Hi, I’m Kristen. :) I am a grad student, currently pursuing my Master’s degree in Community Counseling so that I may eventually become a Licensed Professional Counselor. I have realized that directly helping people is what I truly want to do with my life because it is kind, meaningful and useful. This career path allows me to live up to my own values and it therefore makes me feel more fulfilled and complete.

My personality is that of a Counselor with a bit of friendly sarcasm thrown in. I am the words I used to describe myself above: caring, open-minded and honest, as well as kind and genuine. I am a solid INFP. I am always on quests to improve myself and my interactions with others. I am introverted but the introversion can diminish if I encounter friendly people and therefore feel comfortable. If a person isn’t friendly and kind, I rarely bother trying to socialize with the person.

I love animals and own two ferrets. I adopted them from the ferret shelter at which I volunteer. My main hobby is swing dancing and blues dancing (in sum, a slow form of swing dancing). I try to dance once or twice a week and have been dancing regularly for a few years. Reading my textbooks and studying isn’t a hobby but it’s what I spend the majority of my free time doing. :P I also work part-time. In terms of other hobbies, I occasionally play the French horn in a local community band, attend rock concerts, go to the zoo and visit other great spots in DC. I crave variety and am open to other activities but will mention that while I do enjoy the outdoors, I do not label myself as an outdoorsy person. On the other hand, I am definitely not the indoors gaming chic type of person (though I do enjoy my original NES and some games like Rock Band and DDR). I know that these admissions will eliminate about 99% of the potential matches but I consider myself more or less well-rounded and prefer like-minded people. Most of my friends are pure geeks and that’s fine; it’s just not something I desire in an ideal mate.

I maintain contact and visit with old college friends as much as possible. Other than my best friend, I don’t have many other friends in the area; hence, I wouldn’t mind making some friends off of this site. I’m open to something more than friendship with similar people but the interested party must understand that grad school comes first right now because it is the basis of my future career.

In addition, some of my information under the "Personality" tab is inaccurate. I can definitely say that I am no longer 40.1% more desiring of love. That's what happens when you finally figure out what you want to do with your life; you know longer need another person to validate your existence. That being said, I am probably still more desiring of love than the average person... it's just a healthy desire now.

Like I mentioned above, I am in Grad School in this area in order to eventually become a Licensed Professional Counselor and start my own private practice. I work in my school's counseling department and do a little bit of temp agency stuff on the side. In terms of hobbies, see above.

Over-analyzing all the time... I am very self-aware. I think I have a knack for understanding psychology. The material seems to come easy to me. I think I have the ability to understand pretty much anything if I really put my mind to it.

Spelling... I have a knack for noticing the details. If there's a spelling error, I am willing to bet you that I'll be one of the first people to notice it. My grammar is also better than that of the average person.

Expressing myself through writing... which is probably obvious from this profile. I love to write down my thoughts and also dabble in poetry.

I have some musical talent. I want to get back into singing someday. Also, art as a hobby. So I suppose that I am of the creative variety in general.

Picking up new dances pretty quickly due to my swing dance background.

Hula-hooping. I am one of the best. It's too bad that the skill is completely useless and we're no longer living in the '90s.

That I am short... only 4'11". Except that I'm not short, I'm fun-sized. :)

That I'm cute. I'm not saying this because I'm conceited; I'm saying this because it's a frequent thing I hear. After all, this category deals with the things other people notice about me, does it not? And besides, being seen as cute sort of comes with the territory of being ridiculously short. :)

My eyes, my hair. People tend to notice and like both.

Books: I don't really have time to read anything other than my counseling textbooks these days. On my list to read in the probably distant future is A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius as well as Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs. Out of what I have read, I like... The Perks of Being a Wallflower, The Handmaid's Tale, Frankenstein, It's Called a Breakup Because It's Broken, One Hundred Years of Solitude and Mere Christianity (despite my current religious uncertainties, it's an interesting read). I also enjoy informative self-help books of the psychological or philosophical variety.

