25 Things About ME

So this is rolling around facebook...thought I'd give it a shot...

1. Sometimes when I’m alone in my kitchen and eating something really delicious, I cheer and wave my fists in the air.
2. I lack grace. I run into things and trip regularly. I don’t think this really started until college, but it sure hasn’t stopped since I left. I had my AP students give me some feedback at the end of last semester, and one of them wrote, “Try to not run into things so much.” Why, is that distracting?
3. I refuse to say “soda.” I think it sounds pompous and uppity. While I now only drink pop on occasion, Squirt is by far the best kind and I used to buy it by the 12-pack in college.
4. While I typically eat pretty healthy, non-processed foods, I have an abnormally high tolerance for eating baked desserts of any form and in any quantity. This appetite was inherited from my father, but I have carried it to an entirely new level. I overheard my brother once asking, “Mom, why does Kenzie eat so much?” This was a bit scarring until I decided to turn my weakness into a strength.
5. I love BYU.
6. I don’t care about soccer unless Portugal is playing. Now, I get sad in 2009 because it’s neither the World Cup nor the Euro Cup. But back in 2006 and ‘08, I knew all the players, I rearranged trips and inconvenienced other people and scrambled to find someone with ESPN 2…When they played in the semi-finals, I made Portuguese food and sang the national anthem with the crowd. When they lost, I cried and then didn’t think about soccer for another two years…
7. I usually lock myself out of my apartment when my roommate is home, and it’s usually to run downstairs and do my laundry. For some (really great) reason, this has not yet happened when she’s gone. But word on the street is that she might stop opening the door.
8. When I think about my future, I imagine myself living in a variety of states and (hopefully) countries. There’s just so much out there! However, I firmly believe Washington is the greatest state in the union. Rain and trees = pure joy.
9. I really love hiking and camping. And skiing. And just being outside. And the ocean. And being on boats on the ocean. Living in Utah was difficult primarily because it’s landlocked (I think my dad’s greatest memory was me calling him and telling him “I need some ocean.”)
10. I like riding my bike because it makes me feel like a kid (conveniently, it’s also good for the environment).
11. I am an avid reader of my own blog.
12. I’m a perfectionist, but not obsessively.
13. I teach high school. I really, really love teaching. Very few other jobs could be as fulfilling. Don’t ask me why I don’t plan on doing it forever. It’s a long story. But I love love love my students and often worry about them when I’m at home.
14. I decided I wanted to be a teacher in 2nd grade, mostly because I had a chalk fetish. Since chalk is now almost entirely obsolete, I had to find a couple new reasons. Whiteboards is one of them.
15. Books are the carriers of culture and lend increased understanding of humanity. Read, read, read.
16. I LOVE HOTELS. They make me giddy, and even if it’s just down the street from where I live, it makes me feel like I’m on vacation. I’ve been in quite a few, and they never lose their glory.
17. I’m LDS. I love being LDS. It adds more to my life than pretty much anything else I’ve ever pursued.
18. If I was forced watch any sport for six hours straight, I’d go for volleyball, and then request to watch it for a few hours more. If I could choose any sport to never watch ever again, it might be football….there’s just SO MUCH downtime…can’t they get up and get situated any faster than that?
19. I thoroughly enjoy the company of my family. I find them extremely entertaining, particularly my 3 brothers and their dry, quirky humor. I am not nearly as entertaining as they are. I also have 3 nephews who are the cutest. Besides Mom, I’m the only girl. A friend told me this explains a lot. Not sure what that means.
20. I have very few performable talents besides the ability to move each eye brow independently and to publicly consume large quantities of baked goods.
21. I think about and crave Portugal every day – the whole concept of saudades (a somewhat untranslatable word signifying a deep longing for a person or place, colored by a sense of permanence and a feeling that you’ll never quite get it back) never really made sense until I left Portugal and had to start missing it.
22. I dislike responsibility and being in positions of authority. This makes my chosen profession (and my calling?) a little bit odd.
23. I have lived on my own (post-college) for almost three years now. While I think I do a pretty smashing job at it and derive a LOT LOT of satisfaction from my independence, I tend to fly/drive home (or to North Carolina) whenever I can. I recently realized that this is because, deep down, I really crave being taken care of. Mom and Dad do that well.
24. On a related note, I go through phases where I secretly wish to escape all my responsibilities and have to fight the urge to drive off somewhere remote on the weekends without telling anybody where I am, and often envision myself sailing past my exit on the way to work and never looking back…(and I admit that the reason this hasn’t happened yet is because I lack the funds.). This might seem odd since many of my friends have characterized me as being the stable, consistent, “rock-like” one that you can always depend on.
25. Waking up is where I excel. I despise the snooze button and can honestly say that I have never used it once in my entire life. When I wake up, I am perky and totally lucid. Ask any of my college roomies.