User:Catclawnym

Hello! I'm new here, and I hope that I, with my limited skills, can contribute to Wikipedia. I am here mainly as a student from the University of California - Berkeley's Sociolinguistics class, but I also hope to contribute to and edit pages relating to my other interests.

Here's a story for you. My username has two parts: catclaw and NYM. The latter half is pretty straightforward; NYM are my initials. The "catclaw" part comes from the Cat's Claw vine (Uncaria tomentosa). I grew up in southern Nevada, and one day my gardening-loving father picked up a few Cat's Claws because they are supposedly drought tolerant. He also chose them because, as opposed to other types of vines, the Cat Claw gets its name from the claw-like hooks it uses to cling to rough, vertical surfaces, which makes it a good wall decorator without having to worry about the house's foundation getting damaged. However, it's considered an invasive species because it grows. So. Fast. It is to this day taking over my childhood home and obscuring the window of my old bedroom. I am rather fond of this plant, even though more than once the wind would make them rustle against the windowpane at night and I would immediately envision axe-murderers. But when I would peer through the window my view would framed by a tangle of leaves, making me feel as though I were living in a forest, even as I looked out onto the desert landscaping of my neighbor's front yards. Also the name is pretty cool. There's that too.