25 Random Things about Me

So it seems that I was really stretching for excuses not to work yesterday. I received this kind of chain-mail thing on Facebook, in which I was supposed to write 25 random things about myself and then forward it on to 25 other people. It was actually pretty fun to think about, much more fun than I was having taking notes on articles about 'social capital,' 'making spaces in civil society,' and 'partydom.' And since I took it relatively seriously, I thought I'd share it with you too...

1. Favorite Simple Pleasures: long chats with good friends, any excuse to laugh, treating myself to a massage, red wine, dark chocolate, strong coffee, playing Scrabble, Spider Solitaire or Hearts on my computer while I listen to music and sing along.
2. Favorite Activities: any excuse to move my body and to learn something new—traveling, pick-up basketball, soccer, football, baseball or ultimate Frisbee, running, yoga, judo, hiking, climbing, camping, downhill and cross-country skiing, snowboarding, swimming, surfing, wakeboarding, kayaking, inner-tubing, waterslides, cycling, dancing (I think all of my attempts count as “interpretative”).
3. I believe that love is the higher energy by which all living things are connected. As human beings, our greater purpose is to support each other in our never-ending journeys of self-discovery, self-improvement and self-love. When we have peace in ourselves, we help bring peace to others and to the world.
4. I once told my family members to hide under the bed during an earthquake. I used to think that you couldn’t flush the toilet when the power went out. I put hand soap in the dish washer and flooded our kitchen with bubbles…twice.
5. Although I have suffered some very traumatic losses, I cannot even describe how blessed I am to have been loved and supported by my family—both biological and extended—all of my life.
6. It is ironic to me that I will complete my Ph.D. in political science next year because I didn’t know anything about politics or have any interest in it until the end of high school. I got so tired of my own naiveté that I committed myself to learning as much as possible about the way world works. I actually don’t “like” politics that much, but I realize that in order to create positive change in the world, I have to work with the system we have, so I better understand that system as well as I possibly can. As the old saying goes, the more I learn, the more I realize how little I know. And, particularly given my late start on the subject, I always feel like I am behind.
7. I have an equally strong desire to be a university professor and a soccer mom. I want to teach in Seattle, conduct research, travel the world, and inform government policy, but I want to do all that with my husband and kids by my side, coaching my kids’ sports teams, skiing in the winter and going camping in the summer. I want a house, a garden, a hybrid car, and a golden retriever. I want all of it.
8. I am a hopeless romantic. Some of my all-time favorite movies are “The Family Man,” “When Harry Met Sally,” and “The Notebook.” I own all three and watch them frequently. I still start to cry every time.
9. I have had more near-death experiences and major injuries than anyone I know. My repertoire includes an allergic reaction to a black widow spider bite in Virginia in the summer of 2005. If it weren’t for the ambulance and the Nobel Peace Prize-Winning toxicologists that happened to be on staff at UVA hospital, I would have died. They couldn’t give me the anti-venom, so I had to suffer through the pain of the venom pumping through my body and killing my cells. I was on morphine, Oxycodone, and two other pain killers, but it hurt so badly that I was still kicking my feet. In the spring of 2004, I was nearly (though not intentionally) blown up by gang members in a soccer stadium in El Salvador, and a month later I was hospitalized in Nicaragua’s military complex with amoebic dysentery. I was bed-ridden for a week and lost about 20 pounds. If that weren’t enough, I’ve broken my left wrist three times, my right hand once, shattered my right knee and broke my nose playing high school soccer, broke my right foot last year playing intramural basketball, and have broken more fingers and toes than I’d care to count. There’s more, but you get the picture. My poor mother…
10. I am an optimist. I believe that if I work hard enough and make choices toward the greater good, things will eventually work out. I believe that “all things happen for a reason,” not necessarily due to some sort of divine intervention, but because I choose to learn something from every situation, good or bad. (Even if it is divine intervention, the intervention is wasted if I choose not to learn from it.)
