My Eight Random Facts…

So here’s my reponses to the 8 random facts that’s we were tagged with by Mathew Needleman…

1. Somewhere down (or up) my family tree, I am distantly related to Samuel Langhorne Clemens, aka Mark Twain. I wish I knew the exact relationship, but I think we’re distant cousins, probably twice-removed or something like that. Maybe that explains my dry humor and witty side…hmmm…or the fact that I like to write…who knows…but I love his work, and I think it’s cool that we’re related.
2. When I was in college, I was part of the Women’s Chorus, and we performed singing telegrams for birthdays and Valentine’s day. We would go in a group of four and do a four-part harmony telegram that almost always brought a smile to the recipients’ faces! The telegrams were part of our fundraisers for the year, and although it was nerve-wracking, we had a great time doing it–just don’t ask for any encores!
3. Here’s my fear that I rarely share…I don’t like escalators. Yes, I’ll use them, but reluctantly. When I was younger, I had this fear that my foot would get caught at the end of the escalator, and I’d get pulled under into the darkness where the steps disappeared. I don’t have any logical proof that this would happen, nor have I ever been told a story about this, so I can’t explain why I thought this, but I really did think it could happen. To this day, I am very cautious as I reach the last part of the escalator. The worst escalator episode ever happened in Washington D.C. I was traveling with a friend, and we had to take an escalator down to the subway. Little did I know that this would be the world’s longest AND steepest escalator ever! OK, maybe a little exaggeration, but really, broke out in a cold sweat and had to grip the sides of the rails and close my eyes to make it down to the subway. Never again would be way too soon for me…whew!
4. I shed a tear every time I see “The Wedding Singer” with Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore. Not only am I sappy about chick flicks, but I just love the way Adam’s character sings “I want to grow old with you” to Drew’s character while they are on the plane. I make no apologies–gets me every time.
5. I was in the Corps of Cadets at Texas A&M during my college freshman year. Anna told me to put this because I’m a “girly” girl (really??!), and she finds it fascinating that I would be in the Corps, complete with uniforms, rough physical activities, and everything else…what can I say–it was a great experience, and I still have friends from my time in the Corps. It was difficult, grueling, and hard, but I learned a great deal and am a stronger person for the experience.
6. Speaking of Anna, she and I are friends and have so much in common, but we think it’s totally random that we grew up in the same town, but went to opposing cross-town high schools, graduating a year apart, AND opposing colleges (Go AGGIES!). As long as our conversation doesn’t touch on football, we’re good. And yes, even on game day, we’re civil (although whoever wins does have to call the other and gloat!).
7. So I’m usually pretty good about direction and not getting lost, but there was this one time (not at Band Camp, but right before ADE Camp!) when Anna and I were so busy taking pictures in China Town that we lost our tour group! It was quite the harrowing experience when we realized that we had no idea where our group had turned or where to meet the tour bus!! We did remember that one of the sites on our tour was the Transamerica pyramid. So we asked a passing tourist if he knew where the tower was, and he was nice enough to walk with us around the corner and point out the direction. Well, after a frantic run/walk through the streets of downtown San Francisco (I can’t even remember how many blocks it was!), we finally re-joined our tour group. The good thing (or bad thing) was that no one even noticed we had been missing for our 10-20 minutes!
8. I once rappelled down the side of 4 story building. I was too scared to actually have fun, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I’m not great with heights, but this was good preparation for throwing egg projects off the top of our high school when I was teaching science (but that’s a whole other story!).

OK–that’s it…took me a while to come up with all of these–it’s actually kinda tough to come up with 8 facts that you can (or want to) share with everyone! I’ll work with Anna to figure out who we’re gonna tag!