Welcome to the third “spotlight” blog post featuring one of the student leaders of SEA & KDP at Governors State University!

   This week, our spotlight leader is:   
HANNAH GRUBEN
SEA Treasurer and KDP Secretary

Hannah Gruben is a 24 year old Senior student in the Elementary Education program with a specialization in English at Governors State University. She aspires to teach 4th or 5th grade students when she graduates in May 2019. 

As she reflects upon her time at GSU, one of her fondest memories is one of her earliest. When she first enrolled, Hannah had to meet with her academic advisor. Her sister and best friend came along to give her a tour of the campus because they are both GSU alumni. She considers it to be one of the funniest tours she’s ever been given.

In her free time, Hannah enjoys several hobbies. For one, she likes to knit. While she’s started several knitting projects for herself that she’s yet to finish, she could knit all day long when she’s creating an item for someone else. Her goal is to knit a mermaid tail blanket for her sister which is one of her largest and most advanced project. She has already collected the material needed to create it and aims to complete it soon. 

In addition, Hannah takes pleasure in writing fiction with future hopes that her work will get published one day. She considers the writer, Stephen King, to be her role model. Hannah believes him to be unbelievably talented and she strives to even remotely reach his level. She states that “There are very few authors that can capture my attention so much that I lose my sense of reality.  It is like I am there with that character every time.  He is definitely the main reason why I want to have my work published and why I love horror stories so much.” 

On a perfect day, you may find Hannah watching her favorite movie, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, or her favorite TV-show, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, while eating broccoli and chicken, her go-to food items. One of her most beloved Albus Dumbledore line is “One can never have enough socks.” The room would probably be filled with the scent of lavender, patchouli, petrichor, blueberry, fresh linen, and freshly cut grass. She burns a lot of incense!

When she’s not attending class or curling up on her bed reading a horror story by Stephen King, Hannah’s probably working at her job at Texas Roadhouse as a server. She believes that this job has helped her open up and overcome her shyness. On top of this, she’s met some of her favorite people while at this job. Hannah recommends that everyone gain the experience of working as a server or a retail job that deals with the general public. As a result, this will create a more patient, understanding, and less demanding society. She is a strong advocate for people to treat each other with kindness no matter what their job is. Experience as this type of employee will help create kinder people.

While being a server suits her personality and skills, being an accountant surely doesn’t. She couldn’t imagine herself dealing with numbers all the time because she considers mathematics her weakness and she knows that she’d only become frustrated if she was required to perform calculations all day long.

One of Hannah’s biggest accomplishments in her life thus far is when she threw shot put during her senior year of high school. While she’s been pretty athletic her whole life playing sports like volleyball. basketball, and softball, this was the first time she’d shot put. During the last few weeks of the season, she had hit a wall and couldn’t throw past 30 feet even though she’d done it multiple times before.  When the team competed during the last meet, her coach gave her some competitive encouragement and she ended up throwing 36 feet for the first time.  She didn’t place in first place but she ended up shattering her previous record.  This was especially satisfying for her because this was the first time she ever threw shot put and was good at it.  She’s always had a knack for athletics and this only proved it farther. 

If Hannah had to choose one thing she couldn’t live without, it would be fiction. She loves to read, watch movies & TV-shows, write stories, and hear other people’s stories. Moreover, fiction has been something that she’s always held on to and has helped her get through some tough times in her life. Even when she’s working or hanging out with friends, there’s a good chance that she’s thinking about her latest book/show obsession or daydreaming about her own stories. In fact, a song title that best describes her life would be “Daydream Believer” by The Monkees. While this is one of her favorite songs, she constantly daydreams in her everyday life, especially about fiction which she never seems to be able to get out of her mind.

In the next few months, Hannah looks forward to graduating. After what feels like forever, she’s excited to complete her education and begin her career as a teacher. In the next 10 years, Hannah hopes that she’ll have completed and published her first official fiction novel. Down the road, she wants to be remembered for her humor. She loves to make others laugh because laughter opens people up and it’s very encouraging.  

If you have any questions to ask Hannah or would simply like to share your thoughts, please use the comment section below. Thank you!

Information Provided by Hannah Gruben
Spotlight Post Written by Sireen Hamarshah