My name is Lauren and I am a 29 year old Special Education teacher from Adelaide, South Australia.
I’d like to think of myself as an extremely active and social person.
I wear my heart on my sleeve and always have.
I was very fortunate to grow up surrounded by a very close and loving family. My family are the most important people in my life; my mum Liz, my dad David, my brother Joel, my sister Courtney, and of course my dog Kobe. Everything I am and everything I’ve learnt is because of my parents. They have always made sure that whatever I wanted to do, whoever I wanted to be, I could achieve. Being the oldest sibling, I was the rule maker and boss growing up for sure, and I quite enjoyed that power! My brother moved out of home when he was only 17 years old to play American College Basketball. He has taught me what chasing your dream is really all about and I am super proud of him. My younger sister Courtney is my best friend, and I wouldn’t be able to function without her with me. I swear she only loves me because I buy us clothes that she can borrow all the time, but I’ll take it!! I have also been blessed growing up with 4 grandparents whom I love so dearly and have looked after me and taught me so much over the years. I don’t know where I’d be without their support.
I am an absolute gym junkie and ballerina through and through!!!!
I love getting up at 5:30am every morning to get to the gym, I love going to ballet every Monday night, and Irish Dancing has been who I am since the age of four. I still remember my very first Irish Dancing class. Competitions were my life, training 4 times a week for State Championships and Nationals every year. My teachers have taught me strength, hard work, determination and dedication; traits that I take with me across every aspect of my adult life. Like my family, they have helped shaped the person I am today.
All through my high school years, I envisioned myself working as a Scientist. I loved everything about Chemistry and Biology, it was easy for me to understand and it was interesting. I never really considered any other career paths; when I’m set on a decision or a plan that I’ve made, that’s pretty much it for me! It’s just how I operate, always have.
After graduating from High School in 2009, I was accepted into my first preference at the University of Adelaide to study Biomedical Science. I couldn’t have been more excited! I met beautiful friends and I loved being in the city every day.
If only I enjoyed the degree as much as I did the city shopping!
I hated every moment of the two years I studied Biomed. Everyone said it’ll get better, keep going, but the more I studied, the more I realised how incredibly wrong I had been my whole life. This wasn’t for me being stuck in a lab all day every day. I love helping people, but I love being social and being around people during the day as well. I just couldn’t do it, my plan didn’t work out, what the hell was I to do next?!?
I had absolutely no idea what I was supposed to do with my life. I was so lost and I hated not knowing what I was doing and where my life was going; I’m a planner after all! One day I literally opened up the University study guide and said whatever page I open to is what I’m going to study! I was going to be a wine maker, a doctor, an architect, an engineer, and then one page opened…
It read…
Double Degree in Early Childhood Education/Special Education and Disability Studies
And I thought to myself, how incredibly stupid I had been my whole life, why have I not been studying this from the beginning.
And from that moment on, I knew that I had found exactly what I was supposed to be doing with my life. I loved everything about my job. It is both rewarding and challenging, and at the end of every single day I go home knowing that I have made the smallest difference in a child or family’s life. I had found my thing.
These things make me who I am; Lauren.
However, I must admit, writing and trying to figure out the best way to explain to the world what makes you YOU, is a lot harder when you haven’t felt like yourself in an extremely long time. Reading back what I’ve written above, I miss that girl, I want to get to know her again, and I hope those traits that once made me ME, are still hiding somewhere inside.
The Orange Butterfly 