Twenty Facts, as inspired by the Reverend Brian
I don't know if anyone truly reads these things, but here we go:
1. I don't like heavy metal, but I like its babies (Avenged Sevenfold and Disturbed are good examples.).
2. As a kid, I thought the world used to be in black and white, which would explain all the old television shows and movies. I also thought that the world gained color during the filming of The Wizard of Oz. I couldn't explain why the movie ended in black and white though.
3. I make a big deal about spelling and grammar, even though I hypocritically break the rules at times by typing in sentence fragments for emphasis. Like now.
4. I used to be obsessed with The Smashing Pumpkins and held onto the hope of one day meeting Billy Corgan and sweeping him off his feet, despite out sixteen-year age difference. I've since gotten over him and consider the band still broken up, even though he has toured under the same band name for the past five or so years. To me though, it's Zwan II because it started out as Billy Corgan and drummer Jimmy Chamberlin with other people (and then Jimmy quit). I gave the reboot of the band a chance, but Tarantula was underwhelming.
5. I had my first cup of coffee when I was 11 years old. I'd always wanted to sit with my mom drinking a cuppa, but prior to that, she'd always said I was too young, so I'd make myself a cup of cocoa, drop an ice cube in it to cool it off a bit, and sip it through a straw. I always saw coffee as "the adult hot chocolate." When my mom prepared a cup for me, I reached for a straw in our utensil drawer. "What are you doing?" "Getting a straw." "Coffee doesn't need a straw." "Oh." So then I opened the freezer to grab an ice cube. "What are you doing now?" "Grabbing some ice." "Coffee doesn't need ice." "Oh." Imagine my surprise when I discovered that coffee tasted nothing like hot chocolate.
6. One of my earliest memories is either moving into my childhood home in October 1984 or being wheeled into the hospital when I had a rare form of meningitis in December 1985. Obviously, October 1984 comes first chronologically, but I don't know if it's really my memory, or if I heard stories of us moving in so often that I implanted a memory that otherwise did not exist, as what I remember are things that actually happened to my oldest brother, but I remember them as if they happened to me as well.
7. I like sneezing.
8. I have a pseudonym picked out for if I were to one day become an online musical artist. I can't play musical instruments or read music, so I'd have to have some nifty program help me put music together, which I often consider but don't really have the patience to actually do. But if I one day do have the patience, I can use a program and share the music using another name, and then people can give their honest opinions without fear of insulting me if it's bad, and I'd also know it would be genuine positive criticism if people had good things to say.
9. I test Nathaniel's bottles by tasting them. Sometimes my skin isn't as sensitive as it ought to be, so it seems better this way.
10. I have just as many letters behind my name as I have in my legal first name.
11. I want to participate in the 2013 Krispy Kreme Challenge in Raleigh, NC. I'd like to get a group/team together, but so far it's just me and Robert. I might be able to get another friend in on it, and Samantha may be a bystander if she can stomach the smell of vomit from the run back from the doughnut shop. AJ won't be anywhere near it and will instead root for me from afar. Way afar.
12. I'm putting off grading roughly 30 papers to tell you twenty random things about me because I'm all about procrastinating.
13. When I watch cartoons, I try to guess who the voice actors are. It's something I've enjoyed doing since I was a kid. People have also said that I should go into voice acting because I alter my voice a lot for fun, and the outcomes are usually cartoonish.
14. If I ever overcome my stage fright, I'll try doing some comedy during an open mic night somewhere. I was lucky enough to watch our friend Chewie perform one night when we were in town (he does comedy pretty often, but we're usually unable to visit when he's on stage because it's in the middle of the week), and I almost convinced myself to sign myself up. I even had an outline of things I would say and was halfway inclined to go through with it... until we walked into the comedy club and sat down at our table.
15. I'm forever in a state of "I could eat."
16. I love 24-hour diners for the opportunity to have bottomless cups of coffee and buttered toast sopped in runny eggs served to me by an ornery waitress in the middle of the night, despite the fact that I haven't been much of a night owl since my college days. I love that I live near a Huddle House on the off-chance that I want to venture the ten or so miles down the road at 3:00 in the morning if I so choose.
17. As clumsy as I am, I've never broken a bone, but I have sprained my ankle playing an arcade game. Amazingly, it was not DDR, but rather a jump rope kind of game.
18. I've owned three cars (by that, I mean I've made payments on three cars that The Man officially owned), but I've never truly paid off any of them. I paid light years ahead on my first car (which I got in 2004) only to have it totaled when I was less than a year away from paying it off. The person at fault paid off my car, and the difference made for a nice down payment on my second car (2008), which I was over halfway finished paying when I traded it in for my current car last October because I need a vehicle with all-wheel drive while living in the mountains (as it turns out, a Chevy Cobalt is not meant to be driven in the snowy hills of Appalachia).
19. I've never been on a train ride... unless you count a ride I went on at Tweetsie Railroad as a kid. Or if you count the DC Metro. I don't count either.
20. I lived in the DC metropolitan area for four years and loved everything about it apart from the cost of living and the fact that I was nearly four hours away from loved ones in NC. I loved being able to walk to three coffee shops and various restaurants from my apartment building and that the metro station was only a quick 15-20 minute walk from where we lived, which gave me access to so much. Our building was full of quirky people, and we made great friends through grad school and work. I also loved living in western Maryland last year, aside from the insane winter, the lack of good job opportunities, and living seven hours away from NC. I also love living here, with the beautiful scenery, the wonderful job I had, the awesome neighbors living across from us, and the great friends we've made in the past year. I often imagine taking the places I've lived and putting them in my pocket, and relocating them outside of Raleigh, so that I could have all the places and people I love near one another.
