 Hey fellow reading warriors and welcome to this week's bonus video. My name is Laura and today I will be doing the booktube about me tag. Enchanted reader to do this tag and it's just to help tell people about who we are outside of our passion for reading books and talking about literature and I thought that was such a great idea to do Because I have gained some new subscribers recently and I've been doing a lot of changing around on my channel and trying to you know reach out to more people and Have more connections with other people who enjoy reading And so I feel like it's a lot easier to connect to someone about a passion that you share if you actually like Know who that human is outside of reading and just like flat out being a human So I'm super excited to do this tag So like I said, my name is Laura and the first question on here is what do you study or like what do you work? And where do you work? I am currently an undergrad student in Minnesota I just switched to being an English major creative writing French and translation minor I used to be an Arabic major Russian French translation minor and that is because so I have a passion for language and literature as well as language and culture and I So I really wanted to kind of be a translator or even an interpreter and I really liked that But just after exploring options, I realized that I really want to translate literature I think that would be an amazing thing for me to do it combines both of my passions of language of culture and literature So that's why I was taking Arabic and Russian and French. I've also been speaking Spanish since first grade so I I know a couple of languages and I really want to keep expanding especially to some not as well-known languages or more specific languages such as like Farsi or Hausa or You know like curgis cause that kind of more regional languages or languages just in a country because I really want to Translate literature into those languages so that kids and adults can have books to read in their own native language So they don't feel like they either can't read or they have to learn a language in order to read So I just really want to make books more accessible to the world Especially since here in the United States and a lot of other English-speaking countries. There's a lot of really good Literature as well as other countries are producing literature that the United States doesn't really read or at least not Not what I feel like we do we don't read a lot of translated works So I really would like to change that as well because I think there's a lot that we can learn if we were to read Translated works from other countries also. I'm so sorry for my neighbors It's a very echoey haul so anytime I try and film and they make noise There's not much I can do about it moving on to question number two What is your favorite social media platform? I think Not I don't want to say not including YouTube because I do watch a lot of YouTube But I do more things on Instagram Because Instagram pictures generally have such a beautiful aesthetic and I'm trying to figure out like a consistent aesthetic for my Instagram pictures So I've been having a lot of fun experimenting with that lately And it's yeah, I've just been making more connections over Instagram specifically on my books to Graham account So I think that's my favorite. I don't like snapchat I'm not on to talk and I kind of refuse to get on to talk I am on Facebook, but everyone that I know on Facebook is like older family members So it's it's not quite my favorite The third question is if you had another YouTube channel, what would it be? What would you do on it? And I think I would do music. I have a I have another kind of passion for music I've even thought about starting another YouTube channel with music The thing is that the music that I would be doing either doing covers of or even writing myself is Very specific and not very popular. It'd be kind of more Celtic type music Irish Scottish Gaelic You know a lot of it kind of tends to fall into that fantasy it can be used in like video games or indie fantasy films Like I just I have a passion for my Irish culture and my Scott's Gaelic culture And I think the music is Absolutely gorgeous. And so that's something that I would want to bring into my life I have a friend who actually is a She has a YouTube channel where she posts music And she doesn't quite do like Gaelic music like I'd be doing but her voice is gorgeous And she does do kind of similar style of music. So if you're interested in a very small but beautiful Singer slash music composer. I'm gonna link her down below. She is Silver Flames You're on YouTube and oh I fan girl over every single video that she releases and she never tells me when she's releasing them So I always have to find out with everyone else and I'm just oh gorgeous. Anyway, number four Do you play any instruments? I play the ukulele? I took piano lessons. I play the flute and piccolo and I took guitar lessons. I still kind of play the guitar not quite as much And then I've been dabbling around on Ocarina's lately and I also got a kalimba for Christmas So I've been dabbling around on that as well So just a few Like I said in the for the previous question. I really enjoy music. So I'm trying to teach myself some more interesting instruments in case I ever do want to either make a second YouTube channel or just Record songs for my own fun Yeah question number five. What are some of your other hobbies other than meeting? See this is a really hard question because I had a Lot of other hobbies that I don't do as much anymore because I've been focusing on Reading more. I also like to write. I do have an interest in writing books I have been trying to write a novel, but I can never see my projects through to the end So I've got like ten different books started none of them close to being finished. So there's that I'm also a Zumba instructor. So I teach two Zumba classes a week Zumba is a dance fitness That's based on Latin and a little bit of African music and movements So I guess that's another hobby that I do but it's also a job because I'm an instructor. I do it twice a week Otherwise I grew up being a dancer as well as a fencer So I used to be Super like athletic not super sporty, but like dancing and fencing will kick you into shape if you do it, right? So I used to be Okay physically So those are some of the hobbies that I used to have but now I really just focus on reading writing in school School is not just school It's also a hobby because if I don't treat it like a hobby then I'm failing at school number six is what are your favorite TV shows? I Who I love so I love crime TV shows. I love The rookie I love criminal minds. I love resilient aisles. I love castle. Those are a couple older ones I love psych. I love Brooklyn 9 9 So some I like all kinds of crime shows but I also watch the Great British Baking Show and Forged in fire and face-off and those so those are more competition based shows I used to watch Like actual shows with plots and characters. I used to watch those a lot But right now just not quite as much because those can like really suck me in and I can't afford to have that during the school For now, it's just a bunch of crime and competition question number seven what