Playing Catch Up

Okay, so it's the last day of February and I am still 3 days shy of reaching 25 things. So, I will try to throw something together in this post.

22. I love people watching.

This might have something to do with that over analytical thing I talked about before. My favorite thing to do is to assess couple's relationships at coffee shops.

23. I have really high expectations for people.

I think this comes out of my general sense of optimism. I see the best in people and I expect them to live up to that. I'm coming to terms with the fact that when I feel let down that is often my problem, and not theirs.

24. I avoid awkward situations as often as possible...which often only makes awkward situations more awkward.

This has been recently complicated by the introduction of Randi into my life, but I love her nonetheless.

25. I am a C, I am a C-H, I am a C-H-R-I-S-T-I-A-N


My relationship with Christ is what defines me, it is what drives me, and it is what I strive toward. This all sounds kind of cliche, but it is true. In college most of my life was centered around ministry (through Crusade and ADX) and it was a lot easier to find my identity in Christ in that context. Learning what it looks like to glorify God in law school is challenging, but I feel like it's a better reflection of what my faith will look like in the long term than what it was in college. It requires a different sort of intentionality and integration and it's something that I still feel lost in.

Normally I'm a big fan of abbrevs.

21. I hate it when people say "Cali" instead of California.

I will never use that word. Unfortunately everyone and their mom refers to California as "Cali" here in MN. The worst part is they always say it with a MN accent, but trying to sound "cool." They over emphasize the a, dragging it out even longer than they normally draw out vowels. I used to think that the only people who called California "Cali" were people who were not from California. However, I've come to the sad realization that this is not true and have heard California natives refer to it as such. People, PLEASE STOP.

Should Probably Get over It

20. I'm still bitter about elementary school.

Suffice it to say that I went to a small private school and was not one of the "cool kids." However, I found my niche at church. My church had an amazing children's program back in the day, we refer to it as the golden years of YCC children's ministry. My oldest friends are people I met in church. It's crazy because in a few years, some of these people will have kids that are the same age as we were when we met. I love that we grew up together. We all lead very different lives now, but it's amazing to see how God has worked in each of our lives over the years. Tuts for life. :)

I was bit by a shark...jk

19. I have a really awesome scar on my left leg.

During the summer between 8th and 9th grade I was surfing with my dad in Carlsbad and my leg got cut open by the fin on my board. The only time I ever saw the wound was when couldn't stand up and looked down. My dad was by my side in about 30 seconds and covered it up with a towel (I suppose to stop the bleeding) and he never let me look at it again. I sat around in an emergency room for a few hours wearing my swimsuit and a sweat shirt, it was kind of awkward (I don't think anyone noticed though, especially considering they had their own injuries to worry about...like one guy who had a huge knife sticking out of his foot and was screaming like a big baby and begging for vicodin.) I had 18 stitches on the outside and more inside my leg. I took the stitches out myself while on vacation in MN because I wanted to swim. I still have some weird nerve damage in my leg. When you press on one end of the scar I get this stabbing pain by my knee, kind of like when your foot falls asleep, but it stings. I'm not a big fan of blood and gore stories, but it is kind of awesome (in a 13 year old boy sort of way).

word to your mother

18. I am a mama's girl.

I mentioned at some point (10) that my Grandmom is the woman I most want to be like, and in that post I mentioned my mom. Basically, she's awesome. I figured she deserved her own number though.

Today in the mail I received a random tax paper that included an unnecessarily long note letting me know that I am loved and being prayed for daily. My mom shows me on a daily basis what it means to love God and love people, and I'm so grateful for who she's been in my life. She'll listen to me talk about nothing for way longer than she should. She does not get impatient with me even though I often do with her. She is the mediator and the de-escalator of situations in my family. She lets me know all the time that I am missed, but has also given me the freedom to move away and grow up without making me feel guilty. I love her.

PS I am lame and way behind on this, but my life is a bit more than busy right now...dealing.

PPS I definitely referenced Vanilla Ice in my title. I listened to Ice Ice, Baby for the first time in several months today, which reignited my love of the song and it's awesomeness.

...

17. I over use ellipses.

I use ellipses way too often when I casually writing things, mostly in gchat. I think that in my head they carry a lot more weight than what it communicates to the people reading them...

I'll Be Done in Plenty of Time

16. I procrastinate.

Surprisingly, I have only pulled 2 all nighters in my life for school related purposes. I have the second draft of my Law Review Note due tomorrow. This post will be short. It's going to be a late night.

We're All in this Together

15. I am a sucker for all things a pre-teen girl would love.

Here's a list: Taylor Swift, HSM (1,2, AND 3), the Twilight series, the Disney Channel, etc. The odd thing is, I was never much for teen-girl fads when I was a teen-girl. Never did the whole boy band thing and my parent's weren't big fans of encouraging trendy behaviors. Maybe this is my way of rebelling...

