50 random things - #51-100

For a list of "random things #1-50," refer to the link on the right hand column of my blog (under "About the Author"). Here comes the list, #51-100! Somehow I can't figure out the numbering, so just add 50 to each number and it'll be all good. Again, in no particular order:

1. My favourite time signature is 6/8.
2. Fewer things freak me out more than walking down a stopped escalator. Walking up is ok, but walking down is just trippy.
3. I have an affinity for necklaces and sunglasses. You will very rarely see me without a necklace.
4. I have chubby baby hands with dimply knuckles. This may have been cute at age 2, but now that I’m 22 I feel as though this might be a little odd.
5. I cry at the end of the movie “Dead Poet’s Society” every time.
6. If I focus on the sound of a clock ticking, I inevitably start subdividing it in 8th notes, 16th notes, and various triplet patterns. It becomes very annoying, very quickly.
7. I am good at mini-golf, but can’t play regular golf because I always want to swing the club like a baseball bat.
8. All of my piercings and tattoos have memories of friends associated with them. I believe that body modification is a bonding experience, so I always bring friends along (belly button = David; helix = Allyson; conch = Kari; nose = D-Bo; 8th note tattoo = Misha; tragus = Nick; koru tattoo = Kirsten)
9. I have never experienced a pain more intense than getting a tattoo on my rib cage. I’m sure that even childbirth will pale in comparison.
10. Every year I try to make a note of announcing when the day, month, and year are the same (i.e. “It’s July 7th! 07/07/07!”). Next year I will do the same on August 8th.
11. A sunset on the beach takes my breath away.
12. I find the notion of musicians playing in time with their heartbeats prior to the invention of metronomes completely romantic and human. I should try it sometime, just to see what it’s like.
13. Don’t ask me if I’ve seen a certain movie, because I probably haven’t.
14. I have a horrible tendency to fall asleep during movies. Most of my friends have accepted this fact. My friend Dave somewhat jokingly insists that I find his company so boring that I could fall asleep while watching a movie at his house, even if I had just awoken from a 12-hour slumber. Sorry, Dave.
15. I far prefer driving standard/manual to automatic.
16. I have never bungy jumped, but I did the Shotover Canyon Swing in Queenstown, New Zealand, which is similar to bungy in that you jump (or do a backflip, or a handstand, etc.) off of a tall platform – 109m in this case – into a long free-fall. Doing a backflip off of a cliff was the scariest thing I have ever done in my life. I screamed all the way down, and then went back for more. I think doing the Canyon Swing proved to me that I’m braver than I give myself credit for, and as such I am now keen to do both the bungy jump and sky dive.
17. I love inspirational quotes.
18. I am convinced that Ella Fitzgerald and I are soul mates because we share the same middle name (albeit different spellings). I could listen to her singing for hours on end, and I have been known to do just that on long road trips.
19. I believe that you don’t fully appreciate the beauty of your own country until you leave it. Travel has an amazing way of opening your eyes to what has always been around you.
20. When I was in my teen years, I had a shelf that ran the length of 3 out of 4 of my bedroom walls at home. Amazingly, I was able to fill all three shelves full of picture frames. I had something like 56 picture frames in my bedroom at the time. Cleaning around them was a bugger, but at least I was constantly reminded of my rich life and my wonderful friends.
21. I love karaoke to a ridiculous extent. The guys at one of the karaoke bars in Saskatoon know my friends and me by name (and sometimes by song choice). It’s somewhat embarrassing, but more entertaining than anything.
22. I used to be a prolific letter-writer. I had pen pals from around Canada and the States, and the occasional overseas one. I don’t write as many letters by hand as I used to – I suppose technology has made it easier to keep in touch through the Internet. Still, somehow there is something so heart-warming about receiving real “snail mail” from somebody.
