Shane Foster

Biography
Shane T. Foster was born in Montreal, Quebec in 1984; this effectively made him a dual-citizen of both Canada and the United States of America (both of his parents are U.S. citizens, and veterans of the United States Air Force to boot). His family resided in upstate New York at the time but since then Shane and his family have lived in multiple locations for various lengths of time in the states of New York, Virginia, South Carolina, back to Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Oklahoma, and then back to New York circa October 2001.

Because of all of this traveling and having lived in so many diverse and unique environments, Shane has encountered and experienced a level of diversity in his life that he feels few folks have. He's worked in dozens of jobs since he was 13, both standard and strange (from construction jobs to car-crushing, and from starting-up/running a family sweet-shoppe &amp; arcade to working in a bar in Oklahoma at the age of 16, etc.). He's lived in areas where the demographic has been mostly Black (Virginia), mostly Caucasian (North Carolina),and mostly American Indian (Oklahoma), and honestly doesn't give a damn what your physical appearance is or where your blood comes from. He's run the spiritual gamut, starting off with being raised as a Christian with American Indian overtones, baptized as a Catholic(?), converted to Christianity (twice...first time didn't count) while in a Christian children's home in Virginia for two years, began studying Shamanism, World Paganism, and religion in general as a youth into his teens and onwards, and eventually fell in love with Eastern Philosophy as a whole; these days he considers himself a Shaman-Advaita Vedantist-Mystic.

Shane has experienced the spectrum of living situations also, having lived: in great comfort as a child in upstate New York; in various one, two, and three story homes of differing quality; in numerous apartments, also of differing quality; in trailers, both single and double-wide, shoddy and pristine; in suburban sprawls and urban ghettos; in rural valleys on mountainsides or in secluded swamp-country, where the nearest person wasn't around for miles upon miles; in various states of poverty in a Richmond city mission, a Christian children's home, a half-way house, multiple cars, one sturdy truck, his own personal tent, in the homes of friends and one-time family members time and again; from the Blue-Ridge Mountains to the beaches of the Outer Banks, from the fields of Oklahoma to the tropical swamps of Georgia, from wondering the vast open spaces across the central United States to the relative isolation of the Catskill Mountains of Central and Upstate New York; Shane's been to a lot of places and misses them all for one reason or another.

All of the above considered, he would really prefer it if you never spoke to him of tolerance, diversity, classicism, or any other form of political correctness. A Quote from Shane: "Look, man. I don't need ANYONE to tell me how I should feel or act in regards to anything. My mom was an immigrant from what was formerly Yugoslavia, I'm 1/16th Lakota-Sioux on my Dad's side, my aunt has been an open lesbian for years, I was enrolled in special ed classes for a time until some tests I took caused me to be propelled from one odd educational extreme to another in the form of gifted classes and a magnet school, I've been home-schooled for a time, I had a Black stepfather for years and some siblings who were of mixed heritage (my step-father died in prison of leukemia; one of my older step-brothers was shot and killed by a crack addict), I have family members who have served in the military and served hard time, and I know what it's like to be born deaf, be paralyzed from the waist down, lose a twin at birth, and have the living shit kicked out of me by people much older, bigger, in greater numbers. Do me a favor and don't ever dare to preach or talk down to me about 'What it's like to experience or be' anything or anyone. Trust me, I've only scratched the surface with the above litany---I just might be able to teach you a thing or to, Okay? Kay."

Shane has resided in Central New York for the past 7 years now, just outside of Albany, and has attended Hampshire College since Fall of 2006. He is now fully finished with Division III and is planning on taking a year off from college before pursuing Graduate School, what with his being completely addicted to the halls of academia and scholarship all across the board.

