Who is Maria DiFrancesco?

If you're still wondering, "Just who is Maria DiFrancesco?" then I'll tell you a little bit about me. My mother and father, immigrants from Southern Italy, instilled in me a passion for education. I attended Canisius College, where I double majored in English and Spanish. During my junior and senior years, I fled the comforts of Buffalo to intern at Colegio San Ignacio, a Jesuit primary and secondary school in Oviedo, Spain, and study in London, England. After my trips to Spain and England, I decided that the Spanish temperment and literature appealed to me much more than the Kitchen Sink British drama I'd been studying. Moreover, at that age, I was still mildly obsessed with the idea that I would someday live out a romantic dream of writing poetry and drinking coffee all day like some of the members of the Lost Generation whom I'd idolized and who'd lived as expatriates. At some point, logic and responsibility set in, so I attended the University at Buffalo, where I earned a Ph.D. in Spanish literature from what is now the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures. My first academic job post-graduate school was in the Department of Languages and Literatures at the University of Utah, and that is where I developed a real love for hiking. On moving to Ithaca in the summer of 2003, I was fundamentally and profoundly transformed by the natural beauty that surrounded me. Since then, I have become an avid gardener and birder, spending as much of my free time as possible outside, enjoying the wonders of the Finger Lakes. My love for the outdoors is also what inspired me to move to Newfield, NY, where there is a real covered bridge! I should, however, make clear that I've been keenly interested in nature since childhood. My parents will emphatically attest--much to their chagrin--that their "little girl" could almost always be found poking some new and exotic insect, investigating the flora in the backyard or otherwise knee-deep in mud, just "playing." 

Most people also know that I am a "dog person," and that I am extremely attached to Luciano and Dahlia, taking them almost everywhere I go. Luciano, a Pug, is five years old, and he has been with me since I moved to Ithaca. Since I didn't want to be completely alone on moving to Ithaca, where I knew no one, I promised myself that I would get a Pug to be my animal companion. He has been key in the forging of many friendships. You would be amazed to find out how many people stop to talk to Luciano, and then incidentally start talking to me on our walks. Dahlia, a miniature short-haired Dachshund, is a rescue. We--my husband Breton and I--stopped by the Tompkins County SPCA in August of 2007, and there she was. I just couldn't leave her. She and Luciano get along famously, and we all enjoy the wonders of Ithaca together.

On the sidebar, you'll find some key additional websites covering my main hobbies: gardening, birding and dogs.