About Me
I’m Cheryl Ball, and I am an assistant professor of new media studies in the English Department at Illinois State University in Normal, IL. I’ve lived in Illinois for three years and have terribly missed the long walks I used to take along Richmond’s Canal Walk in the late 90s, as well as the snowshoeing I did in the Upper Peninsula in the early 00s. And then I did nothing outdoors while I lived in Logan, UT (because there are avalanches! and I’m lazy!). Cycling seems like a good thing to take up in a place that appears to be relatively flat (even though I know that it’s deceptively not flat).
I do a lot of digital work, and I sit in front of my computer(s) waaaay too much, and cycling seemed like an everyday thing I could do on my old bicycle, Fred (photo and story forthcoming), which my dad built for me. Last year, I read Scott Richardson’s (the Outdoors Editor) column in the Pantagraph, where he wrote about a give-away of bicycles for people who needed to change their lives, and that article stuck with me. If those people can do it, why can’t I? So here I am.