100 Things.....

Here is the current list of 100 things about me. This list has had various incarnations in the past, but this is its most current version. I figured that this would be a good way to introduce myself to the Blogger world and help me to feel more at home in this space.

Enjoy!

1) I love to teach more than just about anything. I believe teaching is a tremendously potent form of activism and a powerful means of creating social change. Plus, it’s fun.
2) I also love elephants, bunnies, and horses.
3) I have ridden an elephant, and I rode horses competitively through all of high school and college. I have yet to ride a bunny….
4) I taught for four years in inner-city schools and I think about my former students every single day.
5) I have freakishly sensitive skin and frequently break out in unexpected rashes.
6) I am left-handed and have double-jointed thumbs in both hands.
7) I am on Facebook, MySpace, and I have a blog.
8) I can be a tremendously pedantic snob. I also have an extremely immature sense of humor and absolutely love a good pun.
9) I currently have no tattoos or piercings.
10) In preschool, my teacher yelled at me because I was taking too long to put on my snowpants. I was completely traumatized and refused to wear snowpants after that.
11) In third grade, my teacher told me I was never going to get multiplication. To
this day, I suck at math.
12) I would never do either of these things to my students.
13) I write every day. I write and write and write until my writing gets scrawled and scribbly and my hand is smeared with ink. Writing is like a drug I crave all the time.
14) I am becoming an excellent belly dancer.
15) I’ve lived in Minnesota, New York, Ireland, Arizona, and Massachusetts. I currently live in Thailand. I’ve traveled to most states in the U.S., England, Scotland, Amsterdam, Spain, France, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Japan, Malaysia, and Laos. I am about to add several more countries to this list and will try my best to keep the list updated!
16) If writing and teaching are my top two favorite things to do, then traveling is number three. I currently have a job that allows me to teach, travel, and have plenty of time to write.
17) I believe in soulmates. However, I think we have many, many soulmates. I also believe that a soulmate is something that is built and takes work.
18) I am obsessed with boots, bags, and necklaces. I have many of each.
19) I have several dozen pictures that I’ve taken of random strangers with mullets. Business in the front, party in the back. Can’t get enough of ‘em….
20) My aunts and uncles--on both sides--have played an incredibly significant role in raising me. I hope to do the same for my nieces.
21) I can do Reiki and energy work. I believe we all have tremendous healing powers within us
22) I’ve had several encounters with ghosts and I’m a firm believer in them.
23) I’m still learning how to be friends with girls. The funny thing is that most of my very close female friends are learning how to do the exact same thing.
24) I am a liberal with a bit of a bleeding heart.
25) I’ve found a lot of liberals to be far more close-minded than their Republican counterparts. Reverse discrimination is still discrimination. Two wrongs don’t make a right.
26) I’m a tremendously visual learner and have a photographic memory. Sadly, my auditory memory is not so strong….
27) I’ve been in several relationships that can be very accurately described as abusive.
28) I love making lists (obvs). I wouldn’t be able to get through life without them.
29) I was diagnosed with ADD in high school and medicated briefly. I hated being medicated and have taught myself coping strategies instead.
30) My hair has been blue, green, red, dark brown, and pink. Not at the same time.
31) I once broke my wrist while visiting my sister at her college. I got drunk and fell out of bed. By far my dumbest injury.
32) I’ve ridden in an ambulance twice. Once after falling off of my horse and being knocked unconscious, and once after fainting while volunteering in a soup kitchen.
33) I frequently embarrass myself.
34) Things I collect: Buddhas, stones, keychains, shot glasses, anything with elephants on it, and postcards.
35) I used to drive a lime green Volkswagen Beetle named Petunia. She was awesome. I had to sell her when I moved to Thailand and I cried the day she sold.
36) I hate crying in front of other people, which sucks because I cry at the drop of a hat.
37) Some things I love: my family, my friends, lip balm, martinis, ballet flats, ankle bracelets, writing poetry, mangoes, salads, ice cream, avocados, devouring fiction, mashed potatoes, my Sevens, Uggs, and the beach.
38) Some things I can’t stand: tomatoes, mushrooms, jean shorts on guys, Hemmingway, mom jeans, chipped nail polish, Ann Coulter, stomach parasites, the misuse of apostrophes, “sexpats,” and shoes with wedge heels.
39) When drunk, I tend to: ramble on and on (loudly), accuse people of being Republican, describe in detail the cleaning of a horse’s sheath, flash people, get emotional, and make out with strangers.
40) I met my boyfriend at a bar in Cambridge called the Hong Kong. I was drunk and we made out.
41) My students have been my best teachers. I am amazed at the wisdom of children.
42) If I could only hang out with three people for the rest of my life, I would choose my boyfriend and my nieces.
43) People often feel compelled to take care of me. While I always appreciate this, I’m a lot more independent than people usually suspect.
44) When I was little I wanted to be just like Wonder Woman, Scarlett O’Hara, and Eleanor Roosevelt.
45) I was three months premature and weighed only 2.5 pounds at birth.
46) One of my dearest friends in the whole wide world was also a preemie and we were delivered by the same doctor.
47) I have a great singing voice.
48) I didn’t go through my wild, crazy, party phase until after college. In college, I was a very cautious, serious, uberdork who read Derrida for fun.
49) I’m still an uberdork who reads Derrida for fun.
