25 Random Things About Me

This meme is going around Facebook like wildfire, and so I decided to cheat and use it as a blog post, since I'm already falling behind in my resolution to post more often. So, here goes:

1. I'm a morning person in that it doesn't take much for me to wake up and be alert, but I'm also a night person, because if I don't have to wake up at a certain time, I'll stay up forever doing nothing.

2. I don't believe in fate, but I do believe in love that can last a lifetime.

3. I'm an atheist. I've spent a lot of time (especially in college) thinking about religion and what I believe. I was raised Catholic, but I don't know if I ever truly believed. I did a stint at a Protestant church in college, but that didn't stick, either. I know I may change my mind in the future, but for now I've settled on secular humanism/atheism.

4. I love Karaoke. It's in my blood. Some of my stand-bys are Un-break My Heart, Total Eclipse of the Heart, Hello, Don't Speak, Suspicious Minds, A Whole New World (with TS), All Cried Out (with Tracy--I'm the boy's part), Against All Odds, and more. But I try not to do the same songs each time.

5. I wouldn't call myself clumsy, but I do have a knack for knocking things over. For example, I often tip my coffee mug (full of coffee) out on my desk at work (I had to buy a travel mug for work to lessen the spillage). My boyfriend calls me "The Alvina Monster" because of my tendency to knock things over in his apartment.

6. I almost never wear makeup. I never really learned how. When I do wear it on special occasions (weddings), I feel a little like a clown.

7. My first word was "hammer." My first sentence was "It's a bumpy, bumpy road!"

8. I've kept diaries fairly faithfully since I was 10 or so. I love reading them over. But it's always a little shocking to find how much my thinking hasn't changed.

9. My favorite picture book is A SNOWY DAY. My favorite novel is LITTLE WOMEN.

10. I'm more energized by cold weather than warm.

11. I'm a very fast reader. But unless I'm editing, I'm not a very careful reader.

12. Since moving into my current apartment about 4 years ago, I was determined to save money by walking to work every day (about a 40 minute walk to my old office, 35 minute walk to my current office). I'm proud to say that the only time I've ever taken public transportation between work and home is because I was carrying something too heavy to manage. And that's been, I think, a grand total of twice. Yes, I walk even when the weather is crappy. And yes, sometimes that sucks.

13. I'm a horrible speller. Spell check is my cruch. I mean crutch. I'm not great with grammar, either. Thank goodness for copyeditors and proofreaders.

14. I'm not an adrenalin junkie, but I do love having adventures and experiences. Like skydiving, traveling, eating bugs, running a marathon...

15. Over 6 years ago, after realizing that I ate way too much candy, I decided to give it up entirely as a New Year's Resolution. I've kept my resolution every year since then, but decided to just eat candy on my birthday (and last year added Halloween), because a life completely devoid of candy is a dismal life indeed.

16. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a veterinarian. This lasted many years, until one day I read a book about a girl who also wanted to be a veterinarian--her father was one--and then one day, her dog got sick and her dad asked her to help care for the dog and help him give the dog a shot, and she realized that she didn't have the stomach for it. And so I decided I didn't want to be a veterinarian anymore. I always remember this as a reminder of how powerful children's books can be to a child reader.

17. I grew up watching and loving a lot of "boy" tv shows (prob. because I have two brothers). I loved the A-Team (can still recite the opening sequence), Airwolf, Knight Rider, Robotech, Transformers, Voltron, Battlestar Galactica, etc. My main girly show love was FAME. I had a huge crush on Rand from the Third Robotech War.

18. Some of my friends think of me as a human jukebox, because I have a song for everything, but I don't actually know the correct lyrics to most songs, I kinda wing it. I almost always have a song stuck in my head. I can sing most of the theme songs from the shows listed above. The music from the video game "Moon Patrol" is also forever imprinted in my brain. This one entry could have actually been 4 separate items.

19. I am incredibly adaptable, annoyingly optimistic, and generally capable.

20. I feel extremely lucky to have found my dream job on my first try. My second choice career after college was working in radio. Sometimes I wonder if I had decided to try for a career in radio first, if I would have decided that was my dream job. That's kinda how I am. If I weren't a children's book editor today, I'd want to work for NPR.

21. I have Temporomandibular Joint Syndrom (TMJ) and my jaw clicks when I chew. I have to wear a mouth guard when I sleep because I grind my teeth. It seems that everyone in publishing grinds their teeth, have you noticed?

22. I was born in Atlanta, GA, but only lived there for 9 months. I've also lived near Pittsburgh, in Edison, NJ, upstate NY, in LA County, in Berkeley, Taipei, Oakland, Somerville, East Boston, and NY. I've never lived anywhere for more than six years, until now. I never know how to answer the question, "Where did you grow up?" or "Where are you from?"

23. I believe that positive thinking, hard work, and perseverance can get you anywhere.

24. I used to be in introvert, but now I'm a fairly extreme extrovert.

25. I like making lists, but I can't believe I finally got around to making this one. And I think I cheated by combining many different random things into a single entry.


As I was writing this list, I remembered doing similar shorter lists on my blog a few years ago. I went back to find them, and was interested to find that the only item that overlapped with any of them was #22 above.

Six Weird Things
and
Eight Things About Me

I'm happy to see all of your lists!