Hey, my name is Shanku and I am a junior high school student! I am 12 years old and have one older sister and a pet dog. I have a very optimistic and open-minded personality however, I am also a very organized and work-driven person in general. I have many interests and hobbies that I pursue on a daily basis such as travel, photography, nature, conservation, and the weather. So without further ado, let’s jump right into this world of mine and learn a thing or two about me.
Click here to go to my More About Me PageI have two main interests that I like to pursue in my daily life such as nature and the weather which ultimately go hand in hand with one another. When I am one with nature, I am often taking a walk around the back garden or hiking Stevens Canyon with my family and dog. When I truly feel at peace with nature, I can often find myself concentrating on the small “flora and fauna” surrounding me like “a praying mantis perched on a single stalk of tall grass” or a “monarch butterfly sipping nectar from a milkweed blossom.” Nature truly does make me feel at ease and often re-energizes me after a long day of work or school. I also love tracking the weather and other climate based phenomena around the vast world. Whether it’s an atmospheric river or a hurricane, I’m always captivated and amazed by it. Especially last year, when multiple atmospheric rivers impacted our coastline and bay. Though it resulted in much damage across the bay, there was also much excitement and optimism that I myself experienced. Just watching the weather in the sky change from a sunny afternoon to a gloomy and ominous cluster of rain ridden clouds gives me a jolt of excitement in my heart.
Unlike my interests, I have many major hobbies which I dabble in such as photography, travel, and conservation. Until recently, I hadn’t developed a full fledged love, nonetheless a hobby, of photography, but once I started to really understand its depths, potentials, and possibilities, I instantly fell in love. Throughout the past 5 years of my life, my photography “career” has really expanded and my precision and point of view on photography has completely changed in a good way. Secondly, another one of my hobbies is nature conservation. I have been obsessed with nature and flora and fauna for as long as I can remember. This is so true that I even started raising endangered monarch butterflies for 4 years during the height of the pandemic and now I am heartened to hear that their numbers are back to normal. I look forward to helping our local animals and critters day and night, whether it’s saving an ant or spider from being squished or releasing a moth or butterfly trapped in a spiders web, I am always willing to help and I always will be helping conserve our beautiful planet and its wildlife and ecosystems. Last but not least, I love travel in general. Everything from aircraft to cars to trains, I adore and absolutely cherish. Especially air travel, which I have been obsessed with since I could remember.