1. I don't like heavy metal, but I like its babies (Avenged Sevenfold and Disturbed are good examples.).
2. As a kid, I thought the world used to be in black and white, which would explain all the old television shows and movies. I also thought that the world gained color during the filming of The Wizard of Oz. I couldn't explain why the movie ended in black and white though.
3. I make a big deal about spelling and grammar, even though I hypocritically break the rules at times by typing in sentence fragments for emphasis. Like now.
4. I used to be obsessed with The Smashing Pumpkins and held onto the hope of one day meeting Billy Corgan and sweeping him off his feet, despite out sixteen-year age difference. I've since gotten over him and consider the band still broken up, even though he has toured under the same band name for the past five or so years. To me though, it's Zwan II because it started out as Billy Corgan and drummer Jimmy Chamberlin with other people (and then Jimmy quit). I gave the reboot of the band a chance, but Tarantula was underwhelming.
5. I had my first cup of coffee when I was 11 years old. I'd always wanted to sit with my mom drinking a cuppa, but prior to that, she'd always said I was too young, so I'd make myself a cup of cocoa, drop an ice cube in it to cool it off a bit, and sip it through a straw. I always saw coffee as "the adult hot chocolate." When my mom prepared a cup for me, I reached for a straw in our utensil drawer. "What are you doing?" "Getting a straw." "Coffee doesn't need a straw." "Oh." So then I opened the freezer to grab an ice cube. "What are you doing now?" "Grabbing some ice." "Coffee doesn't need ice." "Oh." Imagine my surprise when I discovered that coffee tasted nothing like hot chocolate.
6. One of my earliest memories is either moving into my childhood home in October 1984 or being wheeled into the hospital when I had a rare form of meningitis in December 1985. Obviously, October 1984 comes first chronologically, but I don't know if it's really my memory, or if I heard stories of us moving in so often that I implanted a memory that otherwise did not exist, as what I remember are things that actually happened to my oldest brother, but I remember them as if they happened to me as well.
7. I like sneezing.
8. I have a pseudonym picked out for if I were to one day become an online musical artist. I can't play musical instruments or read music, so I'd have to have some nifty program help me put music together, which I often consider but don't really have the patience to actually do. But if I one day do have the patience, I can use a program and share the music using another name, and then people can give their honest opinions without fear of insulting me if it's bad, and I'd also know it would be genuine positive criticism if people had good things to say.
9. I test Nathaniel's bottles by tasting them. Sometimes my skin isn't as sensitive as it ought to be, so it seems better this way.
10. I have just as many letters behind my name as I have in my legal first name.
11. I want to participate in the 2013 Krispy Kreme Challenge in Raleigh, NC. I'd like to get a group/team together, but so far it's just me and Robert. I might be able to get another friend in on it, and Samantha may be a bystander if she can stomach the smell of vomit from the run back from the doughnut shop. AJ won't be anywhere near it and will instead root for me from afar. Way afar.
12. I'm putting off grading roughly 30 papers to tell you twenty random things about me because I'm all about procrastinating.
13. When I watch cartoons, I try to guess who the voice actors are. It's something I've enjoyed doing since I was a kid. People have also said that I should go into voice acting because I alter my voice a lot for fun, and the outcomes are usually cartoonish.
14. If I ever overcome my stage fright, I'll try doing some comedy during an open mic night somewhere. I was lucky enough to watch our friend Chewie perform one night when we were in town (he does comedy pretty often, but we're usually unable to visit when he's on stage because it's in the middle of the week), and I almost convinced myself to sign myself up. I even had an outline of things I would say and was halfway inclined to go through with it... until we walked into the comedy club and sat down at our table.
15. I'm forever in a state of "I could eat."
16. I love 24-hour diners for the opportunity to have bottomless cups of coffee and buttered toast sopped in runny eggs served to me by an ornery waitress in the middle of the night, despite the fact that I haven't been much of a night owl since my college days. I love that I live near a Huddle House on the off-chance that I want to venture the ten or so miles down the road at 3:00 in the morning if I so choose.
17. As clumsy as I am, I've never broken a bone, but I have sprained my ankle playing an arcade game. Amazingly, it was not DDR, but rather a jump rope kind of game.
18. I've owned three cars (by that, I mean I've made payments on three cars that The Man officially owned), but I've never truly paid off any of them. I paid light years ahead on my first car (which I got in 2004) only to have it totaled when I was less than a year away from paying it off. The person at fault paid off my car, and the difference made for a nice down payment on my second car (2008), which I was over halfway finished paying when I traded it in for my current car last October because I need a vehicle with all-wheel drive while living in the mountains (as it turns out, a Chevy Cobalt is not meant to be driven in the snowy hills of Appalachia).
19. I've never been on a train ride... unless you count a ride I went on at Tweetsie Railroad as a kid. Or if you count the DC Metro. I don't count either.
20. I lived in the DC metropolitan area for four years and loved everything about it apart from the cost of living and the fact that I was nearly four hours away from loved ones in NC. I loved being able to walk to three coffee shops and various restaurants from my apartment building and that the metro station was only a quick 15-20 minute walk from where we lived, which gave me access to so much. Our building was full of quirky people, and we made great friends through grad school and work. I also loved living in western Maryland last year, aside from the insane winter, the lack of good job opportunities, and living seven hours away from NC. I also love living here, with the beautiful scenery, the wonderful job I had, the awesome neighbors living across from us, and the great friends we've made in the past year. I often imagine taking the places I've lived and putting them in my pocket, and relocating them outside of Raleigh, so that I could have all the places and people I love near one another.