Anyway, I finally created my list and thought this would also make a great blog post, so here goes:
1. I never anticipated that I would ever live in San Francisco. But, I'm proud of the way I have embraced my new city. In less than 10 months, I've become a member of a great church, joined a community group there, explored many parts of the city, settled into a new job, set up an apartment, volunteered my time at several local organizations, and made a bunch of new friends.
2. After growing up in a small town in Pennsylvania, I have lived in three of the biggest cities in the country - Washington DC, Boston, and San Francisco. A big part of me wants to live in New York someday, just because it feels like the epicenter of everything, but I'm not sure I ever will. I also would love to live in London or Paris for a year or so.
3. I desperately want to be in an earthquake. I don't want anybody to get hurt or there to be major damage, but the geologist in me can't wait to feel the earth shake under my feet. I'm told that I live in a city that promises to make this wish come true.
4. My greatest athletic achievement will always be the time I pulled a 5 iron out of my golf bag and hit a golf ball 175 yards for a hole-in-one. I hope my golf game didn't peak that day, because it was ten years ago.
5. I have a oval shaped birthmark directly in the center of my stomach. With my two nipples as eyes, and belly button as mouth, the birthmark serves as the nose on my "stomach face." Don't even bother to ask me to show it to you, because I'll say no.
6. My birthday is December 27, and I've never been quite so open about this, but it sucks to have my birthday so close to Christmas. Few people ever remember it, I'm always away from friends, and I've had very few parties thrown for me. There are some positives though - I always get to spend my birthday with my family and I have never had to work or go to school on my birthday.
7. Despite my friends saying I missed the "best semester ever" at William and Mary, I will never regret spending the spring semester of my junior year in New Zealand. I saw some of the most amazingly beautiful settings in God's creation. I walked on a glacier, rafted down an underground cave, hiked miles of beautiful trails, bungee jumped, tasted amazing wine, looked at a lot of rocks, watched the sun set behind Mt. Cook, spent a night on a boat in Milford Sound, relaxed on beautiful beaches, soaked in natural hot springs, scuba dived (dove?) on the Great Barrier Reef, and toured the Sydney Opera House.
8. When I was in New Zealand, I purchased a car at auction for about $350 US dollars. It was a 1983 puke yellow Toyota Corona that I called "El Coche Corona." Despite a finicky stereo and a tendency to burn through oil, the car was a dream to drive all over the country (on the left side of the road!). I once got pulled over by a NZ policeman. When I handed him my Pennsylvania license, he made a face like he was reading something in another language. He asked if I was enjoying the country and I said "Yes, very much." His response - "well, slow down." When I left NZ, I sold "El Coche Corona" for $50 US dollars.
9. I have spent nearly 2 months of my life at sea on scientific research vessels in various locations around the world. I was on one expedition off the coast of Papua New Guinea, another that sailed from Astoria, Oregon to Panama City, Panama, and a third that sailed from Victoria, British Columbia to Acapulco, Mexico. On the third expedition, we had 18 foot swells - enough to cause my chair to move back and forth across the floor as I was sitting in it. I'm proud to say I never got seasick.
10. I firmly believe that all students must be able to communicate digitally to be successful in the 21st century workforce and I believe that with the right curriculum, technology can help create very special learning experiences that can engage students who are otherwise turned off to learning. I'm fortunate I get paid to help educators reach this goal.
11. I also believe that all people need to be scientifically literate in order to be able to make informed and wise decisions. One of my goals is to work to bring earth science to all people in a way that is applicable and interesting to the average person. I was fortunate to get to work toward this goal in my past job in DC.
12. Combining my passions in #10 and #11 into a single job would be my ideal situation. Someday, I'll figure out how to do that.
13. One of my best years was my senior year of college at William and Mary. I lived off campus with 7 other guys and we traveled to see W&M play football in Maine (via New York and Boston), rented an RV for fall break and drove to Mexico by way of New Orleans, spent Spring Break on a missions trip to an orphanage in Nicaragua, went fishing, went to the beach, drank beer on our deck, went to the Green Leafe and Pauls, watched selected scenes, laughed a lot, and generally had a great time. I studied a little bit too.
14. Because of the trip to Maine mentioned in #13, my roommates and I were named the William and Mary 2002 Fans of the Year. There was a ceremony where our names were announced and we each ran out onto the field during half time of a home football game.
15. I'm OCD about random things being straight or lined up. For example, in restaurants, the silverware always has to be lined up with each other and the napkin. Some of my friends have noticed this and purposely, but unbeknownst to me, put things askew just to watch me straighten them again.
16. In the dictionary, next to the word introverted, there's a picture of me.
17. It takes me a long time to get to know other people really well and I'm not very good at opening myself up and showing who I truly am until long after I meet people. I'm working on this...
18. I have freakishly long arms. One of my roommates in college has freakishly short arms. He is 6'3", I am 5'9" and we both can reach to the same height. Unfortunately, this means that I have never been able to find shirts that fit me right.
19. When I was very young, our regular babysitter couldn't babysit one night, so she asked her college roommate if she wouldn't mind babysitting us. She said yes. Her name: Rosie O'Donnell.
20. One of my lifelong goals is a write a book. I'd like to say it would be a novel, but I don't think I'm creative enough, so it will probably be non-fiction.
21. One of my favorite things to do is to spend part of my Sunday afternoon or evening reading the Sunday New York Times. Lately, I've become a little obsessed with trying to complete the Magazine crossword puzzle each week.
22. I published my senior thesis from college, "Millenial-scale variability in western tropical Atlantic surface ocean hydrography during the early Pliocene," in the journal Marine Micropaleontology. I am 95% sure that I am the only person that has every read this entire paper. If you're suffering from insomnia, I can send you the paper.
23. It usually takes me over an hour to fall asleep at night, cause I can't stop thinking about what happened to me that day or what's going to happen to me the next day.
24. I whistle a lot, but only when I'm alone. This is the result of me annoying my family with my whistling for so long, that I made it a habit to keep it to myself. I'm a really good whistler though - at times I've thought about entering some sort of whistling competition (there must be one out there, right?).