got me into reading Fun fact when I was younger. I hated reading. I just I did not like it and then my My school did that, you know whole required reading thing and I read the cat warrior series and that's what actually kind of sparked us out reading isn't that bad reading is actually Interesting and kind of exciting But my parents both are really big into listening to audiobooks and so whenever we went on long car drives Which was a lot? Growing up we would always listen to a book in the car So I was never like against audiobooks, but I was against reading for quite a while until like the end of elementary kind of early middle school So I think it was a combination of my parents listening to audiobooks whenever we drove all around the United States Or just reading cat warriors and that's also why partially why I am a reading warrior is dedication to the cat warrior series for getting me into reading as well as Like nowadays with so many other like movies television other hobbies that we can have Sometimes it could be a battle to find time to read or at least it can't be for me just right now So that's why I'm a reading warrior Hey, hey, hey, and that's why I call all of you guys reading warriors That's why I greet you that way because you know, you're strong. We are band together. We are an army to keep reading alive and Well, I guess question number eight is what is your favorite and least favorite genre favorite genre? I love fantasy And I've been getting into mythology fantasy quite a bit recently. I also like dystopian I haven't read too much of dystopian recently, but I really like it and then a new favorite is historical fiction. I Did a whole year last year 2020 Where I read a different genre every month and then I did a wrap-up for every month and kind of gave my thoughts on the specific books but as well as the genre itself and so some of my least favorites are Well, I hate nonfiction. I Don't like a lot of contemporary I will read it occasionally, but that's not something I will consistently read and I will be Very picky about the books when I do read them and I'm also really not into mystery I think I would like to start reading more thriller and I think I would like thriller But I'm really not interested in mysteries Because I feel like I can't read them fast enough and then they take forever and then they get boring and I get annoyed Sorry Question number nine what books to find your childhood as I mentioned earlier Cat warriors definitely define my childhood as that was something that actually made me like reading Um Otherwise Aragon was a huge thing in my family Harry Potter obviously was a big thing for me as I was right at the I started reading kind of right at the end when the Movies and books were coming out. So I saw the seventh movies in theaters But I always had all the books whenever I wanted them. So I was kind of right on that tail end there other books Affected my childhood. I guess classics kind of did because in middle school I joined the classics club that our librarian put on every Wednesday And that was the only time I got to talk to people who were interested in reading books. And so that kind of is Why I like talking to people about reading books is because of this classics club So I don't read a lot of classics right now, but I'd be open to um But I guess those were also a pretty big thing for me and it's just going to that classics club Oh my gosh little house on the prairie. That's what my mother read me little house on the prairie And I'm telling you she didn't my mother denies this every time But I'm convinced that she named me after Laura Ingalls Wilder because Laura Ingalls Wilder's daughter is Rose and my middle name is Rose so I'm convinced But that was another book series. I thoroughly enjoyed we started reading the books of her daughter Rose I started reading the books of her mom Caroline. We used to have So many of them but now they're back at my parents house because technically they're my mom books and not mine So I haven't been able to read them But those were another one that was big impact Lastly number ten. What is an interesting fact about me? This is an incredibly Good question because I feel like all the interesting things about me I've already said I know so after high school I took a gap year and That's pretty interesting because no one where I am from really takes gap years They either go right to high school to college or high school to a job So taking gap year was like oh my goodness good for you And what I did on this gap year was actually kind of interesting I moved to Kyrgyzstan, which is a small country in central Asia shout out to Kyrgyzstan And I was an English teacher there for a year and I went with my at-the-time boyfriend now husband and we were English teachers. It was just the two of us Americans and there were and the school was run by Koreans, but all the students were like local Kyrgyz kids and It was so much fun It was such an interesting and great experience and then because of that experience I had the honor to travel to Thailand and Turkey and Kazakhstan So fun fact about me. I guess I've been to a lot of I've been I've done some traveling and I want to continue traveling I've been to I believe I've been to eight different countries other than my own Other than the United States. And so that would be Canada Canada Dominican Republic France Germany Kyrgyzstan Kazakhstan Thailand and Turkey, I believe that's all of them Yeah, so I've been to eight different countries I am hoping to go on a study abroad in Ireland soon And then I'm hoping to help my husband out with a project in New Jersey in the next couple years at some point and then Basically my goal is to get to every continent and my husband I are also hoping to at some point take a trip to Trinidad and Tobago because that's where our honeymoon was supposed to take place But we had a quarantine wedding So our honeymoon was just a couple hours away from our hometown So which was still lovely, but I'm still kind of like I really want I really want to go to Trinidad and Tobago Yeah, and I've got like a bazillion other countries on my list of where I want to go to but those are just some of the ones Coming up that I want to go to and so I guess that's an interesting fact about me I love traveling I've traveled a bit and I want to keep going so Well there you have it that pretty much essentially is my life story The only other thing is I'm from Michigan and I'm now living in Minnesota there now You know everything and anything interesting about my life Yeah, it's been an interesting 20 years I'd say on this earth Thank you guys so much for watching. I hope that You found this video interesting even if it wasn't specifically like book base or completely about books I hope you still enjoyed it So that's why it's a bonus video because then I don't take away from bookish content. I'm just adding on top of it Subscribe if you're interested in hearing more about my bookish opinions I'm coming up with a lot of fun videos, but if you have any video ideas comment them down below Just letting me know what videos you'd be interested in or what kinds of videos Otherwise give this video a thumbs up if you feel so inclined to do so and until the next video I wish you all a happy reading You