Munroe Ports
Hi. Welcome.
My name is Munroe Ports and I am a student in college at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina. I am 18 (almost 19) years old.
I attended Mount Anthony, and graduated in 2017. In high school, I played varsity lacrosse all four years and was captain my junior and senior year. I tore my ACL my junior year of high school and had to have knee surgery which was really tough for me to be out of lacrosse for a year, especially the year we won states, but overall it was a really humbling experience.
I have a sister named Baylee who is 21 and a senior in college at Fairleigh Dickinson University in Teaneck, New Jersey. She is a division 1 softball pitcher and is a Biology major planning on attending medical school to become a cardiologist. My sister is one of the most strong willed and determined person I have ever met and every day I wish I could bottle up at least 20% of that determination and use it for myself. Along with being determined, she is kind hearted, and I am so lucky to be able to have a best friend like her. My brother is 31 years old and lives in Orange, California. He has a wife (and hopefully some kids soon) and he works as the Head of Hockey Development for the Los Angeles Kings in the NHL. He has gone from an intern to the head of a department with such grace that it is admirable, and I want to bottle up at least 30% of his success and keep it for myself in the future. Believe me, with two siblings like those, it is a lot to live up to. I have two lovely parents who have raised my siblings and me to always see the bright side and always be accepting of others struggles. We were always taught to never give up and it has definitely showed with my siblings successes.
As for me, I am an intended nursing major in a sea of close to 250 intending nursing majors at my university (my university has an overall enrollment of 28,962 students). My plans for my future are graduating from ECU with my bachelor’s in nursing to become a registered nurse and spend a year or so in oncology (cancer patients), and then go back to school to become a nurse practitioner in oncology.
In high school, I was an honor student but none of it came easy to me. I worked hard to stay in my honors and AP courses. Nothing came easy to me, especially math (to this day I am awful at math). Something that I am awfully good at and enjoy doing so much is writing but I do not do as much of it as I wish I could, as I am a science major and we do not do much of the creative writing I want. I love dressing up and looking fancy with nowhere to go (fun fact: I won best dressed for my senior superlative).
In high school, I started work in this program, Quantum Leap. In the summers, I work in the Bridges Summer Transitional Program. Along with working here, I also work bussing tables at the Publyk House. My connection to the Crosiers is primarily through their middle daughter Abigail who has been my best friend since I moved to Vermont from California when I was five. Growing up, I spent almost every day at the Crosiers household, so much so that Mr. and Mrs. Crosier are my second parents and their daughters became like sisters to me. (I know, it is odd that I still call them Mr. and Mrs., but it would be so odd to do otherwise because that’s what I’ve always called them.)
Since I have worked with the Crosiers (within the high school and the summer program) for close to four years, I have been through a lot with every group of students that comes through. Every group of students who comes in wonders “what is going to happen here?"
So, to answer that, here is my guide. Every day, you will walk in with new things to do set out on the table (along with some sort of treat, courtesy of Mrs. Crosier). You will find the stuff you do in the beginning to be awfully long and you will know for a fact that there is absolutely no way you will be able to write that much. Truly, this is what the students all say to the staff at the beginning. But, this is just not true. Yes, students that go through this program end up writing an awful lot. Though, at the end they so effortlessly do this writing that they do not even realize that they just accomplished something that they would have never dreamed of doing before within their writing. But, it isn’t all about writing.
Every day, you will be doing interesting things. Believe me when I say this, I am a sophomore in college and I have gone through all of this before, so when I say that this program is fun and interactive I mean it. Often, in high school, I did so many things that my teachers made us do that had no point. They just did a fun activity and there was no connection. In this program, however, what you do will never be pointless and it will never be busy work. There is no such thing as busy work here and I think that is an important thing to emphasize because in high school, there was nothing more I hated than busy work!
Again, welcome. I'll be seeing you.
Munroe Ports