20/F/Austin, Texas. I'm currently a Plan II major concentrating in psychology. I have a passion for intense (and somewhat masochistic) sports that range from basketball to rowing (definitely a masochistic sport). I enjoy travelling to different countries and experiencing different cultures. Some of the countries I have been to include, England, France, Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, and Thailand. I haven't had a chance to go to the border countries of Mexico and Canada yet. I hope to visit all 50 states in the U.S. and perhaps cycle across Europe sometime after graduation. Aside from travel, I am very interested in the field of psychology where I am currently developing my senior thesis on the impacts of religion and culture on female sexuality. I also plan on pursuing a graduate degree in clinical psychology.

This trip for me is one of the great experiences I hope to have in my life, amongst a list of things I hope to do before I get caught in the web of 'growing up'. Maybe if I'm lucky I'll always remain a child at heart and play on.

I am Woman. Hear me Row. It was a motto some team mates and I made up when we tried out for the UT Womens Rowing team. In essences, rowing has come to define my life, and who I am. Hard work, determination, confidence, passion, all out effort. I have learned to live in the moment, to focus at the task at hand, and to reach beyond my expectations. It has in fact taught me to do the things that scare me most, so to conquer my fears.

In my life, I have experienced the loss and pain that cancer brings to their victims. This ride is to honor the people in my life that have made me a more compassionate, caring, confident person in the wake of their own pain from cancer. It is because of these people that I find it in myself to undertake a challenge as great as this. Because of lives that have been taken too soon, for people who don't have the chance to fully live their lives, I am taking the opportunity in my life to seize another day and do something as great as riding from Austin to Anchorage to raise money to defeat cancer.

I am riding for Mrs. Dolly Vogel, Mr. Mark Ullrich, Mrs. Sue Flint, Robert Fritsch, Taylor Mai, their families, and all the other countless people fighting the disease.