Laura

Hi! Hello! And welcome!! To the story of me, Laura Bryan.

I grew up not too far from Augusta, in the Bay Area. Childhood was comforting and exciting, with some parts of my summers spent at Augusta with my friends. In fact, I recently found this photo of me circa 2010 eating Lazy Dog ice cream!

Growing up, I valued the things that I am still very passionate about, including food (beyond the greatness of Lazy Dog), seeing new things through traveling, and cultivating new friendships.

← I’ve had nearly seven jobs at various food & beverage places. One of my favorites was working as a barista at a pour-over only cafe in Berkeley. It was there that I learned my love for funky hats and occasionally wearing very bright colors!

After years of working in the service industry, I ventured off to Thailand where I volunteered for a month, working with kids. Here is an unrelated picture of me hanging off a songtowe in Thailand on the way to Pai. (I got the wrong bus tickets, so a 2 hour long open-air taxi was the way to go 🙂 →

My love of the color yellow shone through this past summer while working as a camp counselor for a day camp in Oakland. Every Friday was greeted with this yellow monochrome outfit, topped with a Lipton iced tea hat that I found in my old apartment when living with five art students in Chicago 🙂

After two years “off” I finally started college this year in New York, where I study Interdisciplinary Science and Food Studies (and maybe Psychology too – only time will tell). I love studying science at a liberal arts college that is connected to a great art school, as it tells science in a way that is as creative as any art. I am so excited to be back at Augusta this summer, and bring all the creative energy from my science and food studies classes into the Augustan magic.

Overall, I believe the best way to describe my transition from childhood to adolescence to early adulthood can most easily be described in the form of a poem by Maude Latour, a Philosophy major at Columbia University. And so, here is that poem:

“All I’ve ever wanted is to save the planet. It started with the polar bears, and the ice caps, then it turned into fighting the mean girls in the cafeteria. I told everyone in third grade I wanted to be president. In middle school I only wore rainbow. I cut my hair short. I swore to myself I’d never grow up.

When I was a kid I had black holes in my head – they’d suck up the world and leave it empty. For a few seconds I would understand nothingness. It would scare me and keep me awake in bed at night.

Now I wonder if those black holes were a whisper from god, telling me there’s another dimension all around us, holding up this world.

We just have to be ready to see it.

I’ve spent these past few years backpacking through the universe, living in galaxies in the clouds, gathering data on broken hearts and un-conversation. Trying to find a cure to save the planet, trying to find the secret code to save the earth!

There’s a revolution coming! People are tired of feeling lovesick, people are done with small talk. I feel it in the air – there’s a new religion coming. A consciousness revolution and nothing will ever be the same again! I see a planet with ice caps and polar bears, wind energy and solar power. Love is the message, love is the answer!

But for now, we are dancing.