Dear Malcolm, Thank you for your ever so enthusiastic welcome to the class. As you now know my name is Mia Pippin and I am an 18 year old freshman here at UNC Charlotte, and here is a little bit about myself. I come from a very large family; I am the eldest of 8 of the funniest kids you will ever meet in your life (or so we’re told). My siblings are Olivia (15), Tessa (14), Miles (12), Noah (11), William (9), Ava (5), and Zoey (4). My parents were married for 11 years before they divorced and both are currently re-married. With so many children and only 4 parents, as you can imagine it is always a fight for attention at my house (and my Dad’s house). Because of this my siblings and me have developed that habit that we absolutely love to entertain people, it’s a habit that comes naturally as you might notice in class sometimes. We all can pretty much sing any song, dance any dance, or act out any movie scene, and then to top it all off all 8 of us down to baby Zoey have the wittiest comments for everything. Even though there tends to be constant arguing between my brothers, sister, and I, I am extremely close with Olivia and Tessa and consider them to be two of my best friends. On the subject of best friends, I have 3 non-sibling best friends. I know it’s cliché, but I wouldn’t know what to do without my best friends. The four of us all met in elementary school (aside from Jasmine, who we met in middle school) and we’ve been friends ever since, we were even voted 2014’s ‘Best Group of Best Friends” at our high school. Kendra is the first of my best friends; she’s still in my hometown (Asheboro, NC) attending community college and working to save money. My second best friend Desiree is a freshman at Clemson studying forensic psychology. And finally my third best friend Jasmine attends Charlotte with me and she’s a business major. I spend every moment at school with Jasmine aside from when we have classes or she has track practice. While being at college, unfortunately, I’ve begun to become distant from Kendra but Jasmine, Desiree, and I are closer than ever. Another group of extremely important people to me are my Youth Group. I attend West Asheboro Baptist church where I have been in their youth group since I was 12. Our youth group is name Make A Difference or MAD and I am extremely active in all of our community service activities, even when I’m at school I help plan them. My youth group leaders are named Charlie and Whiney Miller and they are both 26 and I think that their young age helps a lot with connecting with the teens in the youth group, they are also expecting their first child which I’m pretty excited about. As you can tell I’m an extremely social person. And I could probably go all day discussing the people in my life, but I suppose since you’re interested in getting to know me I might as well share some of my own random facts;

-­‐ I’m originally from Mt. Shasta California (And according to Southerner’s that’s why I say Pillow and Milk weird)

-­‐ I did modeling there as a child -­‐ I’m bi-racial (Mom’s white and Dad’s black) -­‐ I’ve been in Choruses/Ensembles every year since I’ve been 4 (until now) -­‐ I attended Governor’s School East in 2013 for English -­‐ I have a pit-bull named Nani (after Lilo’s sister from Lilo and Stitch) -­‐ I currently work at Bojangles

-­‐ I’ve never played any sports but I’ve managed basketball, football, softball, wrestling, and track in high school

-­‐ I’m majoring in Criminal Justice with plans to become a Forensic Anthropologist -­‐ I helped my mom start up and run her own boutique for the past 5 years

Well I believe I’ve officially run out of fun and interesting random facts about myself, but I’m sure many more will be revealed throughout the duration of the class. I’m honestly looking forward to the opportunity to have another chance to write freely and expressively, I haven’t been able to do that since Governor’s School. I’m going to go ahead and let you know that sometimes I do struggle with picking a topic to write about, but once I have one I like to run with it. Overall I’m quite optimistic about class this semester. In the words of my fellow classmate, I stay ready, Mia Pippin

Olivia (right) & Tessa (middle) Jasmine(right) & Desiree (middle)

My Parents (Jermaine & Aimee) A current (Christmas) picture of me