VP Team Bios - vaverine

[vaverine.livejournal.com]

My Dearest Vulva-Loving Superstars,

As several of you have requested, your friendly neighborhood VP Team members are taking this opportunity to let you get to know us a little better. We will take turns posting our bios for your reading pleasure. :) Check out thetag for this entry to view them all.

Of course, we want to get to know you, too, so if you haven't already and you'd like to, feel free to introduce yourself here, as indicated on the profile page. (Note that you can also now add yourself to the VP Frappr mapfrom the intro page.) If you made your introduction a while ago and your life has changed dramatically since then, reply to your old comment and update us!

So here is

I'm Valerie. You can call me Valerie, or Val or ... well, if you come up with something and want to give it a try - go for it. I'm pretty flexible. My mom used to call me Vavvy and Vaverine, hence the username. Nothing at all to do with Wolverine, though people keep asking :)



I'm24, an only-child and Canadian. I grew up in a village on the banks of the St. Lawrence river, in Ontario. There were lots of cows... and that's about it for high-lights, lol. My family is close, but always encouraged me to really strike out on my own. So, when I graduated from high-school, I moved across the country, to Vancouver, for university. While I didn't finish a degree there, I loved the experience and have been in post-secondary school ever since.

Two years ago I moved here, to Calgary, Alberta, to live with my partner positivesamadhi.Since neither of us are very religious, or interested in control from the state, we don't plan to marry, but this one is forever :) We have a ferret named Akki and a temporary room-mate named Dean-O-Matic. They're both cute and (mostly) house-broken :)



Currently I'm attending college and am almost half way through my Social Work diploma. I'll be on practicum both this winter semester, and next - though I don't know where yet. I'm interested in working with the AIDS/HIV+ community,specifically around harm-reduction. I'm considering returning to Vancouver in the future to work with the safe-injection clinic (Vancouver's Downtown Eastside has the highest rate of HIV infection in the developed world) or HIV/Hep harm-reduction through sexual education.

All of my energy is in my school and family right now, so I'm kinda dull :) I'm a regular plasma donor and I knit. I'm mildly addicted to World of Warcraft and I love to read (books, BUST, comics). I'm in the rave/techno community, I'm a happy yoga-novice and a level II Reiki practitioner. I'm pro-choice, and I am proud to call myself a feminist. I've also been a crisis counsellor and been in counselling - so I have a lot of compassion for, and some experience with, mental health issues.

I feel like I've been reading VP forever, it's been a few years for sure. The VaginaPagina community has helped me search for info on LunaPads, guided me to my much loved Mirena, and held my hand through my first, atrocious yeast infection. Most recently, it's been home to my rather traumatic Brazilian wax experiment which went horribly awry. I always find info and a shoulder to lean on here, and I love it.

The go-to girl for sex info in high-school, I now love learning and sharing with this amazing community. Every day that goes by I can help spread the information you've taught me, and find out answers to questions I'd never even considered. Every day that goes by I'm more passionate about this project.

I am proud to be a member, proud to be one of your maintainers, and proud of the work we're all doing together!

Comments

[succulentpoet.livejournal.com]

I live in Vancouver, and I have a close friend who works at INSITE, the safe-injection clinic, as well as a number of friends who work on the Downtown Eastside. If you wind up doing sex ed projects in that area, I'd love to get involved/help out.

[vaverine.livejournal.com]

Wow - that's awesome. I love LJ's super-networking capacity. It's so cool to link up with people this way!

I used to work with A Loving Spoonful (http://www.alovingspoonful.org/) when I was in Van. They provide meals to people living with HIV/AIDS and a lot of their clients live in the DTES.

I really recommend them if you're interested in a really fun, really fulfilling place to volunteer.

[sparkle-lite.livejournal.com]

Hi from a fellow knitter!

You are very pretty and that is the sweetest ferret I have ever seen. I love reading this forum and adding to it when I can. Also yay! for us ladies helping and supporting one another with first hand experiences. Learning from the posts also helps me feel very aware and in control of my reproductive health.

Thankyou for maintaining the site.

[frolicnaked.livejournal.com]

You totally win for the most linktastic bio!

(And I totally win for being able to use "linktastic" the most times in casual LJ conversation.)

I love making new words. :)

[vaverine.livejournal.com]

I like the linkage - it gives people lots of stuff to read if they get bored with the bio, lol!

Linktastic is pretty sweet. You win at the internetz!

[frolicnaked.livejournal.com]

Even if I already knew what it was, I clicked on the link. I think maybe it is a fun compulsion.

[petal-abstract.livejournal.com]

My boyfriend and I are in love with your oh-so-adorable ferret. I seriously have never seen one that cute before :D.

Thank you for helping maintain VP!!