User Profile
Add Friend
Add Note
Track User
Send Message
Send V-Gift
Unified Field Theory
Created on 2008-01-14 06:14:11 (#14670772), last updated 2008-01-21
0 comments received, 84 comments posted
Basic Account [Gift]
2 Journal Entries, 2 Tags, 6 Memories, 0 Virtual Gifts, 6 Userpics
Basic Info| Name: | Maxine Valera |
|---|---|
| Birthdate: | 1979-10-23 |
Bio |
pillar of salt A free spirit by nature, Maxine Valera's curiosity and penchant for adventure often got her into trouble as a little girl growing up in the tiny hillside village of Aspen, Colorado. At a young age, her two older brothers showed her how to stand her own. Because of this influence, she grew up dirt biking in the summer and skiing in the winter, rather than playing house or throwing slumber parties, and she wouldn't have wanted it any other way. She rocked to a different beat, which sometimes became fuel for schoolyard bullies, but Valera's brothers had taught her well, and she hadn't been afraid to break noses (and later, hearts) if the need arose. Valera had been a mediocre student and would've rather been outdoors, sun, rain or snow, than have her nose pinned between book covers. Though her parents constantly urged her toward education, she had been eager to follow in her brothers' unconventional footsteps; both had decided that athletics came before academics. Her sophomore year of high school, however, that changed. The younger of her two brothers, always the most daring of the trio, was involved in a serious skiing accident, which left him paralyzed from the neck down. It had taken him months of speech therapy to regain use of his vocal chords, and one of the first things he had done was make a heartbroken, fifteen-year-old Valera promise that she would set her priorities straight. "It's not worth it," he had croaked. "This." Valera had understood. Tucking her daredevil ways aside, she began to focus on school and found a passion in biology, which, to this day, she attributes to her brothers, who had never failed to emphasize the importance of respecting nature, be it in the forest or on the slopes. She had been fascinated by the world around her, but more importantly, by how much of it she had not yet explored. Valera may have traded in ski jumps for genetic mutations, but she never lost her curiosity, and that was key. She loved snow, but equipped with a hefty scholarship from the University of Miami in Coral Gables, she jumped at the chance of seemingly infinite sunshine. Upon graduation, she immediately began working in a private lab, running and comparing DNA samples for a small law firm. She enjoyed it enough, but found it frustrating that there was pressure from the head offices to find discrepancies in other people's protocol, in order to defend their highest-paying clients. Guilt rarely seemed a factor; discrediting evidence had been more imminent, and that didn't sit well with Valera. The final straw came when she had filed a complaint against a co-worker who she had suspected was contaminating evidence, but because, ironically, she had no physical proof of this, the complaint was ignored, and for her efforts, she had been handed a dismissal. And when she applied to job openings at other firms, one question lingered: why had she been fired at her last workplace? Unable to offer interviewers a sufficient response, many employers passed her up, understanding that 'dismissal' was synonymous with 'snitch.' Faced with this discrimination and for the first time in her life, a little unsure how to handle it, she made a call home for advice. Her brother, his speech vastly improved, offered words of encouragement and conveyed to her the pride her honesty had brought him, which renewed Valera's confidence and determination. Her brother's words stayed with her as she continued her job hunt. It was different when she met Horatio Caine. He must've seen something in the young woman's demeanor that made him hire Valera after only fifteen minutes of face time. It wasn't the dream job that a fearless, freckled three-year-old Valera would have dreamed of, but she was happy. In the Magic City, she found home, friends, a new world for her curiosity to explore. Work got to everyone sometimes, but years later, Valera still felt that rush when samples matched and she knew that her work was the nail in the metaphorical coffin. For that, she considered herself lucky. |
Friends [View Entries] Friends (31):
Communities [View Entries] Watching (2):
Feeds [View Entries] Watching (0)
