I've Been Tagged

I just added this post on my craft blog, Crafty Camper, but I thought I would put it up here as well.

My friend Amanda over at Sevin Stitches recently tagged me to tell you six random things about myself that I haven't shared on this blog. Between my two blogs I've share quite a lot of information about myself, but I've been thinking about this post for a few days, racking my brain for new tidbits, and this is what I came up with:

1. I don't like cooked fruit - no apples, or blueberries, or cherries, or anything. I can handle cooked strawberries, but that is it. This hatred of cooked fruit means I don't like apple pie, apple crisp, apple fritters or anything else involving cooked apples that everyone else in the world seems to love so much. The words "un-American" often come up when I mention how much I dislike apple pie - it is a label I'm prepared to bear.

2. I could watch "The West Wing" on DVD over and over, and over and over again. It is my favorite show and no matter how often I watch it, it never gets old. I just finished watching the entire series (7 seasons) for what might the billionth time and I'm considering starting to watch it all over again fairly soon. I think the show is incredibly smart and witty, plus if I could combine Sam Seaborn and Josh Lyman, I'd have my dream guy.

3. Speaking of "The West Wing", I think part of why I love it is so much is that it appeals to the part of me that was a political science major my first year in college. Yep, at 17 years old I had aspirations of becoming a politician. I still find politics and public policy interesting (though I do think it is more a love of history than politics, and probably always has been), but halfway through my freshman year of college I realized it just wasn't the right track for me. By that time, I was hanging out with all the music kids at Holy Cross and taking more music classes than political science classes, so I knew it was time to make the change. My mom tells me that she had known all along that I would eventually go into music education - it was just a matter of me figuring it out on my own.

4. I can read the same book multiple times and not be bored with it. I know a lot of people who can't go back to a book and read it again months or years after they have first read it. I'm not like that at all. One of the best things about moving into my new apartment was that I had the space for all my books that had been living in Sarah and Reg's garage for the past 5 years. I loved unpacking them - it was like being reunited with old friends. I think part of the reason why I can return to a book again and again is that I read really quickly and once I've finished the book, it is kind of out of my head. I can't tell you all the details of the plot and recount the book once I've finished reading it - I remember the general ideas and whether I liked it or not. This means that I can come back to it months or years later and it is fresh again. I guess the good thing about this is that it saves me money on always buying new books!

5. I have no desire to own my own house anytime soon, which is very unlike pretty much everyone else I know. I like living in apartments, especially now that I have a big one, and not having to worry about all the details and hassles of home ownership. My biggest dream is to buy a house on Georges Pond, Maine, where I spent summers growing up, and have it as a summer home to retreat to at the end of the school year. I'd be completely fine with owning a summer house, but I have no desire to own a year round home. I think my ideal life would be an apartment in Berlin for the winter and a house on Georges Pond for the summer. Sounds pretty nice, don't you think?

I hope you enjoyed my random facts! Now I get to tag some blogs to do their own lists. Play along if you'd like - I'd love to see what your facts are!

1. Julie over at Los Lemleys. Julie and John taught with me in Peru and are now living, teaching, and raising their son in Japan. I love reading Julie's blog and keeping up with their lives.

2. Cindy at Just Alaska. She is a former student of mine from Manchester who has a beautifully written blog sharing her life as a newlywed, lower 48 transplant now living in Juneau, Alaska.

3. Amy at Making The World A More Creative Place. Amy and I went to high school together and she keeps a blog about her life in Florida and all of her exciting travel adventures with her husband.