Brandi provides an example of how to be bored. Ashley follows said example
Brandi's list inspired me. Plus I had time and nothing to fill it with.
100 Random Things About Me:
1. I love to use big words and consider the English language a close friend.
2. I have dual citizenship to the US and Canada.
3. When I was born, doctors thought I had retinal blastoma (cancer of the eye) and would die within a few days. I'm still defying them all.
4. Right now it's 6 am Christmas morning, and I can neither get back to sleep nor go downstairs yet.
5. Despite my apparent gracelessness, I danced ballet for ten years, four of those on point.
6. When I originally decided to join band I wanted to play the trombone, not the trumpet.
7. When I was in second grade I used to come home from school, sit in front of our old stereo with the lyric book and try to memorize all the words to The Phantom of the Opera
8. The reason I found Marist in New York was because I wanted to see Les Miserables before it went off Broadway and my mother was obliging.
9. The first thing my mother said when she saw me was to my father: "she's got your chin hole!"
10. When I first saw Bandit, I didn't want him. Then he stumbled right into my lap and I knew I couldn't live without him.
11. My beloved stuffed dog Bug came from the local mall in Jamestown, NY where my extended family met for a week every summer throughout my childhood.
12. Bug has been more places than a lot of people I know, including Hawaii and Europe.
13. I once refused to get out of the car on a ski trip until my dad agreed to zip Bug up in his jacket because Bug wanted to ski too.
14. I was never afraid of skiing, which I could do before I could walk, because I sang "Ashley is skiing down [insert mountain's name] Mountain" all the way from the top to the bottom every time.
15. Even though he doesn't like them himself, my brother bought me my first Beatles album, Rubber Soul, for my 12th birthday.
16. My family has very weird genes; everyone looks frighteningly like someone else on my mum's side. I look more like my Uncle Dale than my father.
17. I have several discretely located freckles. So far, nobody has seen them all but me.
18. I used keep poetry journals; I still have every poem I've ever written.
19. I learned to play golf in St. Andrews, where the sport was invented. I'm very bad.
20. Every time my parents build a new house (they're on their third) they paint my room the same periwinkle blue so I always know it's mine.
21. I used to call my cousin Perry "Best Buddy" because he always played with me even though I was so much younger than all of the family.
22. When I was young, I never had a speech impediment but rather over-enunciated and exaggerated my diction. They called me "Actually Ashley."
23. My brother and I have always called each other "Ad" and "Ash."
24. Whenever I have a team to name for games or anything, it is always called "Ash's Dashers."
25. I met my best friend in college because of a mutual love of Harry Potter; we used to stay up all night talking about theories before book six came out. Now we're roommates and sometimes we still do.
26. Books are my most cherished possessions. On average, I read around 70 a year.
27. The only time I have ever admitted that the movie was better than the book was the new James Bond film, Casino Royale.
28. I will watch any movie if I like the actor who's in it.
29. If I haven't gotten mail in a while, I'll order something from Amazon or ebay just to receive a package.
30. I saw a psychiatrist for two years in high school and never felt truly happy with myself until I embraced Tibetan Buddhism.
31. This year I wore mistletoe to the faculty Christmas party and got kissed by several professors. I loved it.
32. I will try basically any food once. There are few foods I really hate. Beets are one of them.
33. I am a huge Trekkie and I'm darn proud of it.
34. When I was a tot, I had a genuine English accent that I picked up from my live-in nanny, Wendy.
35. I can't stand small repetitive noises like jiggling legs or ticking clocks. They make me want to scream at the top of my lungs.
36. I carry a copy of the Communist Manifesto everywhere with me even though I think Marx had some fundamental flaws in his theory.
37. Even though I get made fun of for it, I love Barry Manilow.
38. I met my first steady boyfriend, Ed Gibbons (aka my Englishman), because I went to a ball alone and sat down in the first empty seat I could find with a bunch of nice strangers. They became my best friends in Scotland.
