Sunday, December 14, 2008

25 Random Things

My beloved tagged me in his facebook note to play this little game. Y'all know me - I'll have a hard time keeping it to just 25, as I am so painfully random and tend to share entirely too much about myself as it is. SO, I'll try to throw in a couple of zingers that you might not actually know.

In no particular order of entertainment level...

1. There are several movies that suck me in every time I come across them on TV: "A League of Their Own," "The Shawshank Redemption," "Forrest Gump," "When Harry Met Sally" are just a few. I don't know if it's because they are just timeless and so well-made, or if its pure sentiment, or if it's just my tendency to procrastinate and/or divert attention...

2. I am a dog person. I don't really understand how people can love little tiny dogs, though. Any dog that weighs short of 30 pounds is a waste of fur.

3. I killed a kitten accidentally when I was a little girl. I had it riding on my shoulder on my big wheel, it fell off my shoulder, and I ran right over it. Still haunts me, obviously.

4. My parents haunt me, too. Particularly at church. I can literally hear my momma's voice singing certain hymns and anthems. It's troubling, on one level, but remarkably comforting at the same time.

5. I can't type. Not the way you're supposed to, at least... I have my own system and can type pretty quickly, but I have to look at the keys. I never took typing. Home Row means nothing to me.

6. I never took Driver's Ed, either. I was too young to take it while I lived at home, then my nerd school didn't offer it, so I just waited until my sophomore year of college when I turned 18 and got a permit without it.

7. I skipped a grade. Took 7th and 8th in the same year.

8. I went to nerd school. Left home when I was barely 15, and don't regret it one bit. That's truly the best thing that ever happened to me as far as achieving independence goes...

9. I was a North Carolina Teaching Fellow - doesn't mean much, except that I got to go to school for free to learn to do what I always wanted to do. Not that you learn much about teaching in undergrad - most of it comes in the field and through personal inquiry.

10. I truly think you're either born equipped to be a teacher or not. Just like I could never play pro basketball, some people just don't need to be in the classroom.

11. I love my job. I love the kids, I love the school supplies, I love everything about it EXCEPT for grading the kids, dealing with morons, and arrogant parents.

12. My husband is the funniest person I know. He makes me laugh when I least feel like laughing and says so many things I wish I had come up with.

13. I am a serious procrastinator and perfectionist. I don't know if that's a chicken or egg situation.

14. The hardest thing I ever did was put my baby in daycare. I wish I never had. I totally wish for every mom who wants to be home with their babies that they could. I get that some folks are better moms for NOT being at-homers, but I am SO not one of them.

15. I love my little man more than life. I could snuggle with him and listen to him and play with him all the time if I didn't have any other responsibilities. I pray he knows that.

16. My little girl is the most amazing and annoying thing ever. She is so much like me - I like to think that I was just like her when I was little, except she's a little more unbridled. It's going to be a long hard adolescence.

17. I had a hysterectomy this summer (for my not-so-regular readers) and I wish I had done it years ago. Periods are seriously overrated - not that most folks rate them very high, anyway - and I wish evolution would pick up the pace and figure out that we don't need one every month from the time we're twelve in order to produce an offspring or two.

18. I like to touch every page of the Sunday paper, whether I read it or not. Sports section excluded - I could so give a rat's behind about sports as a rule. Yeah, I'll do a yippee dance when the Tar Heels win, but truly, I could go the rest of my life without ever watching a single sporting event and I'd be just fine.

19. I was in a car wreck 8 years ago and broke my right wrist, third carpal, and a metacarpal - and it still hurts pretty frequently. Never finished the occupational therapy because we moved and I am a lazy daisy.

20. I am a mountain person, but I am becoming a beach person. Having grown up at the beach, I never understood why people would take an entire week of their lives to go there for vacation. Now I get it.

21. When I was little my momma used to say that if the world was shaped like a hot dog, that I'd eat it. Now, she had no idea how vile that sounded... but it's almost true - I love hot dogs and once I ate six of them on a campout. no kidding. I must have weighed all of 50 pounds at the time. If you're wondering: ketchup, mustard, chili. Cheese, on occasion. NEVER relish. Now I really want to go to Fuddrucker's for lunch.

22. I am a language nerd. I have taken Spanish (I was almost fluent at one point), Italian (one semester to raise my GPA), Russian (2 semesters to boost my GPA - see a pattern?), Esperanto (just a week at nerd school with the BEST linguist I ever knew), and Hebrew (a couple of weeks just for fun). I'd love to have the chance to live abroad and become seriously fluent in any language! Okay, not French. French is weird. But any of the other Romance or Slavic languages would be awesome.

23. If I had the guts and if I hadn't already spent my whole life digging Jesus, I'd probably convert to Judaism. All the liturgy and tradition, a whole lot less of the bullcrap. I say that, but all organized religion has its share of bullcrap, but the grass looks significantly greener...

24. I cuss like a sailor. If any of my students come across this, they'll probably laugh and say, "I knew it!" I put on a good act, but I think there are two kinds of people - those who cuss and those who use words that aren't cuss words (darn, crap, etc.) because they WANT to cuss, but they are too much better than the rest of us to do it. I guess there are three kinds - those who don't even say the substitute words - but most people either cuss or wish they did.

25. I love to write and if I am willing to bet that one day I'll publish something. It might just be a Master's Thesis, but mark my word...

So there's my 25 Random Things. Play along, comment away, or just have a good laugh at my expense.