11. Although I like trying new things, there are some very common foods that I really don’t like. I try to avoid these things whenever possible, though I’ve tried them all on occasion (because I’m not five-years-old anymore): mayonnaise and mayonnaise-based things (i.e. salad dressings, macaroni salad, potato salad, etc.), raisins and most nuts (I’m the annoying person who picks through the trail mix), pickles, relish, sauerkraut, olives, flavored chips and fake cheese (i.e. Cheetohs, Doritos, Sun Chips, BBQ or sour cream or onion flavored anything, etc.), oysters, black licorice, peanut butter and jelly together (I prefer eating them separately).
12. My parents considered naming me Chesapeake Bay (“Chessy”) and my brother, Elliot Bay.
13. When other 2^nd graders were drawing pictures of penthouses in Universal Studios, my dream house at age eight looks like a cave in the mountains where I would be self-sufficient and live off the land.
14. My favorite books (the ones I read over and over) as a child were the Laura Ingalls Wilder series (including Little House on the Prairie), My Side of the Mountain, Hatchet, Little Women, and Anne of Green Gables. Now my core books are Eat, Pray, Love, The Power of One, and The Alchemist. Other current favorites include Three Cups of Tea, Mountains Beyond Mountains and A Thousand Splendid Suns.
15. When I wasn’t playing sports, I spent a lot of my youth playing with imaginary friends; writing and telling myself stories; teaching my “class” of stuffed animals and taking them on backyard fieldtrips in my red wagon; and writing and putting on plays with my friend Nikki.
16. I overanalyze everything. It really bothers me when I can’t understand something or when things are left unresolved in a relationship. I don’t mind being wrong, but I need to understand why or how I am wrong. I always want to talk it out, no matter what.
17. I believe that education is the single most transformative force in the world. Once attained, no one can take it away. Without at least knowing how to read and write, a person cannot make the informed decisions necessary to live a life that s/he has reason to value. From voting to employment to health choices to raising children, education dictates the quality of life everywhere in the world. It is the universal common denominator.
18. So far I’ve been to Mexico, South Africa, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. I’ll be presenting a paper on the New Left in Nicaragua at the Latin American Studies Association conference this summer in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (I am SO psyched!) There are still so many places that I want to see, both internationally and nationally. I want to take a road trip all over the US after I graduate next year.
19. I am on a constant search for balance in my life. I don’t strive to be a Tibetan monk on a mountaintop (impossible for more than the obvious reasons), and I don’t think I’ll ever achieve perfect balance, but I think it’s a worthwhile, life-long pursuit.
20. One of my favorite travel memories are the long days spent playing and relaxing with my friends Hodge and Jaci in Umngazi, South Africa. Body surfing in the warm waters of the Indian Ocean, the floral scent of the forest as we hiked along the rocky shores, drinking bottles and bottles of incredible red wine, running it off in the mornings, sunbathing and playing Scrabble by the pool, deep discussions, silly jokes, tennis matches in the afternoons, feasting on the most amazing barbecues (braais), South African music, Rooibus tea, falling asleep to the sound of the ocean and watching the sun rise over the crashing waves as I showered in the morning…
21. I can quote movies and sitcoms line for line (to the annoyance of my family and friends), but I always sing the wrong words to songs. For the longest time I thought it was, “Stop, in the name of-the-law, before you break my heart. Think it o-o-ver…” I know that makes zero-sense…
22. I like to think that we are all made of star dust. Everything on this earth, the oceans, mountains, trees, animals and human beings are all made of the same stuff (carbon, to be technical, but star dust sounds more poetic). Perhaps this is why I feel so connected to the earth. I have been called a tree hugger more than once in my life…
23. I face my fears head-on. Part of the reason that I went away for college was I was afraid of being too dependent on the comforts of home. Those four years were some the most difficult in my life, but I also grew exponentially as a person through all of my trials and tribulations. And it was precisely because I had a fear of heights that I jumped off the highest bungee jump in the world in South Africa. It was 216 meters, which is higher than the Space Needle. I went from 0 to 60 mph in 3 seconds. I have it on tape if you don’t believe me. :-)
24. I’ll order a salad for dinner, but I also get the chocolate cake.
25. I can’t whistle or roll my R’s, which can make life tougher in Latin America. Whistling is crucial for exiting public buses and “rr” is its own letter in the Spanish alphabet. Oh, well. It’s not like I “blend” anyway. I’m not fooling anyone.