39. I floss my teeth every single night.
40. In high school I beat out Tommy Waits for the "golden shoe" marching award, even though Keith was giving commands that Tommy, as a drummer, didn't have to obey.
41. In the spring, I'm going to be doing an internship that only seven students, out of hundreds of applicants, got selected for.
42. I was in Prague, where my grandfather was from, on the fifth anniversary of his death. I drank a toast to him with his favourite drink, Slivovic, that's plum brandy.
43. I own Harry Potter books in five languages. I can't read them.
44. I have an album of all the get well cards I've ever gotten. They number in the hundreds.
45. I wear the same jewelry every day - high school ring, Buddhist prayer ring, and a ring inscribed on the inside with a quote from the Phantom of the Opera: "Your love redeems me" which I will give to the man I fall in love with.
46. When I was little, my favourite snack was cheerios and chocolate chips.
47. Whenever we went skiing, we always had peanut butter, Nutella and marshmallow fluff sandwiches. We always listened to Kenny Roger's "The Gambler" on the way to the slopes. I still know all the words.
48. Every year for Christmas, my brother gives me a nutcracker. Today I'll get my thirteenth.
49. My mum still has all my dance costumes. I can't even fit my old tutu around my thigh.
50. I discovered last year that my college band director heard my middle school band play at the Midwest Band Clinic in Chicago when I was in it.
51. I have always been physically attracted to inappropriately older men.
52. I wear my watch on the wrong hand.
53. I’m allergic to Codine, a medicine that doctors routinely prescribe after surgery.
54. Two of my three most influential academic teachers taught social studies. The other taught English.
55. Whenever I fly on a plane, I always drink ginger ale. I rarely drink it any other time.
56. I prefer the Chrysler Building to the famous Empire State Building in the New York City skyline.
57. Former president Bill Clinton is my brother through Kappa Kappa Psi/ Tau Beta Sigma.
58. I met my childhood hero, Colm Wilkinson, when I was 19.
59. Despite my love affair with the English language I still have a few consistent problems including spelling the words necessary and volume.
60. When my paternal grandfather escaped to Canada from communist Czechoslovakia in 1948, he dropped the accent marks from his surname; I added them back years ago and requested their inclusion on my college degree.
61. I went on a blind date, my only one, to my senior prom.
62. I learned how to count by playing blackjack as a child.
63. I developed arthritis at age 20.
64. I have an incredible capacity for memorizing song lyrics. I literally know thousands of songs.
65. When I was three I found a potato that looked like it had a face. I carried it around and talked to it for two weeks until it started to rot and my mum threw it out. I cried.
66. I once lost a pencil case down a sewer grate in the school yard. My principal gave me a new one to make up for it.
67. I never lay with my arm over my head because I have an irrational fear of being tickled under the arm.
68. I can’t stand being kissed on the top of my head. If it happens I have to either jump around or rub the spot vigorously to make the feeling go away.
69. I hate being startled. If someone jumps out at me, I don’t react, but am likely to punch them quite hard without thinking.
70. I never ride roller coasters or watch horror movies because I despise the emotions they elicit.
71. I have always hated clowns, ever since one approached me in a hospital as a toddler. I felt the clown belittled my intelligence and I held a grudge that lives on.
72. If I could instantly master one thing, it would be the piano.
73. Talking about religion makes me uncomfortable even though I love to study it.
74. In books, films and TV shows, I tend to favor the villains over the heroes.
75. I often wake up with a song stuck in my head even if I haven’t heard it in ages.
76. My handwriting is nearly illegible because I take elements or letters from other peoples’ scripts that I like and incorporate them into my own, so nothing matches.
77. My parents call me “The Bean” and none of us can remember why.
78. We have a family tradition at every meal: after grace we join index fingers and say “I love you, snap.” There is no snapping involved. We have done this as long as I can remember and we don’t do it when company is over.
