Answers

At last, the answer blog has arrived! As previously mentioned, I love filling out surveys. Add to that my love for those silly email and facebook memes (AKA the "ipod shuffle" and "everything you ever wanted to know about me" and the "25 things you didn't really care about me, but that I'm going to tell you anyways because I'm just that bored/self-obsessed") and this project is perfect for me.

So here goes: the answers to all your questions.

1. My favorite Beatles song.

I'll turn to itunes for the answer to this. According to my play count, my favorite song by far is "Come Together." I think that's kind of misleading. It's true that I like that song a lot (I mean, whenever anyone says the phrase "come together," a whole room of people automatically sing "right noooow.....over me." That's completely perfect!), but it's so standard Beatles. So, for a song that maybe not everyone has heard, but that I love, I'll go with "For You Blue." It's got that bluesy feel, written by George with John playing steel guitar. Nothing better.

2. What I would do if the sky was falling.

Probably freak out. I have a sneaky suspicion that I would not react rationally or bravely at all in a dire situation. I could make this great and detailed and logical plan now, but when it came down to it, I would totally panic as I imagine the majority of people would.

In 10th grade Honors English we were reading something and examining moral dilemmas. One of them was, "You are driving in the middle of the night and pull over to a rest stop. Inside you see a person being threatened at gunpoint by another person. There are no payphones and you do not have a cell phone with you. What do you do?" About half the class said they would go in and confront the situation, reasoning with the gunman or using force. I said I would run the heck away. I'll pull over the next place and call, but holy crap I'm getting out of there first. I have a healthy self-preservational instinct and no secret ninja skills that I know of, so I would totally panic. Don't lie, you know you would too.

3. A fictional character I would bring to life.

This is hard, because there are so many characters I love. If I'm feeling magnanimous and not self-serving, I think I'd go for Superman, because he could, you know, do a lot to stop crime and save humanity and such. But I have a hunch that superheroes would just be more trouble than they're worth in the real world, so I going to be completely self-serving with my choice.

Mr. Darcy. Definitely. Especially if he's the Colin Firth version.

4. My favorite names.

Pets should always be named after real people and/or literary figures. Particularly Shakespeare characters. Othello and Benedick and Oberon.

I would name babies like this, too, if I wasn't concerned for the possible playground teasing. I mean, Benedick? That would not turn out well. Although they could just call him Ben and not tell any of the other kids the rest of it. I've always had a fascination with the name Owen for a boy--maybe Daniel Owen. Has a nice ring to it. For girls? I'm partial to Nora, partly because I loved the book "Noisy Nora" when I was little.

5. Pets.

I am cursed with terrible allergies, so pets have always been iffy. When I was really small, we had a golden retriever named Star who I apparently loved, but we had to give him away when we moved. I was 1, so I really don't remember him that well. Then I had a handful of goldfish won at the county fair. None of them made a real impression. I had a gerbil at one point, named Tamora (after my favorite author, Tamora Pierce). She was cute and fun to play with, but smelled something awful.

My favorite pet was a cat (and yes, I'm horrendously allergic to cats, but he pretty much stayed outdoors) named Cosmo. He was friendly and smart and looked both ways when he crossed the street and was fantastic at keeping away the mice and squirrels.

6. Favorite kind of tree.

I'm going for birch here. They're stately, and the bark makes good paper/craft/canoe-making material.

7. Favorite ice cream.

Ouch. This one is a stumper. I live in Wisconsin, the dairy state. I go to UW-Madison, home to Babcock Dairy, which makes it's own wonderful ice cream sold all over campus. Hmmm.

I can tell you a flavor I don't like. Blue Moon. It's a Wisconsin specialty that most people, even those from the Midwest, have never heard of. But it's gross--it's blue (obviously) and tastes like fruit loops (froot loops?). Which is absolutely disgusting. Unless you think fruit loop ice cream sounds appetizing.

I'll take anything chocolate-y. The more cookie chunks and fudge ripple the better. In face, the Chocolate Shoppe (an ice cream chain) has a flavor called Heaps of Love that has basically everything. Chocolate chips, cookie dough, oreo chunks, peanut butter cups, caramel, pecans, etc. That's my favorite.

8. Farthest I've been from home.

I love traveling. My goal in life is to marry/inherit wealth and spend the rest of my life traveling the world. Up till now, I have been to 43 states and 12 countries (including the good ol' US of A).

So, the farthest by mileage is Berlin. 4,433 miles (7,133 km) from my hometown of Dodgeville, WI. Honolulu is a close 2nd at 4,120 miles, and the furthest south I've been is San Jose, Costa Rica (2,315 miles).

9. My family.

I live with both my parents. My dad is an attorney, working to get benefits for people who are disabled and can no longer work. My mom stayed home through my childhood, and volunteers everywhere in our community. She also does some day care. I'm an only child, but that doesn't mean I grew up alone. My parents are foster parents, so we often had other kids in the house. My foster sister, Sarah, lived with us for 8 years. I have a sister, Steffi, from Germany who lived with us for a year and has visited several times since then (and we have gone to visit her!). My "sister," Emma is the daughter of someone who worked at the foster service when I was little, and my mom babysat her during the day. We practically grew up together since I was 2. She's still my best friend today!

10. Best movies in my obsessive note-taking grading system.

I started keeping a notebook with all the movies I watch about a year and a half ago. Since February 1, 2008, I've watched 118 movies. That may seem like a lot, or maybe not that many to you, but that's just the new movies I watch. This only includes movies I watch for the first time, not the numerous favorites I rewatch over and over again! In this notebook, I include the title, the date, an A-through-F rating, and notes about who I watched it with, what I particularly (dis)liked, etc.

