Jessica Jørgensen:  

Life My life bio? Well, there have been many things since highschool. Let's see... After graduation, I moved to the Lower Mainland to attend Simon Fraser University, with plans to become a biology/French teacher. During that first year of university, my mother's cancer returned and she died in the summer of 1994. It's naturally been a transformative event in my life. I completed my bachelor's degree in English and Humanities at SFU in 1997. All those science courses I forced myself into in highschool were for naught -- turned out I loved language and myths and stories more than anything else. And it turned out that I didn't want to be a highschool teacher. I wanted to go higher... Those years spent in Vancouver were some of the funnest in my life. I made many terrific friends, friendships that have survived time zones, oceans, continents, and absences. Of course, through it all, I have also maintained my friendships with my little core group from Quesnel -- Michelle Manky (now Li), Jeannine Nielsen (now Villam) and Teija Kovanen. Time passes, but we never seem to lose the connection. It's a fantastic blessing in my life. So, after graduating from SFU, I worked for a year as an ESL instructor at a rinky-dink language "college" in Vancouver. The management was suspect, but I got paid, so it was okay. I enjoyed my students, but didn't want to do this forever. I applied for a masters programme in folklore at Memorial University of Newfoundland and was accepted. So, August 1998 saw me driving across the country with all my belongings loaded up in a 1980 Cadillac. My brothers, Jules and Simon, came along, and it was long, memorable trip. St. John's, Newfoundland, became my home for the next 4 years, and I loved it out there. Oh, there were things and people I missed out west, but I did fall in love with that place and the people. I have long-lost familial relations out there, so it...Expand for more