79. I seal all handwritten letters with wax. My seal is a thistle, the national flower of Scotland.
80. My favourite drink is Single Malt Scotch Whisky, neat.
81. The only bone in my body that has ever been broken is my right big toe.
82. When I was young, if anybody in my family would argue, I would lock myself in my bathroom until they were finished.
83. Despite poor grades all through middle and especially high school, I have never had below a B- (and then only one) in college.
84. I’ve slept on a park bench in New York City and been shooed off by a cop. I was too cheap to get a hotel room.
85. I have a habit of developing crushes on fictional characters.
86. Dressing up in costumes is one of my favourite things and has been since I was a baby.
87. My ridiculous laugh, which I am extremely self-conscious about, is exactly the same as my mother’s.
88. I wore a contact lens in my blind eye until I was five. Since then I have never been allowed to wear one at all. Next week, I will be fitted for my first contact in my good eye.
89. I have been given marriage proposals because of my back massages.
90. I own and wear full highland dress. My kilt is purple and my accessories all have thistles on them.
91. One day, I hope to write fiction.
92. When I traveled around Europe, my theme song was Paul McCartney’s “Mull of Kintyre.”
93. Barry Manilow’s “Who Needs to Dream?” is going to be my wedding song.
94. I never want to live away from a body of water, and I haven’t done so my whole life: Lake Ontario, Lake Murray, Lake Lanier, The Hudson River, The North Sea and Lake Hartwell.
95. I never used to swear at all. I asked my parents if I was allowed to say “crap” when I was 12, they said yes.
96. I use British slang all the time and no longer notice until I get strange looks.
97. I got my iPod for free by participating in a trial class while I was abroad. I never would have bought one myself and now I can’t live without it.
98. When the weather is bad, my old “marching band injury,” my right ankle, still aches.
99. When I turn off the lights to go to sleep, I jump into the bed because I always feel like something is going to grab me from under the bed.
100. For the month I backpacked Europe I carried my towel with me. It served as pillow, blanket, bag, umbrella and of course, towel. It was never washed the whole trip and was thrown away, to my regret, before I flew back to America.
100 Random Things About Me:
1. I love to use big words and consider the English language a close friend.
2. I have dual citizenship to the US and Canada.
3. When I was born, doctors thought I had retinal blastoma (cancer of the eye) and would die within a few days. I'm still defying them all.
4. Right now it's 6 am Christmas morning, and I can neither get back to sleep nor go downstairs yet.
5. Despite my apparent gracelessness, I danced ballet for ten years, four of those on point.
6. When I originally decided to join band I wanted to play the trombone, not the trumpet.
7. When I was in second grade I used to come home from school, sit in front of our old stereo with the lyric book and try to memorize all the words to The Phantom of the Opera
8. The reason I found Marist in New York was because I wanted to see Les Miserables before it went off Broadway and my mother was obliging.
9. The first thing my mother said when she saw me was to my father: "she's got your chin hole!"
10. When I first saw Bandit, I didn't want him. Then he stumbled right into my lap and I knew I couldn't live without him.
11. My beloved stuffed dog Bug came from the local mall in Jamestown, NY where my extended family met for a week every summer throughout my childhood.
12. Bug has been more places than a lot of people I know, including Hawaii and Europe.
13. I once refused to get out of the car on a ski trip until my dad agreed to zip Bug up in his jacket because Bug wanted to ski too.
14. I was never afraid of skiing, which I could do before I could walk, because I sang "Ashley is skiing down [insert mountain's name] Mountain" all the way from the top to the bottom every time.
15. Even though he doesn't like them himself, my brother bought me my first Beatles album, Rubber Soul, for my 12th birthday.
16. My family has very weird genes; everyone looks frighteningly like someone else on my mum's side. I look more like my Uncle Dale than my father.
17. I have several discretely located freckles. So far, nobody has seen them all but me.
18. I used keep poetry journals; I still have every poem I've ever written.
19. I learned to play golf in St. Andrews, where the sport was invented. I'm very bad.
20. Every time my parents build a new house (they're on their third) they paint my room the same periwinkle blue so I always know it's mine.
