Arwyn Sherman

Pebble Beach, California

What classes have you taken at COA?
Human Ecology Core Course
Psychology and the Law
Music Fundamentals
Adolescent Psychology
Satanic Verses
Starting Your Novel
Music Improv
British Literature
Physics III
Fairytales
Reality Effect
Tutorial in Keyboarding
Secondary Methods
Supporting Students with Disabilities
Autobiography
Aesthetics of Violence
Corn and Coffee
Writing Seminar II
Creative Writing
Native American Literature
Changing Schools
Changing Society
Intercultural Education
4-D Studio
Evolution

What has been your favorite class at COA? Why?
All the lit classes are amazing. Outside of my usual realm of literature, I would say Evolution taught by Chris Petersen and Steve Ressel was my favorite class. It expanded the questions I ask about human nature when reading literature and gave me some scientific knowledge about what I explore in other genres of my life. It was also just a fun, awesome class. The fairytales class would have to be my favorite lit class, although Native American Lit with Karen Waldron is a close follow up. Satanic Verses with Bill Carpenter was pretty inspiring too. It’s very hard to pick.

What was your favorite lecture at COA? Why?
There was a guest speaker, Marty Crump, who came and talked about amphibians and cultural perspectives of animals. She was an amazing speaker and I thoroughly enjoyed her talk.

What is your dream occupation?
Writer or teacher. Preferably both.

Do you work on or off campus?
I work as a TA, a janitor for B & G, and an occasional night bus driver.

What do you see yourself doing after COA?
Teaching somewhere, currently I want to teach on the border of US and Mexico. Writing novels.

What country or state would you like to visit?
I’ve always wanted to see Vermont. And I would like to return to Nicaragua sometime. Or another part of Central America.

Where would you love to live?
No idea right now. I think I will know when I get there.

What is happiness to you?
Being with animals.

Have you had an internship?
I plan on doing my internship as a student teacher this fall.

What are your ideas for your senior project?
I am going to write a novel with Bill Carpenter as my adviser.

What is one of your favorite childhood memories?
I went to the pool once with my best friend and ate Nilla wafers and did back flips off the edge.

What is your favorite food to eat? What is your favorite thing to cook?
I love food. Like seriously love it. So this is a hard question. I am vegan and gluten free so when foods makes it into my narrow threshold of things I am not allergic to/avoiding, I appreciate them. I love salads though. And garbanzo beans. I have a slight obsession with nutritional yeast. Dried mangoes are good too.

What do you like to do when you’re not doing school work?
Not doing school work? When does this happen? How did I miss it? Just kidding. Sort of. I like to drink tea and write. I sometimes watch bad sci-fi series from the nineties. When I’m feeling social I will have people over to tea and we eat tasty vegan gf snacks.

What are your favorite colors?
Black, gray, dark forest green.

What are your favorite flowers?
Marigolds because they were the first thing I ever successfully grew.

What are your favorite animals?
Cats. I really like all animals though. It’s my non-academic obsession, animals. I really like them. I like to hang out with them, look at picture of them, draw them. It makes me happy when I see animals in the wild. I like squirrels a lot too.

What came first, the chicken or the egg?
Can I be exempt from this question because I am vegan?

What is the motto you like to live by?
Do what makes the better story. Respect things. Do things that terrify you.

Why did you choose to come to COA?
Because I love learning but hated school.

What do you like to study?
Relationships between things. Literature as means of exploring these. Education.

Where do you like to study?
In TAB or holed up in my living place. Anywhere that people don’t bother me.

Who are your favorite writers and poets?
T.S. Eliot, Cormac McCarthy, Sherman Alexie

Who are your favorite artists and musicians?
Neutral Milk Hotel, Arcade Fire, Juanes Van Gogh

Who is your favorite fictional hero?
I was never into the whole “hero” thing. Flawless characters annoy me to no end.

What historical figure do you most admire?
Daniel Ellsberg. I met him once. It was one of the most awesome experiences of my life. It was at a book signing. He encouraged me to keep doing what I was doing.

Who is your hero today?
I really hate the word “hero”. But there are a lot of people who I admire and look up to. The list is pretty big. Most of the lit teachers here have made it on there among other teachers I have had in my education. People who die for what the believe in automatically have my respect and admiration.

What do you value most in your friends?
That they are their own person and do what they do because they want to do it. I am uncomfortable around people who pretend.

What do people say is your most marked characteristic?
Apparently I am strange. But in a way that makes people comfortable about their own strangeness, so I don’t worry too much about it.

What talent do you wish you had?
I wish I could shred the piano like those famous people do.

What is your least favorite spice?
Curry. (I know, I feel so un-COA saying that).

Do you have anything cool or unique you would like to share?
I am left-handed. There is speculation that this means I ate my twin in-utero because apparently most twins are left-handed and a lot of pregnancies begin as twins before one absorbs the other. Someone concluded that this means left-handed people eat their twin. I don’t think I ate my twin, I don’t think I had one, but it did gain me the nick name “baby eater” for a good week by my housemates and good friends. That was a huge digression from my original point, which is that I am left-handed and will therefore, statistically speaking, live longer than right handed people.