Me: A still life

Korri Kezar, 1993, age 3

My full name is Korri Dean Kezar.
I was born March 22, 1990, to my parents, Michael and Victoria, and am the third of their four daughters. Such a large female population made using the bathroom in the mornings when I grew up pretty hectic.
I was born in San Antonio, Texas, spent my first few years in Moore, Texas, and grew up primarily in Devine, Texas, a small town of about 4,000 people south of San Antonio. Devine is home to the best tacos on Earth and some of my best memories.
I enrolled at the University of Texas at Austin in fall of 2008. I graduated three years later, in May 2011, with a degree in journalism and a concentration in newspaper journalism.
After I graduated, I started my job with Austin Community Newspapers, which is the flagship company of the two papers I write for, the Cedar Park-Leander Statesman and the Pflugerville Pflag. Our system also includes newspapers in Round Rock, Bastrop, Smithville, West Lake, Lakeway and other areas around Lake Travis.
But I always think the most interesting facets of me go beyond my basic information and resume. Many people, when they read articles or stories, hardly think about what the writer behind the information is really like. And why should they? I can't think of anyone who's ever told me they approached a New York Times article with the intention of reading a reporter's biography. I certainly haven't.
However, now that I have an outlet to give more information about myself, I thought I would seize the opportunity. And maybe it will help anyone who reads this blog understand where my points of view originated. So, I now present, Korri Kezar: A Still Life, a more in-depth view of my life as I've seen and still see it.
I was born in San Antonio to my parents, Mike and Vikki, two strong Christian individuals who, to me, embody the American dream of working hard to get from the bottom to the top.
I have three sisters, two older and one younger. Stacey and I are 13 years apart, Jennifer is 11 years older than me and I'm two years older than Shannon. All three of them have strong personalities and diverse sets of talents. I do stick with my earlier statement - sharing a bathroom with them and my mother was nothing short of chaos.
I attended school in Devine, from elementary to high school. I graduated in June 2011 ranked fifth in my class, which helped me snag admission into my dream school, UT Austin.
I went to college with my best friends, which made making the shift into adulthood seemingly easier, and staying immature more appealing. While there, I worked for the Daily Texan, which was the college's only newspaper at the time, before moving on to become a founding member of the Horn, a publication started entirely by undergraduate students as an alternative to the Texan.
Journalism is my passion, and I feel fortunate to have found it without too much wandering aimlessly through life. My parents, especially my mother, were strong supporters of my venture into the field.
My parents are also a big influence on my life overall. They instilled in all of their children Christian values, which are the cornerstones of my life. They taught us to work hard, have a good ethic and not be afraid to take risks.
My sisters, too, have been pivotal in shaping me. Shannon and I, being two years apart, started developing a close sister relationship when we had both left high school and figured out that having the same DNA was not a prerequisite for ripping into each other all the time. Stacey is most like me in personality, and Jenn is a strong, independent force.
So that sums up my life perspective a little more fully, I think, but I want to add in the fun things that define me as well. For example, I was voted most likely to jump out of an airplane and into an ocean full of sharks by my friends.
When I'm not working or blogging, I may still be writing in some capacity. Other times, I can be found with my family and friends, reading, playing with my cats, practicing hot yoga, watching HGTV, scuba diving or furiously tapping away on my phone.
Some of of my life's best moments so far include becoming a Christian, studying at Yale University for a summer, being published in the New York Times, being an aunt to two nieces and a nephew and meeting my boyfriend Michael.
To wrap up my study into my own life, I'll end this post with a few of my goals: to become the best journalist I can, to publish a novel, to learn another foreign language and to be remembered as a good Christian.
And with the way things are going, I'd say I'm in pretty good shape.