Thinking About It

14. I over analyze...like to a ridiculous extent.

I especially over analyze when it comes to my relationships, with people and with God. In some ways I think that my analytical perspective helps me relate to and read people better. I also think that it's made me extremely intentional when it comes to my faith. Still, the "over" part of it makes me doubt myself and where I stand with people and God. I don't think I'll ever be able to just turn it off, but hopefully as I grow I'll learn how to better balance between being analytical and over analytical.

Bread + Brie + Wine = amAAAzing

13. My favorite meal is brie, bread (preferably something w/ rosemary in it), and red wine...no need for vegetables (wine counts as the fruit).

This was my dinner tonight and I am very happy, especially because the brie only cost $1.99 (usually $5.99). Back in college Em and I made this meal on a regular basis and usually ate it while watching an ep of Gilrmore Girls, or part of Pride and Prejudice. Those are still some of my favorite times from college.

12. I'm slightly afraid of getting killed while walking from school to my car after dark, so I always call someone while I walk.

I blame this fear on the mass emails sent to all the students about once a week informing us of an assault that has happened on or near campus. I have to be strategic about who I call. It's usually someone in CA because it's too late to call anyone in MN. My mom is usually the lucky winner because she's most likely to actually answer the phone. If I do call someone and they don't answer, I'll leave a really long message (Mel, hope you appreciated that tonight :) ), so that it at least looks like I'm talking to someone while I walk to my car.

I don't really know what good talking to someone in CA is going to do if I get attacked. But I figure the bad guy doesn't know I'm not talking to someone in MN, or across the street, or even the police, so it's got to be some sort of a deterrent. Also, I find at least a little bit of comfort in the fact that if I'm attacked at least one person will know and it won't be days (or even weeks) until someone realizes I've gone missing and informs my family.

Shopping

11. I hate shopping, especially with other people. However, I'll go shopping with you, I just won't look for stuff for myself.

I need jeans...but I don't want to go shopping.

Who I Want to Be

Note...these are likely to get shorter, because the novelty is wearing off.

10. I hope that I can be the kind of woman my Grandmom was.

While many amazing Christian women have influence my life, I look up to my Grandmom the most. She loved people and Christ in a way that I just can't comprehend. She never put herself before other people even toward the end of her life when she was really sick. That's not to say she let herself be walked upon, she often insisted she get her way. I remember once when I was a kid my older cousin and his friend helped move a couch into my Grandmom's apartment. She wanted to give them money as a thank you so they could go out to eat or something afterward. They both insisted that it was unnecessary, but Grandmom insisted more and they finally took money. Only my cousin slipped the money back into her purse when she wasn't looking. Except, Grandmom was much too clever for that trick; she saw the money and as she hugged my cousin good bye she managed to put the money in his back pocket without him ever realizing it. She was also a very competitive game player, I don't ever remember her letting me win as a kid.

I always felt loved by my Grandmom and I know that she had that same impact on others. I've gone back to the church my mom grew up in a couple times since moving to MN and people still tell me amazing stories about her. I see this same capacity to care for other people in my mom. I hope that, like my mom and Grandmom, I become the type of woman that shows people who Christ is by the way that I live and treat others.

mmm...coffee

9. I heart coffee.

Yeah, I think this one is given. I just decided to mention it because today one of my law school friends made fun of me because so many of my Berkeley friends tag me in random pictures of coffee or coffee related things. One of the things I miss about Berkeley (I could start a list of 25 things I miss about Berk) is the cafes...but not Milano (or being forced to go there by people that didn't understand the icky-ness that is Milano coffee). I have found some great coffee shops in MN, but nothing really compares to the Far-Away-Starbucks (that is no more) and Strada.

Ooops!

I skipped 6...and no one even noticed, which makes me think no one is reading this...c'mon people. :) Anyway.....

6. I loved high school.

I feel like high school gets a bad rap. School was relatively easy and I spent most of my time socializing. I had awesome friends (and still have many of them) and we spent most of our weekends hanging out unsupervised in Em's pool house or driving around Yucaipa doing stupid things (touching stop signs, off roading, playing a variation of tag with cars, going to midget villiages, parking outside haunted mansions and thinking about goin in... wow we were dumb). We even had a secret "gang." I spent most afternoons and many mornings in a pool beating up on people/being beat up on by Kelly (or climbed on by her...Carp: "Kelly, what are you doing?" Kelly: "I'm a sloth."). I was still one of the popular kids at church. Sure, there was drama, but I was rarely the center of it and compared to life now, that stuff seems relatively unimportant. I don't want to be one of those people who can't let go of high school, but I have no problem admitting that I enjoyed those 4 years.

LaLaLaaa!

8. I sing in the car.

Okay, so maybe this isn't surprising considering I'm annoyingly humming or singing a song under my breath like 90% of the time. I guess what's odd is I sing in weird voices in the car when I'm by myself. I usually smile at people in the cars next to me if they catch me, mostly because I know that if they could actually hear me they'd probably have an even more amused look on their face. Also, I sing in my head a lot, including while I swim. It's horrible if I get a slow song stuck in my head because I usually swim to the rhythm of the music and it slows me down.

