I've been given a homework assignment by Contemporary Troubadour , so I'm going to try to get right to it! The assignment is to write about 7 things that I've never talked about in my blog. This may be a bit difficult for me because I've written about a lot of things. :)
1. Taking Contemporary Troubadour's cue, I'm going to talk about my hair. I have horribly curly hair. Now, I don't mean that it's very curly (which it sort of is), but that it's unruly. It has a mind of its own and will frizz at the slightest hint of humidity. In my circle of friends in Grad School (and now that I think of it In General-- with one exception), I am the only person who has curly hair. Despite this everyone has a theory as to how to style my hair to make it behave. They all suggest this, that, or the other thing- and it drives me nuts! As a kid I used to wish for straight hair. Now, I just wear it in a ponytail.
2. I've been told that I have a mild form of synesthesia. I associate letters and numbers with being either male or female, personalities, and, in some cases, colors (but I don't see them in color; it's more of a feeling). Like the number 2 is female, nice, and usually blue. The number 8 is male, slightly juvenile, and green. The letter L is female, a proper lady, and yellow-orange. I thought that all people did this until my first year of graduate school. I had a course that talked about actual synesthetes and this was mentioned as a subset group. And that's when I learned that not everyone associates gender/color/personalities with letters and numbers. Funny what one thinks is normal, huh?
3. I'm very bad about not thinking before speaking and I tend to be very emotional. It's one of the things about myself that I dislike. I'm especially prone to saying things that I don't mean when I'm angry. It's led to some funny situations, though. Like my first Journal Club. I was explaining a study about drosophila and, fortunately later (not during my presentation and thereby not in front of the entire department), someone asked me why they should care about fruit flies. All I could think of was, "Well, you see, it's a vast conspiracy between the left wing and the right wing." Or during my last committee meeting one of my committee members asked me what my next step was if my last-ditch-effort didn't pan out and I responded with "I've seen these ads for alpaca farming on late night TV..."
4. Also, like Contemporary Troubadour, I seem to do my best thinking in the shower. These leads to a lot of conversations with the words, "And then in the shower it hit me..." I need to remember to strike that phrase from my vocabulary. I don't have those insights while washing the dishes, though. So, I don't know if it's any mundane activity or just the shower.
5. I had a male "Honor Attendant" in my wedding. One of my closest friends is male and it felt strange to have him stand on Dr. Man's side when he was my friend. This bothered my mother and grandmother to no end. However, this did not bother Dr. Man's family (or at least they didn't mention it to either me or Dr. Man). He-- the Honor Attendant-- was a good sport about things because he put up with a lot of teasing about being on the girl's side. He also came to my bachelorette party.
6. I hate movies like Saw. Even the previews make me tear up. I feel so bad for the victims in the movies because it has to be terrifying to be in such a helpless situation. It makes me sad and just a tad bit scared. In fact the scariest part of the Scream movies for me was the opening scene of the first one. (It's the one with Drew Barrymore and she can see her parents coming home.) Anyhow, it's the one genre of movie that I refuse to see. That's saying a lot because I like almost all sorts of movies (I love action movies, adventure, video game based movies, etc.).
7. I took ballet for about 8 years (ages 4-13-- except for when I was 7). I'm still not all that graceful, though. I started taking ballet on the advice of my pediatrician. I was "pigeon-toed" and the pediatrician said that ballet would help that. So, I started taking lessons. My parents still have all the VHS tapes of my recitals-- even though I was never very good. However, I was never much of a girly-girl. And I hated wearing the required make up for dance recitals.
I don't know who to tag, so I'll pull a Cath. I'm tagging anyone who has ever taken dance lessons or who has curly hair.