Namaste, y'all!

Well Namaste to you, oh loyal followers of this temple of contemporary wisdom, whose scrolls are being unraveled to be feasted upon by the fellow valiant and worthy.

Okay, I will not pretend to know what that means. It just sounded funny in my head. *Crickets* Yeah, let’s move on.

I’m Snehi Jhul, and I’m a millennial bard. I’m a musician, actor, and author who’s going back to college for a degree in geography. So, I basically toggle between plotting things and plotting things. (Ha! See what I did there? Huh? Huh? Ahem.) I started working at VSA Texas just two weeks ago, and boy, am I loving it! More on that in a minute.

Here's a photo of me (in case you wanted to put a face to the name).

I’m told I was born in India, but I don’t remember it happening. Is that normal? Anyways, I moved halfway across the world when I was one. I feel I was born as the epitome of mankind’s intelligence, and every skill I now realize I don’t have, I blame it on early childhood jet lag. So it’s quite handy.

I slay new dragons in my mind every day, and their being invisible is the only reason I haven’t been knighted yet. Those sneaky beasts. I always come out with a good story though, and whether I act or sing or write or dance or paint or play each day depends on which story I want to tell myself.

This is when VSA hired me as a work-study, battle-worn but back. On my first day, I made posters. Yep. I was getting paid for this! Then I helped out with one of our Library Live concerts this September, and got to meet some devilishly talented artists. I even got an autograph. (Thanks, Devin!) These people didn’t let disability own them. They owned it back. Booyah! (Wait, do people even say that anymore? Am I getting old?)

Devin Gutierrez performing for the Library Live crowd. He's a talented singer and piano player!

It’s so refreshing to work here, and I get to help out with a bunch of different things. In the first week, I learned how audio descriptions work, how captioning works, and most importantly, what the WiFi password here is. *Grins*

Want to hear about some of this fascinating stuff? Oh yeah, sure, imagination is great, but we can add another dimension to enjoy. I learned that VSA Texas provides audio descriptions at live plays, with descriptive narrations of the actions taking place on stage. You get an uber-cool gadget you tune in on and with an earpiece that makes you a better-looking James Bond, you get to follow along like a boss. I got to try it on when testing the equipment, and man I looked good! Oh, yeah, bring it on!

On top of that, I learn a lot about the world in the process, from voices mainstream society might not think to listen to. Everyone here has a drive to do some good in the world. Help us help you help the world!

Me? I’m personally in it for the stories. :D