21. I used to call my cousin Perry "Best Buddy" because he always played with me even though I was so much younger than all of the family.
22. When I was young, I never had a speech impediment but rather over-enunciated and exaggerated my diction. They called me "Actually Ashley."
23. My brother and I have always called each other "Ad" and "Ash."
24. Whenever I have a team to name for games or anything, it is always called "Ash's Dashers."
25. I met my best friend in college because of a mutual love of Harry Potter; we used to stay up all night talking about theories before book six came out. Now we're roommates and sometimes we still do.
26. Books are my most cherished possessions. On average, I read around 70 a year.
27. The only time I have ever admitted that the movie was better than the book was the new James Bond film, Casino Royale.
28. I will watch any movie if I like the actor who's in it.
29. If I haven't gotten mail in a while, I'll order something from Amazon or ebay just to receive a package.
30. I saw a psychiatrist for two years in high school and never felt truly happy with myself until I embraced Tibetan Buddhism.
31. This year I wore mistletoe to the faculty Christmas party and got kissed by several professors. I loved it.
32. I will try basically any food once. There are few foods I really hate. Beets are one of them.
33. I am a huge Trekkie and I'm darn proud of it.
34. When I was a tot, I had a genuine English accent that I picked up from my live-in nanny, Wendy.
35. I can't stand small repetitive noises like jiggling legs or ticking clocks. They make me want to scream at the top of my lungs.
36. I carry a copy of the Communist Manifesto everywhere with me even though I think Marx had some fundamental flaws in his theory.
37. Even though I get made fun of for it, I love Barry Manilow.
38. I met my first steady boyfriend, Ed Gibbons (aka my Englishman), because I went to a ball alone and sat down in the first empty seat I could find with a bunch of nice strangers. They became my best friends in Scotland.
39. I floss my teeth every single night.
40. In high school I beat out Tommy Waits for the "golden shoe" marching award, even though Keith was giving commands that Tommy, as a drummer, didn't have to obey.
41. In the spring, I'm going to be doing an internship that only seven students, out of hundreds of applicants, got selected for.
42. I was in Prague, where my grandfather was from, on the fifth anniversary of his death. I drank a toast to him with his favourite drink, Slivovic, that's plum brandy.
43. I own Harry Potter books in five languages. I can't read them.
44. I have an album of all the get well cards I've ever gotten. They number in the hundreds.
45. I wear the same jewelry every day - high school ring, Buddhist prayer ring, and a ring inscribed on the inside with a quote from the Phantom of the Opera: "Your love redeems me" which I will give to the man I fall in love with.
46. When I was little, my favourite snack was cheerios and chocolate chips.
47. Whenever we went skiing, we always had peanut butter, Nutella and marshmallow fluff sandwiches. We always listened to Kenny Roger's "The Gambler" on the way to the slopes. I still know all the words.
48. Every year for Christmas, my brother gives me a nutcracker. Today I'll get my thirteenth.
49. My mum still has all my dance costumes. I can't even fit my old tutu around my thigh.
50. I discovered last year that my college band director heard my middle school band play at the Midwest Band Clinic in Chicago when I was in it.
51. I have always been physically attracted to inappropriately older men.
52. I wear my watch on the wrong hand.
53. I’m allergic to Codine, a medicine that doctors routinely prescribe after surgery.
54. Two of my three most influential academic teachers taught social studies. The other taught English.
55. Whenever I fly on a plane, I always drink ginger ale. I rarely drink it any other time.
56. I prefer the Chrysler Building to the famous Empire State Building in the New York City skyline.
57. Former president Bill Clinton is my brother through Kappa Kappa Psi/ Tau Beta Sigma.
58. I met my childhood hero, Colm Wilkinson, when I was 19.
59. Despite my love affair with the English language I still have a few consistent problems including spelling the words necessary and volume.
