Me - Bottle of Life

Anyone who's ever completed a basic biology course knows that water is essential to life. It's why we are told we need to have eight glasses of eight fluid ounces of water (or any liquid really) per day. And it's why hundreds of thousands of people carry a bottle of water with them wherever they go every single day. In a time where using a refillable water bottle is a smart move, both environmentally and economically, water bottles have become an object of personal expression. Mine is no exception.

The story of my water bottle starts back in September of 2013. It was my first semester at UConn and like many young freshmen I started to stock up on "essential" UConn gear. I spent way too much money on a Nalgene branded blue water bottle with "UCONN" written up one side. It was super clean and super basic (not the good kind either).

The first sticker was put on in March of 2014 on spring break. I've never been one to do the stereotypical spring break and instead went on an alt-break to help a community in West Virginia. On our first day down, we went for a hike at Hawks Nest State Park. I picked up a sticker and slapped it on. And that's where the journey began.

Now you can look at my water bottle and see kind of a patchwork of my journeys across the last few years. And I have a few favorites specifically my Tensor one and my KickIt one.

The Skate Tensor sticker represents my attempted skateboard journey mostly over the course of my junior year. Spoiler alert I never actually became good at skateboarding. I fell........a lot. And I never learned how to do any tricks. And I fell...a lot. Through my attempt to learn skateboarding, however, I met some awesome people. All of which culminated in my video "Genetics: A Skatepark Story."

My other favorite is my KickIt one which I got while in Tanzania. One of the ladies I was working with had started a mobile library program in honor of her late brother. "Kickit" was his graffiti tagline. The mobile library program worked in tandem with the 1Room school program I was a part of and it's founder has become a personal friend. The sticker is symbol of all of the memories and friendships I created on that trip.

​My Nalgene is not just a bottle of life, it's a bottle of my life.