50) The years between 22 and 25 were a rough few years. I made a lot of mistakes, hurt a lot of people, and let a lot of people hurt me. I was a total drama queen and did not take care of myself. When I turned 25, my brain clicked into place.
51) I want to learn how to knit, sail, cook, scuba dive, sew, be a gemologist, speak Thai fluently, speak French, and become a good photographer.
52) I sometimes forget what I was talking about in mid-sentence.
53) I am not very good at remembering birthdays. I am also not good at sending stuff to people. I have a closet full of stuff that I need to send to people.
54) I do not handle loss or goodbyes very well. I know few people who do.
55) I have so many guilty pleasures that they require a whole ‘nother list. Some of them are People Magazine, Us Weekly, sushi, ‘80s music, Googling people, and The Girls Next Door.
56) I am not impressed by nice cars or name-brand stuff. I am impressed by cooking abilities and beautiful eyes.
57) I was fortunate enough to have had a privileged upbringing. For some reason, a lot of people I knew in high school (I went to an arts high school) held that against me. Apparently you can’t be artistic or creative or suffer from teenage angst if you also own a horse.
58) My horse, Tex, died the same day I started college (see? I have angst!!!!!!). He was my best friend and soulmate. Riding was never the same after that. I still haven’t recovered and I don’t know if I ever will.
59) I constantly talk on the phone, send text messages, and send e-mails.
60) I vehemently nod my head when other people are talking.
61) I’m learning how to say “no,” which has been very difficult.
62) Teaching children to read has been my greatest accomplishment.
63) I am a terrible test taker.
64) Three different strangers--one painter and two photographers--have approached me and asked me to pose for them. Nude. I declined all three offers, but did agree to be in a commercial for some condominiums. Fully clothed.
65) I have an abnormal fear of birds and people touching me with their feet. I think if a bird touched me with its feet, my head would just explode.
66) During my first year of teaching, I won a prize at a Teach For America retreat because I had had the most students throw up in my classroom.
67) I can’t HANDLE vomit-mine or anyone else’s.
68) Body acceptance has been an arduous process and I still struggle with it. I still dislike my chin and my cankles, but I looooove my eyes and my B Donka Donk.
69) I have very vivid dreams and I always remember them.
70) I’m a terrible liar.
71) I drool in my sleep. A lot.
72) I smoked through high school until my senior year. I quit, and then started again in college when I lived in Ireland. I quit for good during my senior year of college, but I’ve been known to light up in moments of unbearable stress or drunkenness.
73) I make this noise when my ear itches. I sound like what I would imagine the lovechild of a pig and a frog to sound like. There is NOBODY who finds this sound appealing.
74) It takes very little to earn my respect. Trust, however, is a bit of a different animal….
75) I am physically unable to eat breakfast unless it is the weekend and I’ve been able to let my tummy wake up slowly.
76) I’ve lost almost every single piece of jewelry my mother’s ever given me.
77) I was never afraid of heights until I climbed the Duomo in Florence and made the mistake of looking straight down. For some reason, ever since then I get god-awful vertigo. That still doesn’t stop me from climbing things, mind you….
78) I am a Dervish in a Sufi community in New York. And, yes, we whirl…
79) I have a giant teddy bear named Edward that I got for my 7th birthday. 20 years later, he still sleeps next to me.
80) I love anything pink. This obsession with pink did not start until my mid-20s. Before then, I found it slightly nauseating.
81) My celebrity crush is Angelina Jolie. I met Oprah when she spoke at my sister’s high school graduation.
82) My nicknames are: Tiny Walkers, Goon, Alice, Arnold, and Baba. Except for my nieces (they call me Baba), everyone in my family (and a few friends who are like family) calls me Brookie.
83) I can be very black and white about things.
84) I’ve had my heart broken three times.
85) I am a ridiculous animal lover. If I didn’t love children so much, I would have been a vet instead of a teacher.
86) My Aunt Dana and I have had a “Christmas Tea” tradition since I was 10. We get together every year, drink tea, and just talk. Except now it’s a “Christmas Wine and Cocktails” tradition and we gab until the wee hours. Families rock.
87) I am not at all good at managing my money.
88) I am deathly, deathly allergic to bees.
89) I had a betta fish named Puppy who lived with me for three years. I named him Puppy because he could do tricks and he would let me pet him. Seriously. I bawled hysterically when he died.
90) I was a mentor teacher and also provided professional development for Teach For America corps members.
91) My dad and I have stockpiles of stories and inside jokes that only we find funny.
92) I love cross-country road trips. I’ve taken several by myself and almost enjoy the solitary ones more than those with companions.
93) I am a tremendously social person, but I also need a lot of alone time.
94) I have a tendency to exaggerate when I’m telling a story.
95) I have neither the patience nor the desire to write fiction. I will never write a novel. A book of poems and a children’s book series, however? Certainly.
96) I do not consider myself to be a feminist. I FULLY believe in equality for women, and women's rights, and I am most definitely pro-choice. However, I find some aspects of feminist theory just as destructive to women as male dominance and oppression.
97) I believe in second chances.
98) Biggest pet peeve: When slow walkers block the sidewalk and you can’t get around them.
99) I acquire new vocabulary and new languages ridiculously fast.
100) I am a creature of habit. Once I find something I truly like, I eat/drink/wear/watch/purchase/use it forever and ever.