60. When my paternal grandfather escaped to Canada from communist Czechoslovakia in 1948, he dropped the accent marks from his surname; I added them back years ago and requested their inclusion on my college degree.
61. I went on a blind date, my only one, to my senior prom.
62. I learned how to count by playing blackjack as a child.
63. I developed arthritis at age 20.
64. I have an incredible capacity for memorizing song lyrics. I literally know thousands of songs.
65. When I was three I found a potato that looked like it had a face. I carried it around and talked to it for two weeks until it started to rot and my mum threw it out. I cried.
66. I once lost a pencil case down a sewer grate in the school yard. My principal gave me a new one to make up for it.
67. I never lay with my arm over my head because I have an irrational fear of being tickled under the arm.
68. I can’t stand being kissed on the top of my head. If it happens I have to either jump around or rub the spot vigorously to make the feeling go away.
69. I hate being startled. If someone jumps out at me, I don’t react, but am likely to punch them quite hard without thinking.
70. I never ride roller coasters or watch horror movies because I despise the emotions they elicit.
71. I have always hated clowns, ever since one approached me in a hospital as a toddler. I felt the clown belittled my intelligence and I held a grudge that lives on.
72. If I could instantly master one thing, it would be the piano.
73. Talking about religion makes me uncomfortable even though I love to study it.
74. In books, films and TV shows, I tend to favor the villains over the heroes.
75. I often wake up with a song stuck in my head even if I haven’t heard it in ages.
76. My handwriting is nearly illegible because I take elements or letters from other peoples’ scripts that I like and incorporate them into my own, so nothing matches.
77. My parents call me “The Bean” and none of us can remember why.
78. We have a family tradition at every meal: after grace we join index fingers and say “I love you, snap.” There is no snapping involved. We have done this as long as I can remember and we don’t do it when company is over.
79. I seal all handwritten letters with wax. My seal is a thistle, the national flower of Scotland.
80. My favourite drink is Single Malt Scotch Whisky, neat.
81. The only bone in my body that has ever been broken is my right big toe.
82. When I was young, if anybody in my family would argue, I would lock myself in my bathroom until they were finished.
83. Despite poor grades all through middle and especially high school, I have never had below a B- (and then only one) in college.
84. I’ve slept on a park bench in New York City and been shooed off by a cop. I was too cheap to get a hotel room.
85. I have a habit of developing crushes on fictional characters.
86. Dressing up in costumes is one of my favourite things and has been since I was a baby.
87. My ridiculous laugh, which I am extremely self-conscious about, is exactly the same as my mother’s.
88. I wore a contact lens in my blind eye until I was five. Since then I have never been allowed to wear one at all. Next week, I will be fitted for my first contact in my good eye.
89. I have been given marriage proposals because of my back massages.
90. I own and wear full highland dress. My kilt is purple and my accessories all have thistles on them.
91. One day, I hope to write fiction.
92. When I traveled around Europe, my theme song was Paul McCartney’s “Mull of Kintyre.”
93. Barry Manilow’s “Who Needs to Dream?” is going to be my wedding song.
94. I never want to live away from a body of water, and I haven’t done so my whole life: Lake Ontario, Lake Murray, Lake Lanier, The Hudson River, The North Sea and Lake Hartwell.
95. I never used to swear at all. I asked my parents if I was allowed to say “crap” when I was 12, they said yes.
96. I use British slang all the time and no longer notice until I get strange looks.
97. I got my iPod for free by participating in a trial class while I was abroad. I never would have bought one myself and now I can’t live without it.
98. When the weather is bad, my old “marching band injury,” my right ankle, still aches.
99. When I turn off the lights to go to sleep, I jump into the bed because I always feel like something is going to grab me from under the bed.
100. For the month I backpacked Europe I carried my towel with me. It served as pillow, blanket, bag, umbrella and of course, towel. It was never washed the whole trip and was thrown away, to my regret, before I flew back to America.