The Not So Curious Case of Gina Hiner

Hello, my name is Gina Hiner as was basically stated in the title.  I was born and raised in this lovely town, Chico.  I lived in Butte Creek Canyon which I will always love due to the space and freedom it gave me to run and do kid stuff, not to mention the abundance of crazy neighbor stories I was able to accumulate over the years. My immediate family consists of me, my mom, my dad, and my younger brother, Gage.  My extended family is fairly large consisting of my grandparents, eight aunts and uncles, and over thirty cousins, all of whom I am fairly close to.  I have a jack russell terrier named Riley, a bird I call Birdy but whose real name is Lime, and a chinchilla named Alexander Vanderpelt.  They are all super adorable and I love them to pieces. I played tennis in high school which was a blast because my team was made up of awesome people, plus I just like tennis.  I also play the piano and just started singing which has been an interesting and fulfilling endeavor.  I am a sophomore this year and I recently changed my major from Social Work to English Literature which I am excited about.  I’m also studying abroad next fall in Prague which simultaneously delights and terrifies me.  I volunteer at the Chico Cat Coalition and the Butte County Library, both of which I enjoy working at immensely.

I read all the time.  I am always reading multiple novels, for example, I am currently reading S and the third game of thrones book.  I read these for fun.  I am also always reading the texts and emails I receive daily in order to stay connected with my friends and family.  There is also all the assigned reading from all my classes that I have to read so that I can earn my degree and hopefully have a happy future.  I also read music sheets for the piano.  Then there is the plethora of signs, advertisements, menus, labels, and such that almost everyone reads daily.  As far as writing goes I try to write in a journal daily but I am not very successful at that.  For me, writing in a journal is fun and I am able to sort out my thoughts in a way I may not be able to do any other way.  I also type out emails and texts all the time, again, in order to communicate with others.  There are also school assignments that I’m writing pretty much daily so that I am able to graduate from college.  I really liked the Szwed piece because I agree with the fact that you cannot create a literacy standard that everyone has to follow.  People are different and it is not fair to hold them all to the same standard because you are setting people up to fail that way, which I believe is just wrong.  I also thought it was interesting how there is not a full grasp on the idea of literacy and yet there is still a standard that people are expected to meet.