Name: Alia
Online nickname: Yumeka
Age: 27
Birthday: March 19th
Location: San Fernando Valley, California, USA
Hobbies/Interests: anime, animals and nature, video games, Japanese language/culture/history, Japanese pop-music, computers, Disney, animation/cartoons, literature and poetry
Most children love animals, but as they grow older, that love tends to move on to other things. I'm one of those people who still loves many things I loved in my childhood, and animals are one of them. Of course, my love for animals has greatly developed over the years and I would definitely say I love and understand them more now than when I was a kid.
Most people's love for animals starts with their pets. Although cats are the only pets I've ever had, I was still interested in all animals. The private elementary school I used to attend had various animals from snakes to ponies, but most notably a rabbit for whom I bought snacks every morning and would bounce around excitedly in his cage whenever I came into the room.
However, my real understanding of just how great animals are didn't come until I started middle school. On an unusual whim, I ordered a book from the school's book fair called Peaceful Kingdom: Random Acts of Kindness by Animals. It was a collection of true stories of animals who have displayed remarkable kindness towards humans and other animals. In between each story the author, Stephanie Laland, added animal-related quotes and facts about their intelligence and emotions. That book is what started me thinking more deeply about animals and seeing them as more than just cute and fun to play with. I was so inspired by Laland's book that I bought another of her books, Animal Angels, which is very similar to Peaceful Kingdom but has a lot more of her own opinions in it. Stephanie Laland's books are what really taught me to respect all living creatures. Even when I was a little kid, I liked insects and would often capture and examine the ones I found in my yard. But sometimes I would innocently kill them during these examinations. Thanks to inspiration from Laland's books, I started to be careful about not needlessly killing insects. I even became angry with my cats when they would kill little animals like lizards and grasshoppers, not yet understanding that it was simply part of their nature to hunt. I remember one time in middle school where one of my classmates wanted to step on a bug for no particular reason. I spent nearly 10 minutes shielding the bug and trying to convince her not to step on it. Considering how shy I was in middle school, I'm still surprised that I was able to do that.
Another book that greatly inspired my thoughts about animals was The Dog Who Rescues Cats, a true story about a one of a kind dog that spends her time rescuing sick and disabled cats (the book was mentioned in one of Laland's stories). When I was a kid, since I always had cats, and because I had a couple of bad experiences with dogs knocking me down, I was scared of dogs and didn't think much of them. I guess I thought that everyone had to be either a cat person or a dog person. But that book really showed me how amazing dogs can be. More than half of the stories in Laland's books involve dogs as well, so I definitely grew to love dogs as much as cats, even though I have yet to have a dog of my own.
During subsequent years, I read a few more animal-related books such as Animal Miracles and My Cat Saved My Life. Quite by accident in high school, while skimming through our English class text book, I noticed Mark Twain's essay "The Lowest Animal." Even though it was not part of the curriculum, I decided to read it since it was about animals. That essay gave me a whole new perspective of how humans really aren't so much better than animals. I continued to pursue more of Twain's writings and a few of them were really life-changing works for me. I also liked reading quotes that various famous and un-famous people make about animals. I eventually made a page on my anime web site that hosts all my favorite animal-related quotes. And, as you can see, I have since moved the animal quotes to a separate web site since I have accumulated so many now.
Although I learned a lot about how great animals are when I was younger, going to the University of California Irvine is what really taught me about animal welfare and some of the pressing issues facing animals today. Even though I was only in the university's animal cruelty club ISAAC (Irvine Students Against Animal Cruelty) for less than a quarter, I learned a lot in that club; I had never known about the vegan movement and factory farming before then, and we even went on a trip to the sanctuary Animal Acres. ISAAC's screening of the powerful documentary Earthlings was another real eye-opener. By a stroke of luck, the upper division writing class I took had the topic "Animal Subjects: Philosophical, Scientific, and Literary Representations of Animality." We read some fascinating works, such as The Lives of Animals and Black Beauty, which I had never read before. And for my last quarter at university, I took a political science class called "Animal Rights." That class has made me think more critically about animals, and humans for that matter, than ever before. Though I doubt I could ever become totally vegetarian or work undercover in animal labs, I try to do what I can to help animals and bring awareness of speciesism to others. I plan to write more essays about animal issues, and perhaps my own novel, in the future. Hopefully in my lifetime we will see much needed changes in animal welfare.