My name is Lauren Martins, I am from Danville, Ca (East Bay Area), and I am a freshman here at Boise State, majoring in Illustration. I grew up in a town that we like to call a “bubble” because its different from the outside world. It is the epitome of a suburb and there is rarely anything fun to do in the town itself. Growing up there made me realize how much more there is to learn and experience from the world, which made me want to go to school somewhere out of state. I have read many books over the years both in school and on my own. My favorites from high school are To Kill a Mockingbird and Tuesdays with Morrie, and my favorite books overall are The Lovely Bones and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. I usually find out about what’s going on in the world by friends or the news. In my free time I usually read, draw, hang out with friends or watch TV. My parents come from a lot different cultures but I’ll mainly identify as Italian (Mom) and Portuguese (Dad), because of this I’ve grown up eating a lot of pasta and having a lot of cousins, many of whom I’ve never met. I think one of the biggest things about growing up is being able to understand what is going on in the world around you, and formulate your own ideas based on the events that occur. Until this point, I sort of just agreed and believed what was said around me or told to me, and it wasn’t until the end of middle school that I would think to myself  “I don’t agree with that,” when my parents said something. My junior year of high school I joined a program called Youth and Government. The entirety of the program is super complicated to explain, but it essentially helped me know the major issues in the world, in our country, or even just in the state of California, and helped me to formulate my own opinions and debate them. This program helped me realize my political affiliation as well as topics that I am very passionate about, and will absolutely debate about if someone brings the topic to light. Other than Youth and Government having a huge impact on my life, my Great Grandma has too. I didn’t know her very well, and I only have two real memories of her, because she died right before 7th grade. However, from what I have been told about her, we were a lot a like. My parents will always get the occasional question “where did she (me) get her artistic ability?” and they’ll always say from my Great Grandma. She is the only person I personally have known to have put her life into her art. She didn’t do anything else, and she’s inspired me to do the same thing and pursue what I love to do, hence me being an illustration major. So that’s essentially me!