Oracle Online

O: How did you get your water?

EW: In the summer we collected rain water, in the winter we melted snow.

O: Did you have a lot of laborious chores to do?

EW: Compared to a lot of people who live in the city, yeah. It wasn’t uncommon in a day for me to have to bring in several snow buckets full of snow and have to pack them nice and tight, and stuff like that. I’ve done a lot of firewood hauling and helping bring fuel in and out. I didn’t mind it, I was used to it.

O: What did you do for fun growing up?

EW: Explore. I did a lot of exploring. The last four or five years I took up beading. I’ve always been a bookworm; one of the problems my parents had was they could never keep enough books in the house because I kept finishing them. I went fishing, canoeing, I would sit in my dad’s bear stand with him and watch the bears. That was interesting.

O: Coming to Hamline, was it easy to adjust?

EW: To the nice running water and various other amenities, yeah. To the social aspects, I’m still adjusting. I’m seventeen now, I was out there for sixteen years. Most of my socialization came though TV, which isn’t a very reliable source.

O: Do you think growing up in Alaska has helped shape your personality?

EW: It definitely made me more stubborn. I would run across a piece of firewood that I couldn’t chop, and I wanted to chop it. I think I’m a harder worker than I would be; I had to work pretty hard out there. With schoolwork, I’m pretty focused, because out there that was all I had to do basically. I became pretty empathetic for people who have gone through things that take away their homes. My family has had two house fires. Going though that, I know what it’s like. I feel it very much when I hear about somebody who has gone though the same thing, especially if they’ve lost pets.

O: I hear you like ferrets.

EW: I love them. My friends call me a ferret fanatic. We had eight at one time, now we have five. I was going to try to convince the hall director to let me get one, but I don’t think she’s going to. I haven’t talked with her about it, but from what she said during orientation, there’s no way she’ll let me get a ferret. What I’m doing though is majoring in psychology. I want to be a psychologist eventually with my own office. What some therapists are doing in Alaska is actually prescribing ferrets to depression patients. So I want to figure out how I can use ferrets and animal therapy to help people overcome depression.

O: Has psychology always been an interest of yours?

EW: Over the past couple years, yes. Previously, I wanted to be a nurse. Then, I wanted to be an animal trainer, then a veterinarian. I finally came to the conclusion that I wouldn’t feel comfortable prescribing things, because I’d be too afraid that I would prescribe the wrong thing. The past few years, I’ve been pretty positive about psychology. It fascinates me.

O: If you could change three things about the world what would they be?

EW: That’s a rather loaded question. If there was any way I could, I would get rid of lying. I think that’s one of the major problems. I would make it so everyone gets paid the same thing, so that there’s no division in classes, that drives me crazy. I guess I wish that more people were just nice to each other. I try to find a way to promote niceness, because it hurts my heart when I watch the news and I see what people are doing to each other. If I could get rid of the meanness in the world, and the suffering, and thought it was at all possible, I would try to.

O: Do you think it’s possible?

EW: I think it will happen in the future. I’m a Christian, I believe that God is coming back someday, hopefully soon. I believe that He is going to come back and remake the planet and then it will be the utopia that I want it to be. But it’s in His timing, not mine.

O: Are you involved in any clubs or organizations here?

EW: I go to the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship here, and I work with the Hand in Hand program at Hancock. Other than that, not really. I want to be a member of the Rock Stars, but because I’m not eighteen yet, none of the places will let me climb with out my parent’s signature, and my parents are in California.

O: That’s all the questions I have, is there anything else you would like to say?

EW: Everybody needs to get a ferret. And a rat. Pet rats are great. Not the mean, ugly, vicious street rats. The cute little lab rats. They’re smarter than hamsters. Hamsters are absolutely dumber than doornails. But rats are smart.