All the movies probably average a low B or high C, and few earn top grades. Some that have gotten a coveted "A" rating: "Once," "Sweet Land," "Longford," "Wristcutters: A Love Story," "Persepolis," and "Slumdog Millionaire." These movies surprised me, touched me, and stuck in my memory! And one of the worst movies I watched and reviewed? "Sydney White," and I quote (myself), "for the most part vapid, insipid and annoying update of Snow White." D-

Thanks for the questions. I had fun answering them! I'm sad to see BEDA go, because it's been something that kept me writing and helped me meet a couple great people through their blogs. I don't know what my blog will become now, but I hope I can do something like this again.

Cheers.

Tomorrow

I feel like my blogs have become very repetitive lately, but I suppose that's due in part to my life being rather repetitive. I worry and work and then waste more time worrying.

But tomorrow is my last day of BEDA to complete the question blog. It will get done. And it's kind of cool, introducing oneself at the end of a project rather than at the beginning. Hopefully you've gleaned a bit about me out of what I've said this month, and now tomorrow I get to tell you about me. Just the facts, ma'am! Looking forward to it, not so much the stress of trying to throw together a paper.

Korean

The end of the semester hit me like a brick wall to the face. A brick wall with a seriously scary left hook. And brass knuckles. I did not realize that I had so much stuff to finish this week.

I'm freaking out! I have not yet progressed into the hyperventilating stage. That will probably come tomorrow. But that is why I am backing out once again from the question blog today. I have a midterm in Korean tomorrow morning that is really stressing me out (The vocabulary I have to know includes words for "to be malfunctioning" and "to be startled suddenly." Are you kidding me? I'm pretty sure those never came up in class, nor will they ever be useful in a conversation. Ever. "Excuse me? Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you suddenly, but my watch seems to be malfunctioning. Do you have the time?")

Grr. Plus that 5-page paper due Friday is still only 1/2 page long. And finals are looming on the horizon, ready to claw my sanity to shreds.

Had the last practice for band tonight. Our concert is on Sunday. The director was trying to get us to imbue our rehearsal with passion, while he sat and was lazy and seemed tired the whole time. Not very encouraging.

It was great to read Cara's answers to the questions. And made me feel a little bad for not getting to them yet, but I swear I will. I'm looking forward to it! It's a little sad that BEDA's almost over already, but I will still have buddy blogs to read and maybe some more incentive to write regularly!

I must immerse myself in the world of Korean now in the attempt to pass my test tomorrow. So I end with a short lesson:

안녕하세요 (ahn-nyong-ha-say-o) = hello
헤더 (hay-daw) = Heather
카라 (kah-rah) = Cara
케틀린 (this one was harder: kay-tul-leen) = Kaitlyn

잘 자를 보내십시오! (Have a good night!)

Castle

I just watched the new Castle episode. Fantastic. I love Nathan Fillion so much. The perfect mix of sweet and sardonic. And handsome. I just realized that the first thing I probably saw him in was the movie Waitress. But it's weird, because at that point I don't think I knew who he was, so I just figured that out a little while ago.

Does that happen to you? Where some big star is in something you saw before they were a big star, so you never make the connection? And then you go back and watch it again and go, "Oh my god, he was in this?"

Like did you remember that Vince Vaughn is in the movie Rudy? Paul Rudd? The adorable guy in Clueless. Craig Ferguson is totally the boss on the Drew Carey Show. And Matt Damon is in that movie that they show on FOX all the time, Mystic Pizza. I didn't know who the heck he was the first time I saw that movie. (If you need more fun...http://www.cracked.com/article_14876_before-they-were-famous-10-most-regrettable-celebrity-commercials.html)

Anywho...I absolutely adore Nathan Fillion now, and can go back and love his roles in things I saw before I knew who he was. (Like, he was in Saving Private Ryan! Really, Wikipedia? Now I have to go back and find that.) And Castle rocks my stockings. Really. I love a good, witty show. ..........with Nathan Fillion.

I just got totally distracted for far too long watching clips of Nathan in interviews and such on Youtube. So this blog is going to be late. Dang it.

This has been a fabulous way to avoid doing any work whatsoever on my paper, which is due in less than 3 1/2 days now. Good lord, that's coming up fast. If I average 2 pages a day, I'll be fine!

I swear, answers to all your fabulous questions are still coming! I still have 3 days of blogging before April's over and B(PLFT)EDM is upon us.

Blog-Probably-Less-Frequently-Than-Every-Day-May.

Mutha'uckas

I went to the Flight of the Conchords concert tonight. And left thinking that I can die happy now. It was absolutely one of the best times of my life.

The theater was packed. Everyone, including yours truly, was decked out in FotC merchandise and waiting for their favorite songs. Everyone watched the show and knew the jokes and sang along. It was fantastic. And somehow it made me a little sad.

You know the feeling? When you find something fantastic that no one else knows about and have like this secret ownership of the best thing in the world? Well that's what I had with this band. I discovered them a few months before their TV show started, just by finding random videos online. No one I knew had ever heard of them before. For a while they were mine. My amazing private amusement, which I could share with whomever I deemed worthy.

And then they hit it big. The TV show was fantastic, gained a cult following, and then a bigger cult following. They toured and sold t-shirts and started getting quoted by SportsCenter anchors (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--Mq8apGj_8). While I know this is great for the band, and I'm glad that people will now understand my references, I still feel like I lost something personal. Like they no longer belong to me, and I am forced to relinquish them to every Joe Schmo out there. (I mean, SportsCenter? Really? Come on.)

Ah, well. Perhaps I'm being silly. Because they're really fantastic. And they totally deserve recognition for their incredible talent. So, if you haven't found them on Youtube, or watched their HBO show, I highly recommend you check them out now!

I guess it just felt good to be ahead of the trend. Questions answered later this week.