Don't Judge a Passport by its Cover: By Lindsey Beauregard

Lindsey Beauregard

December 11, 2012

JRN 100

Profile Story

Don’t Judge a Passport by its Cover

     Dressed simply in a “Skyhawk Nation” t-shirt, blue jeans and sneakers, her light brown hair tied back in a pony tail. She appears relaxed and comfortable in this familiar setting, sitting at the Residence Life work study desk on a cold Friday afternoon in late November, with memo notes and a paper cup of tea by her side, no would know that over the last four years, when not Stonehill College, she has lived in Honduras, Kenya and Uganda.

     Senior international studies major Jessica L. Mason has traveled very far from home. Not everyone can live life as spontaneously and as unplanned as Mason, who said that if something is planned she doesn’t want to do it. Her spontaneous nature and love of adventure has left this college senior with a well-used passport and many interesting stories.

    Mason grew up in the small town of Dexter, Maine. As a child Mason’s family took many trips from Maine to Massachusetts to visit family in the Bay State. What she remembers most from those trips was the sign that said “Leaving Maine” on a big bridge that signaled the half way point of the ride.

    “Every time we would go past that sign I would get butterflies in my stomach. I’d be like ‘were doing it, were somewhere else, this is great, I don’t know this place.’ And it still happens to this day. Every time I go past that sign I get those butterflies, it’s something new it’s something adventurous,” said Mason.

     The H.O.P.E alternative spring break trips, organized by Stonehill’s campus ministry are what originally attracted Mason to the college. The H.O.P.E program “seemed like a great opportunity, a lot of friends that I made encouraged me to apply for it. They [H.O.P.E] were starting a trip that year to Honduras, and that’s where I decided I wanted to go, and everything started from there,” said Mason.

     While in Honduras volunteering at a school, Mason became friends with the women who taught English. The teacher was volunteering at the school until May.

    After just a few days into the trip Mason decided that she would like to go back to Honduras and take up where the teacher would leave off.

    “By the end of the week I was all set to go back for three months as soon as school got out. So that night, after my finals, I went to my grandmother’s house and halfway through the night, I got up and got on a plane,” said Mason.

     Senior psychology major Caitlin E. DeCortin said that when Mason returned after the H.O.P.E. trip to Honduras, that Mason did not say much, but you could tell it was a great trip and that she was changed for life.

     A year after Mason got back from Honduras she was off again. This time to Africa.

    Mason always knew she wanted to study abroad during her junior year of college. Her original plan was to go to Peru and Chile because she was a Spanish and history double major at the time.  One night two of Mason’s friends suggested that she look at the School for International Training programs before she sent in her application to Peru.

     Just like that she “went on site, scrolled down and- Kenya, health and community development. Rwanda- post genocide restoration and peace building. Those two popped out to me. And I was like, ‘you know what, I’m going to do it.’ So I filled out the application, changed my major and before I knew it I just took off.”

     Her quick decision making process while deciding where next to explore mirrors her sociality.

     Mason’s work-study supervisor, the Administrative Assistant to the Office of Residence Life, Jeanice L. Banks, said that Mason does not associate with a particular group of friends, she just has a lot of friends..

    First-year communications major Parijat Bhattacharjee is one of Mason’s many friends. Bhattacharjee a resident of Agartala Tripura India moved to Stonehill College in July of 2012.

    Bhattacharjee’s anxieties about living with another person quickly disappeared when she was told by their mutual friend Karuna Reang that Mason was a very good girl, was not very girly and would be a very good roommate. Reang became friends with Mason the previous year when she moved to Stonehill.

     Mason is currently filling out an application for a year of teaching and living at an all boy’s school in South America.

      “I would love to go there, it would be another new culture, and I would get to work with kids again, which is something I really like doing,” said Mason.
     Although Mason is a self-described simple and plain person, her traveling experiences and the way she gets an idea and just goes with it, even if it means traveling thousands of miles, makes her anything but- simple or plain.