Movies: Donnie Darko, Religulous, Gladiator, Groundhog Day, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Matrix, Stranger Than Fiction, Ghost Town, P.S. I Love You, RENT, Gattaca, The Phantom of the Opera, Elf, The Butterfly Effect, I am Sam, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, X-Men Trilogy, Equilibrium, Spiderman, Spiderman 2, Edward Scissorhands, Pay It Forward, Dirty Dancing, Saved, Untamed Heart, Ever After and Miss Congeniality. I tend to like psychological/philosophical movies the most... anything that makes you think. I enjoy comedies if they are tasteful and clever... though Superbad was pretty funny, I must say, despite the level of crudeness.

Television: Friends, Scrubs, Sex and the City, Boy Meets World and Project Runway. Just started watching Firefly and How I Met Your Mother. Also, I love the stand-up of Kathy Griffin, Mitch Hedberg and Jeff Foxworthy.

Music: I tend to listen to indie rock with sometimes emo-ish undertones... I'll appreciate most music that's original and has deep and meaningful lyrics. I also like some popular music from the 90s, as well as some current mainstream stuff. My faves include Blue October, Relient K, The Killers, Third Eye Blind, Jimmy Eat World, 12 Stones, Nine Days, Wideawake, Yellowcard, Lit, Anna Nalick, Linkin Park, Carbon Leaf, Wheatus, Evanescence, some broadway music (RENT and The Phantom of the Opera) and piano music. I like rap that reads like eloquent poetry as opposed to rap that is derogatory towards women and/or has very crude lyrics. And because I'm a swing dancer, I appreciate big band swing and blues music.

Food: I'm honestly indifferent towards most food but I do have some favorites... SUSHI!!! Pasta with some sort of cream sauce. Cheese. Lobster. Mexican food (but it must include sour cream). Vegetarian lasagna. I'm not a Vegetarian, but I tend to appreciate Vegetarian dishes. Ice cream. Tiramisu. I stay away from spicy foods but I do enjoy non-spicy Asian food.

Love, hope, animals, companionship of some sort, my dance shoes, my laptop with the Internet, my doctor, a college education, my current Master's program, communication and intelligence... that's more than six, oh well.

Six Things I COULD Do Without:

Close-mindedness, cruelty, selfishness, hatred, fakeness, and the lack of compassion... and for a seventh one, I'll say money (in an ideal world). I think it really is a source of "evil", even though an exchange system is necessary.

Counseling, love, my more specific love life, friends, animals, my ferrets and future pets, my future, self-improvement, if God exists, general life philosophies, psychology, my purpose in life... I'm constantly searching for meaning in everything and everyone

I have mild internalized anxiety (most people honestly don't notice it) but I am currently working on my own cognitive-behavioral exercises to alleviate said anxiety. I meant it when I said that I am always trying to improve myself.

I'm a bit obsessive when it comes to hygiene, more so than most people. I have OCD tendencies when it comes to washing my hands and at least feeling clean. I'm trying to work on my cleanliness obsession. As a perk, I will always smell nice and my breath will always be minty or cinnamony-fresh. :) As a cost... if you don't maintain a good level of hygiene yourself (though it needn't be to my extreme degree), I won't be interested.

I'll admit that I am anal and close-minded with regards to blatant spelling and grammar errors contained in profiles and messages. It's something I haven't been able to get past yet; but I am always making an effort to improve.

I don't have a lot of free time these days so I'm mainly on the market for friends and activity partners. If something was to genuinely develop further, I wouldn't be opposed to it as long as that person understands that grad school is very time-consuming. At the same time, I do need a balanced life. So regarding friendship or any other potential relationship, if you are in agreement with what I say in my profile, think you're similar, are kind and have a high compatibility rating with me, feel free to send a message.

Also, if we are talking and you don't hear back from me for a few days or so, it's not necessarily because I lost interest in the conversation. As I said, I'm pretty busy; I like to take my time in writing back to send something more than a haphazardly-written sentence.