About Susan de Ghizé
I was born and raised in California. I received my BA in Music from the University of California at Berkeley, and my Ph.D. in Music Theory from the University of California at Santa Barbara. From there, I have taught at the National University of Singapore, Northeastern University (in Boston), the University of Denver, the University of Texas at Brownsville, and now Texas A&M University Corpus Christi.
I am a beach girl, and I love Corpus Christi. I love the weather, the beach, my students, and the people. Two of my favorite things to do are to play beach volleyball and to run on the beach.
In addition to exercise, I am very passionate about animals, animal rights, and veganism. I eat a plant-based diet and I do not use any animal products. I found that eating plant based has changed my life in so many positive ways, that the only thing I wish is that I had become vegan earlier.
Although the main reason I chose to be vegan is for the animals, it has benefitted my health in a number of ways. Before I was vegan, my cholesterol was 231. In fact, my entire family is on Lipitor (a cholesterol med). Since becoming vegan in 2012, my cholesterol has been dropping every year, and now it is a healthy 139.
I also gained so much energy–ridiculously so–that I needed to run in order to not go crazy. Before I was vegan, I had never run more than 6 miles at one time (although I was always athletic). Once I became vegan, I found I needed to run longer and longer distances: I was running 20+ miles at a time, and the next day, I was absolutely fine. As many vegan athletes can attest to, recovery time is almost zero.
In addition, I felt my spirits were lifted. I felt that not eating animal products contributed to a more optimistic outlook. I feel energized and am always happy. If you are interested in veganism, please feel free to ask me questions!
The dog in my photos is my amazing chihuahua mix named Goethe. He was born in 2006 and passed away in 2020. He was my best friend and travel buddy, and visited seven U.S. states (California, Texas, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and Utah) and three other countries (Switzerland, Austria, and Italy). He was the sweetest, gentlest, smartest and most loving dog and I miss him with all my heart.