23. I am addicted to Facebook. Whoever created that website is a genius.
24. I keep journals in which I write anything and everything that comes to mind before I go to bed at night. Sometimes I think that I’d hate for other people to read them, and sometimes I think that it would be interesting for people to stumble across them after I’m long gone. I doubt that anything I write in there would be a surprise to anyone, as I am very open about my emotions.
25. I love having girls’ nights in with my friend (and now roommate) MacKenzie, in which we have “Sex and the City” marathons where we stay up for hours watching episode after episode, eating Crispers in our pyjamas, giggling, and engaging in plenty of girl talk.
26. The more I think about it, the more I believe that everything happens for a reason. This may or may not be true, but it sure makes those tough moments in life a lot easier to bear.
27. I am not religious, but I do consider myself to be spiritual. I used to feel like I needed to identify with an organized group, but the older I get the more I realize that I am perfectly comfortable believing what I believe and living my life the way in which I choose to live it. I believe that the higher power comes from all around and deep within (which I understand are contradictory statements); my “faith” is in myself, in the people that I love, and in the beauty of the small things in life.
28. I know almost nothing about politics. It’s sometimes embarrassing to admit how little I actually know. I cringe at the thought of political discussions around the dinner table. Can we talk about music or travel instead?
29. The smell of fuel is strangely comforting to me. I’m sure I associate it with good childhood memories of family road trips.
30. I can do this weird thing with my tongue where I can curl it into a clover formation. This is clearly one step ahead of the rest of you, who likely can only curl yours into a U shape. I’m actually not sure how I can do that, as neither of my parents or my sister can do it. I only discovered this “talent” when I was in my late teen years.
31. I am always in awe when I look out the window of an airplane to discover that I’m flying above the clouds, across mountain ranges, or across the patchwork quilt fields of the Canadian prairies. I love taking pictures out the window, especially if the wing of the plane is in the shot.
32. I have always decorated my lockers at school with colourful magnets and pictures of friends and family. Now that I am in my 5th year of university, I still decorate my locker. I’m not sure what I’ll do when I’m finished school – I guess I’ll just have to find a corner of my desk in my music office for a bulletin board collage or something.
33. I have magnetic poetry on my fridge, and I can sit there for hours coming up with different combinations of words. Sometimes I am actually quite pleased with my creations, and I have even been known to submit my magnetic poetry for writing assignments at university.
34. I can’t clean my room unless I’m listening to music with my windows (or at least my curtains) open.
35. I sometimes have a “tongue on the flagpole” mentality. When I visited the Waitomo glowworm and Aranui caves in Waitomo, NZ, we were clearly and strongly warned against touching any of the limestone formations because of their fragility. The entire time walking through the caves, I felt the urge to stick my hand out and poke a stalactite. I’m sure if the guide hadn’t warned us not to touch anything, I probably wouldn’t feel the need to do so. I guess I’m still a child in that sense.
36. I miss having my hair in braids. If I had enough money, I would have my hair braided every year, with a different funky colour each time. I’ve had these braids done three times; the first was brown with golden highlights, the second was black with burgundy, and most recently I had black with bright purple. I think I might opt for black or brown with deep blue and green next time, just to mix it up a little (and perhaps to match my tattoo – see #59).
37. I get overly excited when I’m saving up for something specific. When I was in Grade 11 I put away tip money from my waitressing job for a month so that I could buy my video camera (which, although outdated, I still use today). Before I went to Austria and Czech Republic, I again put away all of my tip money from my summer job to be put towards the cost of that choir tour. My next plan is to save up money to travel to Germany in 2010 with two of my best mates from New Zealand, and I’m already excited about it.
38. I am a list-maker. I don’t think I could be nearly as organized as I am without them. However, I don’t think I could ever top my Auntie Diane, who once made a list of lists that she had to make. Now that’s impressive.
39. Not a day goes by where I don’t think of how lucky I am to have such an amazing family and great friends. Sometimes I wonder if I tell them often enough, although in my heart I know I do.
