A Little Bit About Me Olivia Jimenez

I was born and raised in Temple, TX. My husband was born and raised in Belton, TX. We currently live in Seal Beach, CA. We have been here two years. Before moving here, we lived in Colorado Springs, CO for three years, San Diego, CA for two years, and Bath, ME for six months. As you may already be assuming, yes, we are military. My husband is active duty, Navy and is stationed at Coastal Riverine Squadron Eleven here at Naval Weapons Station Seal Beach. (October 28th marks 12 years of service for him.)

I am currently a full time house wife/mom with lots of volunteering hours per week. I am the ombudsman for my husband’s command, which requires anywhere from at least one hour a day to eight plus hours - depending on what’s going on. I also volunteer at my oldest daughter’s school - for PE and music class. My husband and I are leads in the process of his command adopting an elementary school. We volunteer at our local church – who is also involved with a neighboring middle school where we also volunteer. My dad somehow recruited me to do his business advertising free of charge, so more volunteer work. Lastly, we volunteer at local homeless shelters quiet often. I also enjoy music. I love to sing and dance; even though, I am not very good at either. I also enjoy the outdoors. Running, biking, hiking are some of my favorites. I also love to write, but I haven't done much of that lately, outside of school assignments.

New Year’s Eve 2013 will mark my eight year anniversary of marriage. We have a six year old daughter, Angelina and a four year old daughter, Krystiana. Then, who could forget our adopted “child,” our four year old Corgi, Alfalfa. I am a very family oriented person and I take great pride in being the best I can be in everything I do.

My area of Specialization for my MAED is Family and Community Services. However, I have a long term goal of being a counselor in the school system and getting my PhD before I die. I believe this Master’s degree will aid me in my future roles simply because if all else fails, I would love to teach and how better to prepare than to be taught. Plus, initially, I started out with a major in Education for my Bachelors before I changed to Psychology with a concentration in Criminal Justice. Obviously, I want to help people for a career, I guess I just need to figure out who, where, when, and how?

K-12 Favorites and Not-So-Favorites My absolute favorite teacher was my K- 2 nd grade gymnastics teacher, Mrs. Hightower. However, the fact that she taught gym was not why she was my favorite. She always made it a point to always talk to me, ask how my day was, etc, etc. No one could come to her class having a bad day and leave feeling the same. Then, I saw her again in 9 th grade as my counselor. She hadn’t changed. She always stopped to ask how I was doing when she’d see me and again, no one could go to her office upset and leave the same. She always had a smile on her face and even years after I graduated, I saw her on one of my visits home and it was if nothing had changed. She is still the same sweet woman, she had always been. She is a true inspiration to me. I cannot really recall any teacher I really disliked. There were classes I dislike, with a passion, but not the teachers. I think I was pretty blessed to have had such luck. I did have one teacher, Mr. Horner in 9 th grade who had previously been a college professor. He was my AP/IB History teacher and I guess he forgot we were only freshman in high school, not college because he was super hard on us. However, he cared about us and I think everyone came to appreciate his “tough-love” teaching method… although, I’m sure no of us would ever chose to be in his class ever again.

God Bless Texas - Gig’em, Olivia Jimenez