25 Random Things

I just did this for Facebook, and thought I would share with everyone!

1. I always park far away in parking lots. I don’t want to fuss over getting a spot and usually enjoy the walk.

2. I cannot parallel park for the life of me. I have been in several situations when it would have been easier to parallel park, but I have always found a way out of it.

3. The mile took me 18 minutes in elementary school, back when I loved to swim and hated to run. I could have never imagined enjoying exercising as much as I do now.

4. I have been to 19 countries, largely spurred by a semester living (and sometimes studying) in Maastricht, Netherlands.

5. I spent a year working at a military boarding school in the middle of nowhere and LOVED it!

6. In my adult life, I have never paid for cable television. I still have rabbit ears on top of my TV catching whatever they can get.

7. I grew up attached to a dorm of 40 teenaged boys listening to their colorful language each night.

8. My family begins each year writing compliments to one another. It is interesting to look back on previous years and nice to pull out some compliments whenever I am down.

9. One random goal I have is to be self-sufficient enough that I will not need to buy IKEA furniture again. I hate putting it together and always seem to mess up somewhere—example my bookcase that still is not always together.

10. I love to bake—I just got a KitchenAid mixer. My favorite things to bake are brownies and my grandma’s banana bread.

11. I do not understand why some people do not have EZPass and am more perplexed why those people drive in the EZPass lane and try to merge at the last minute.

12. I am more productive and effective when I do things last minute—this leads to a lot of stressful moments.

13. I look forward to sending Christmas cards each year. I usually send about 150 and write personal notes on all of them.

14. I wanted to be on “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego” so much when I was younger that I wrote a letter and was devastated to hear that they only had contestants from the Los Angeles area. Now, I teach Geography!

15. My high school mascot is a rhino and is the reason I have a significant collection of rhino memorabilia.

16. I wanted to tour Yale when I was in fourth grade—getting ahead on my college search.

17. I was born with my left eye shut and have had eye surgeries to correct the issue. My Dad said I winked at everyone and I would not stop winking.

18. My brother and sister could not pronounce my name and called me Dee Dee… the name still arises sometimes. I like my other nickname better—Beena.

19. When I was two, my mother made me a stuffed cookie monster and I slept with it each night until I was 12, when I lost it at camp. My mother found the pattern on E-Bay and gave it to me as a surprise when I was 22.

20. I have hiked sections of the Appalachian Trail in nine states- Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.

21. I went to camp in Baxter State Park, Maine. It was $400 for four weeks. My mother called to ask if they served us food, they did.

22. I want to run a marathon at some point in my life.

23. I have little to no musical talent as one of the only students not to play in the band and the one who got the chorus all off key. I do like singing in the car and in the shower, however.

24. I am very thankful for Interlibrary Loan and do a lot of “reading” via books on CD.

25. I am almost done with my Master's degree. I want to get another degree, but I am not sure in what just yet.