academic man, he is experienced, a critical thinker, and knowledgeable in a variety of areas. I respect my dad more than I could truthfully say for any other human being because he has earned a great amount of respect.

Friends are another important factor in my life. A friend is closer than family in some ways: they are someone you can relate to and laugh with, comfort and cry on; friends are people that will tells you you're wrong, even when you don't want to hear it. A friend, like family, means love, means trust, means simple companionship. However, like everyone, I have few friends but many companions.

Home is the most important part of my life. Home is not a house or a room or an address; a true home is a metaphor for everything you are. Home is the place you can be perfectly relaxed, safe, and loved; it is not so much a material somewhere, but a mental state you reach in the habitat you have built. Home is friends, family, dogs and cats, childhood memories, your cosy nook and favourite novel. Home is a safe haven from all the frightening, terrible things that happen outside, it is a place to rest and restore yourself as well as a place in which your build your life.

I have not described myself completely or too my satisfaction in this analysis, not out of narcissism, but because the essence of a person cannot fit into an assembly of letters and sentences nor be described by crude adjectives and metaphors. Perhaps I am not skilled enough, but any attempt by me to put myself in words and categories is incomplete and vague and seemingly shallow. Throughout this profile, I can only touch on who I believe myself to be through naming the things that I like and think and do, and the people that I admire and the places I love. For the 16 years that I have lived, there are a few things that I like most about myself that I would wish everyone could enjoy once in their live: I am human, I am young, alive, and free.