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THE FULBRIGHT YEAR Disclaimer* This blog is not an official Fulbright Program blog. The views disclosed are my own and do not reflect those of the Fulbright Program,the U.S. Department of State, or any of its partner organizations

Saturday, June 26, 2010

15 Minutes of Fame

I dreamed about being a movie star when I was a kid. The church that I attended when I was eight years old had a curved staircase straight out of Gone With the Wind. I vividly recall placing my white-gloved hand on the banister and in my best Scarlett imitation, attempt to elegantly glide my way to the bottom. I never made it. Week after week my lady-like fantasies were shattered by my boisterous cousin Jeff, "Get out of the way, Mouse!" and his thug friends as they flailed past me two steps at a time. Ten years later my hopes for fame and fortune had still not materialized... even after a particularly beguiling performance as Nurse Kelly in the Van Horn High School production of Harvey. But all is not lost. My 15 minutes of fame have materialized in a manner that I could never have predicted.


This spring I was awarded a 2010-2011 Fulbright scholarship to study in Canada and the response to the news has been over-whelming.


The Independence Examiner






Tamera Jenkins Recent Park grad wins University's first Fulbright Student Award






Justice-seeking, late bloomer comes to SFU on award




I was even interviewed by Victoria, BC radio(C-FAX 1070) talk show host, Murray Langdon(waves of nausea during the interview...jumping up and down at hearing myself on the radio during the broadcast). Because my small sliver of fame took long enough to come and fortune is nowhere to be seen, I plan on enjoying every single minute of it.

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About Me

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Surrey, British Columbia, Canada
In politically correct language I am called a non-traditional student or,as my mother would say, a late-bloomer. For twenty years I was a stay-at-home/home-schooling mom but surprise.. kids grow up. When my son asked me what I was going to do after he left home I told him I was sure it would involve crates of Kleenex, junk food, and a lot of self pity. He suggested college instead and I took him up on it. I graduated in Dec. 09 with a BA in Criminal Justice/Corrections from Park University in Parkville, Mo. Through internships that brought me into contact with both the victims and offenders of violent crime, I have acquired a passion to assist each in addressing issues of accountability and healing through the restorative process of victim-offender mediation. As a 2010-2011 Canada-U.S. Student Fulbright recipient I will travel this fall with my husband and granddaughter, to British Columbia where I will be attending Simon Fraser University's Graduate School of Criminology. With a superb symmetry, Mother, arbitrator of children’s squabbles has progressed to victim-offender mediator.