Let's Learn About Me

Hello Everyone,

In case you don't already know, my name is Lara Schweizer, formerly Lara Orr, and I live with my husband Chuck, and my two Dachshunds Frank and Grapefruit, in the bustling metropolis of Farmer City, Illinois, population 2100. Farmer City is a small town located in central Illinois directly in between the university towns of Champaign-urbana and Bloomington-Normal. The town bills itself as "The World's Only Farmer City," which is a good thing. The total absence of a yard stick with which one could presumably compare it to any other town in the world called "Farmer City" gives it very little to live up to. Unfortunately, I'm afraid this benevolent little gesture gives the place a lot more credit than it deserves. But then again, who am I to judge? I've lived here almost all of my life. Still, the town does continue to attract its fair share of people, be it to the drag races, Farmer Dave's Buffalo Ranch, or to what the reigning bureaucracy likes to call the "Annual Scarecrow Festival," a time-honored tradition which has been taking place here ever since 2004. If you would like more information about the many different faces of Farmer City, or if you would simply like to have your suspicions confirmed, just click here to check out the town's website.

Despite the tremendous drawing power Farmer City has to offer, very few of the people I grew up with still live here. Chuck and I both went to the Blue Ridge school district and graduated from Blue Ridge High School in 1996. My good friends Jamie Hethke (now Jamie Talley) and Adrianna Martin both went there, too. Jamie went the Eastern Illinois University and is now a speech pathologist in Aurora. She lives there with her husband Brian, who works for Caterpillar, in their brand new house. Click here to visit their website.

After graduation, Adrianna received a full scholarship to study at Quincy University on the Iowa boarder. But the school was so small that it didn't even have a Spanish program, so she transferred to the University of Illinois at the end of her freshman year. After graduating in 2000, she began her studies in an intensive midwifery program at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. About 2 years ago, she emailed me and the rest of the people in her life to let us know that she had eloped with the man who was supervising her during her internship program. (I must admit, she was always a very resourceful individual.) It took place in a small ceremony in a Mormon Temple with no friends and no family present - this is what I gather, anyway. Apparently, this was the kind of wedding she had always wanted, so good for her. However, she seems to have dropped of the face of the planet since that time, so if anyone has any information which might help to locate her, please leave messages here.

After graduation, I, too, left home for college, if you can call a 30 minute drive leaving the nest. I had wanted to be a doctor for some time, so I chose Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, Illinois because it had a 100% acceptance rate for biology majors entering medical school. Unfortunately, only 3 weeks after beginning my studies, I realized that medicine was not my calling, so I opted for a much more practical degree: Modern Chinese History and Religion.

Actually, my degree in History was not specifically limited to Chinese History. I took a number of other classes, but I was so inspired my freshman year by Professor Thomas Lutze, professor of modern Chinese history, that I spent most of my time in his classes. At the end of my junior year, I was one of the lucky students selected for a travel course to China. I had known about this trip for a long time, and had even enrolled in Chinese language classes at Illinois State University about a mile down the road in order to ensure my acceptance into the program. It was a great trip, and despite the United States' bombing of the Chinese embassy during our stay, I really learned a lot. Apparently during the ensuing controversy, CNN had decided to try for an emmy in "Best New Dramatic Television Series," and spent most of its time reporting a blood-bath at Beijing University - the university we just happened to be staying at. The total work of fiction not withstanding, my parents were understandably distraught by the reports, but several calls to our congressman later and after paying off the $900 phone bill, our lives pretty much got back to normal. Click here to view pictures from my trip and here to connect to Illinois Wesleyan's History Department webpage.

I also majored in religion, but my tastes as far as that were concerned were much more diverse. I studied many of the world's religions, but I was particularly fascinated by the Asian religious traditions and by early Christianity/second temple Judaism. I did my senior thesis on Rudolph M. Bell's book, Holy Anorexia, a book which questioned whether some of the early modern saints like Catherine of Sienna were in fact fasting ascetics, or early predecessors of the modern anorexic we see today. Click here to go to the religion department homepage. Click here to view some of the sources I used while writing this paper.

After graduating from Wesleyan in 2000, I continued to study foreign languages at Illinois State University. I had been studying Chinese, but I now broadened my horizons to study French, German, Spanish, and Japanese. I Had decided to do this so that when I went to graduate school to study History, I would be able to have greater access to materials printed in other languages. But after a while, I became more concerned with the languages themselves, and abandoned my desire to study history. In the spring of 2003, I went to Angers, France, to improve my French-speaking abilities. Actually, I went there because I didn't think that I could take another semester of Japanese without offing myself, and I felt that leaving the country was the only way not to feel guilty about it. But if it achieved the same result, what difference does it make. In any event, I had some great experiences, and have a very interesting perspective on France and French culture. If you want to know more about my trip to France and why NO ONE SHOULD VISIT FRANCE IN MAY, just click here. I am now pursuing a masters degree in French Literature and Culture.

I am continuing to take some classes in Spanish, but I no longer take classes in the other languages. ISU offers the possibility of getting a dual language masters, and if my Spanish ever gets to that point, I might consider it. But for the moment, my efforts are focused on French. In a year or so, I plan to enroll in ISU's school of business to get an M.B.A. That way I will be able to use my language skills in the international business arena. To connect to ISU's foreign language home page, click here.

For the past year, I have only been going to school part-time. Chuck and I live in the house my parents bought when they first moved to Farmer City from Champaign when I was 4. It was in pretty bad shape when we first moved in, and we are doing our best to fix it up. You know The Money Pit with Shelly Long and Tom Hanks? Well, you've seen the movie, now live it with us. Click here to see pictures of our renovations.

This summer we plan to replace the foundation on our little house and put in a basement. We also plan to add on to the side of the house, which should give us considerably more space. After that we plan to sell the house and move to the land Chuck's parents have given us in Paxton, Illinois (which is located about 30 miles north of champaign) (click here to see pictures of the land). That's where the plans stop. After that, who knows?

News

Calendar

Pictures

Hobbies & Interests

China

1999 Angers, France

2003 House Remodel

The Farm

Mom & Dad

Alan, Sarah, & Kaitlin

New Stuff

Birthdays & Holidays

Hostas

Links

Schweizer Family

Mom & Dad

Plum Street Hostas

Illinois Wesleyan University

Jamie & Brian

Alan & Sarah

Jordan