Mornin'

7. I am a morning person.

I can cope with late nights and on occasion I don't mind sleeping in, but over all I am a morning person. No matter what time I get up in the morning, I'm usually in a good mood. I'm also most productive in the morning (forcing my brain to work after about 7:00pm is pretty painful). If you want to piss off people who are not morning people, put them in the same room with a morning person in the morning. I learned this after sharing a room with my little sister for 16 years, who is the crabbiest non-morning person ever, but I guess this isn't her 25 things, so I won't elaborate.

Choo! Choo!

5. I love playing Train with my family!

Everyone in my family is really different, so finding things that we can do as a family can be kind of difficult. Still, every time I go home, I know that one night after dinner we're going to play train ...even Billy. It's great family bonding time and the way each of us plays says a lot about our personalities. My dad refuses to set up a train before he starts playing and tries to rush everyone else into taking their turn. My mom takes FOREVER (like days...and the game is already really long so it's kind of maddening) to set up her train and take every turn. Jackie is sneaky, she likes messing people up and laying down doubles without covering them or right before she goes out. And she will always catch it if you don't say "choo!choo!" when you're down to one domino. Billy simply tolerates the game. I don't know how I play, you'd have to ask my family. Maybe my thing is just that I analyze how everyone else is playing and adjust my playing as necessary (I also try to set my tiles up so they can't tell when I have a double coming up or how long my train is...but shhh don't tell them my strategy :) ).

Messy

4. The cleanliness of my room is a fairly accurate representation of where my heart is at.

When I am stressed or have too much going on in my life, my room gets messy. Usually I set aside time to clean my room and sort of symbolically destress my life. I've noticed, in general, that the more stress I have in my life, the less I focus on who God is and who He wants me to be. It becomes so easy to push aside, even the things that matter most, when my priorities get out of whack.

Car Gradient

3. I've always had brown cars.

When I turned 16 my parents gave me my Grandmom's old car, a 1987 Chevy Caprice, the Boat. It was dark dark brown; I liked to say it was maroon. The interior was awesomely maroon, and when a family friend broke my radio, my sister and I made a concerted effort to memorize music we both liked so we could sing it in the car. I always gave the quiet neighbor girl a ride to school, and Jackie and I would sing songs from Moulin Rouge and Chicago to her (or at her). When the Boat died my parent's came upon (from where I don't know) a poopy brown Zepher. It was the worst car ever and I hated it, the end. Then one day my Daddy bought the Ford. A dark tan Explorer, with fancy leather seats and a fully functioning CD player/radio. It was a major step up but still brown. While I was in college my dad sold it. In high school my friends and I joked that I would eventually get a white car because, though always brown, my cars got progressively lighter. When I moved to MN and knew I was going to buy a car, I looked forward to getting a not brown car. Instead of getting a not brown car, I got a gold car, which is just a fancy way of saying brown.

Most people already know this...

2. I'm deaf in my left ear and I don't mind being made fun of for it.

My favorite jab ever was one night when I went out to Skates with a bunch of Berkeley friends for happy hour. Joey and I were joking around and, as is typical of Joey, he was being mean to me. I told him I couldn't hear him because he was on my deaf side; to which Joey responded "Well, you're on my angry drunk side." I think it's one of those random quirks I have and I'm glad that there are people out there who know me well enough to feel comfortable poking fun at me. However, I know that someone is truly a good friend when they remember to walk on my good side or automatically give me the spot at the table that will allow me to interact with the most people.

Things About Me

So, everyone and their mom have been posting notes on facebook titled "25 Random Things About Me" (or some variation of that). I am taking the position that this is both stupid/annoying and entertaining/insightful. Mostly, I just don't like getting a bajillion emails telling me that a) I have been tagged in a note and b) 9 million people have commented on it. I do however, enjoy learning stuff about my friends and being reminded of funny things I already know. So, in an effort to both protest facebook notes and participate in building friendships I am going to use the month of Febuary to post 25 things about myself.

Originally I was going to post 28 things and commit to posting every day in Febuary. Randi told me that there was no way I would be able to post that often, which I took as a challenge and immediately swore I would prove her wrong. Well...Febuary 1st was yesterday, and I didn't post, so whatever, Randi wins. Still, Dave pointed out that I could stick with the 25 things and give myself 3 freebees, so that's the new plan of action. So with out further ado:

1. I sleep with all of my closet doors (I have 2 closets) closed, no matter what, but during the day my closet doors are usually open. I also used to sleep with the opening of my pillow case to the right, but in an effort to be less neurotic I've tried to let that go.


To be honest, I don't even know how this started. As a kid I had a hard time falling asleep, and I think I just came up with this whole set of rituals to distract me. I also will sleep under a comfortor or heavy blanket no matter how hot it is. I figure if someone were to sneak into my room to kidnap me (improbable part one) I'd wake up when they took my cover off (improbable part two) ...you know so I could defend myself (improbable part three). Yeah, it's irrational.