My Academic Overview/History
Columbia-Greene Community College:

Fall 2003


 * EN 101 Composition — Robert Judd
 * HI 266 History of Japan — Ken Botsford
 * PL 101 Intro to Philosophy — Ah Tua Teo
 * PL 103 Philosophy of Eastern Religions — Ah Tua Teo
 * SO 101 Intro to Sociology — Claudine DeCarolis

Spring 2004


 * CO 103 Media &amp; Society — Anne Shibata
 * EN 102H HNRS: Comp &amp; Lit — Robert Judd
 * EN 236 Poetry — Robert Judd
 * PY 101 General Psychology — Peter Cameron

1 year off—————————————————————

Fall 2005


 * BI 112 Human Biology — Dawn Holsapple
 * BI 112L Human Biology Lab …
 * CO 115 Intro to Journalism — T. Curley
 * HI 104 US History: 1865—Present — Travis Bowman
 * PS 101 American Government — Ron Dombrowski
 * PY 203 Social Psychology — Peter Cameron
 * PY 299 Abnormal Psychology — Peter Cameron

Spring 2006


 * ED 101 Education in American Society — S. Alonge-Watz
 * EN 211H HNRS: Creative Writing — Phyllis Carito
 * HE 103 Issues in Health — Stacy Collier
 * HI 102 Western Civilization: 1700—Present — Ken Botsford
 * MA 101 Survey of Mathematics — Joyce Ganimian
 * SC 120 Meteorology — Shelly Haller
 * SC 120L Meteorology Lab …

Cumulative Credits: 64

Degree: A.A. Liberal Arts &amp; Sciences—Social Sciences

Hampshire College (+ Smith, UMASS, &amp; Amherst):

Fall 2006


 * WP-0199 High Spirits: Read/Write Spirituality — Deborah Gorlin
 * CS-0338 Current Issues in CS — Lee Spector
 * CS-0202 Philosophy of Mind — Laura Sizer
 * PHIL-0310 Recent Philosophy: Cosmopolitanism — Nalini Bhushan

Winter 2007


 * EPEC course BTS: Prison Industrial Complex — student-taught

Spring 2007


 * SS-0284 Theorizing Religion — Abraham Zablocki
 * CS-0258 Storytelling, Mind and Culture — Philip Kelleher
 * IA-0238 Performance and Poetry — Thomas Jones
 * HACU-0283 On Time and Being — Christoph Cox
 * PHI-127 Indian Philosophy — Nalini Bhushan

Fall 2007


 * PHIL-394M-1 S-Metaphysics — Lynne Baker
 * PHIL-37-01 Philosophy of Science — Alex George
 * PLSOILIN-397A-1 Ethnobotany I: Shaman's Pharmacy — Chris Kilham

Spring 2008


 * PHIL-393I S:Indian Philosophy —Indrani Bhattacharjee

Cumulative Credits: 105

Degree: B.A. Liberal Arts &amp; Sciences—Philosophy &amp; Psychology

Division III Thesis Paper: We Are The Imagination of Ourselves---The Principle of Lila in Advaita Vedanta Metaphysics: A Playful, Creative, and Storytelling Reality
If you're interested in checking out Shane's finished Division III Thesis, feel free to have a look at it here on Hampedia: [[Media:Division_III_Thesis---We_Are_The_Imagination_of_Ourselves.pdf|We Are The Imagination of Ourselves The Principle of Lila in Advaita Vedanta Metaphysics: A Playful, Creative, and Storytelling Reality]]Now, keep in mind that despite this being the final version/draft, there is still a lot that could have been said or explained differently or added, edited, etc. But if that editing process was maintained, Shane would never be done with the thing; so, such being the case, Shane feels that all good things must come to an end, and thus, he considers his Division III Undergraduate Thesis Finished. For now.

Community Involvement &amp; Employment

 * COCA: Signer for Spring 07, Co-Chair for Fall 2007 to Spring 2008
 * Prescott Laundry Room: "Practitioner of the Custodial Arts" from Spring 2007 to Spring 2008
 * Multi-Sport Center: Weight Room Monitor from Fall 2006 to Spring 2008

--Stf06 04:58, 7 May 2008 (EDT)