40. Every once in a while I’m reminded of how much I miss the original old-school Nintendo. I was the master of “Adventure Island,” a game that I inherited from my cousins Brent, Sean, and Scott (and Auntie Donna and Uncle Jack) after their realization that I was so in love with this game that I would wake up at 6am on a Saturday (while on summer holidays!) to play it in their living room. I’m pretty sure Auntie Donna even has a picture of me in my nightgown playing this game, circa 1992.
41. I love doing little things for people when they’re least expecting it. It tickles me when people do the same for me.
42. I get a great deal of satisfaction out of stapling the cover page of an essay or an assignment and handing it in.
43. I got Sponge Bob Square Pants “sippy cups” in my Christmas stocking as a joke a couple years ago, and I actually use them. I think the packaging said something like “For ages 3+,” and my argument is that I am older than 3 and should therefore be able to drink my chocolate milk from my Sponge Bob sippy cup in peace, without the risk of being ridiculed by my friends (I do have an extra sippy cup though, if you’d like to join me for some chocolate milk).
44. If it were socially acceptable to wear pyjama pants in public, I would probably do it a lot more than I do. As it stands, I only wear pyjama pants to the grocery store late at night (probably to buy chocolate milk for my Sponge Bob sippy cup – see #93).
45. Living through a winter season in the southern hemisphere has made me realize how much I appreciate snow and the idea of a “white Christmas.” There is something so cozy about freezing your butt off in the car on the way to visit friends and family, and then warming yourself up by the fire in the company of good people, good food, and laughter. This Christmas will be especially meaningful to me for that reason.
46. I had my tonsils removed when I was 17, and I had just finished my run as “Gertie” in the musical “Oklahoma!” The surgeon and the anaesthetist had both seen the show, so before they put me under for surgery, they requested that I do the horribly irritating and piercingly loud laugh that defines the character one more time while I still could. I vaguely remember starting to do the scream-like laugh, then fading out as they put the mask over my face. I’m sure anyone within earshot would have been wondering what the hell had just happened.
47. When I was a young child my parents allowed me to be creative with the way that I dressed, only stopping me when my fashion decisions were potentially dangerous. I suppose I now understand that wearing slouch socks and a mini skirt in the middle of a Canadian winter is not the best idea. Thanks mom and dad.
48. I sometimes wonder what I will be like in 5 years, and where my life will have taken me. Then I think back to what I was like 5 years ago, and I try to imagine whether I am now who I thought I would be in 5 years time, 5 years ago (does that make sense?).
49. I used to fight my curly hair. Now I enjoy it, as it is a part of what makes me who I am.
50. I used to spend my summer days as a child setting up lemonade stands with the neighbourhood kids to make enough money to go to the waterslides at Kinsmen Park or to buy candy from the Mac’s store on 15th Avenue. In the summer after Grade 4, a few friends and I decided to make our own business called “Kal’s Café” (which stood for Kendra, Ashlee, Lauren; we were later joined by our friend Melissa, so we said that the S in “Kal’s” could stand for her last name, Sommerville). Ashlee’s dad built us a café out of a few 2x4s, some lattice board, and a bit of cardboard. Amazingly, that café weathered several storms and still managed to be open for business in my backyard for the entire summer. We sold 5-cent candies, lemonade, and tickets for fun activities like jumping on my mini-trampoline and walking on stilts. We made $30 profit that summer, and we spent it on a pizza party in a tent in my backyard in the fall. I still smile and laugh when I think about that summer, and how much fun we had riding our bikes around the neighbourhood shouting “Kal’s Café! Open today! At Lauren’s house!” It’s only now that I’m older that I realize how much my parents delighted in the small things as my sister and I grew up (like the time we made perfume out of flower petals and water), and I am so thankful that they allowed us to be creative and excited about our many little projects. (And while we’re at it, who could forget the time that I dressed up as a gypsy, complete with hoop earrings and a mini-basketball covered in tinfoil, and sat on the curb outside our house telling fortunes?).