"It's Always Better When We're Together" (We as in Jack Johnson and I)

(Kylene, Cam, me, and Kelsey at the Gorge)

Friday afternoon I decided to live up the last few months of my teenage years, be a bit irresponsible, and go to a Jack Johnson concert. I missed a night worth of tips and wages, paid $55 for the ticket and $20 for a shirt but it was all worth it.

Here are a few things I learned about Jack Johnson:

1) Sometimes even Jack Johnson forgets the words to his songs. And when he does he giggles.

2) Jack Johnson says, "Awww shucks!"

3) Jack Johnson sounds just as good live as he does when I turn my ipod up really loud.

* Just as a little plus I included a picture of what we watched for our pre-concert entertainment. This is our neighbors going to town on their joint. We stared. Unashamedly. Then we stared some more and tried not to inhale.

Son of...Naiveness

This last week I was in an art supply store and was looking through the prints when I saw this painting, Son of Man, by Rene Magritte.

Although it is one of my favorites it is just another reminder of how incredibly ridiculous I can be.

My sophomore year in high school in my biology class our teacher was trying to hold an intelligent conversation with our class (a difficult task I’m sure) and asked us, “What makes the world go round?” I raised my hand boldly (and apparently naïvely) and said, “LOVE!” My teacher looked at me, cocked her head, gave me a sad look, and said, “Uhh…no Ande, that’s very sweet, but money makes the world go round.” A little deflated I replied, “oh…right.”

You would think I would have learned…

During my literary interpretation class this last semester we were talking about symbols in literature. Up to this point in the semester I felt like all my comments were fairly intelligent contributions to the class and that I was overall doing a pretty good job interpreting the literature we had been reading. My teacher, Brother d’Evegnee, asked us what the forbidden fruit was, being the naïve little girl I am I raised my hand and said confidently, “An apple!” By the look he gave me I figured that that obviously wasn’t the answer so I tried again, “Oh…right, a pear.” His look, again, said it. I then caught on and said, a bit too enthusiastically, “Oh! Sex!”

Moral of the story? Never raise your hand in class to contribute unless you’re absolutely sure what you are about to say is somewhat intelligent and doesn’t make you sound like a girl that has been raised in a closet.

F.A. (Facebook-aholics Anonymous)

Hello my name is Ande, and I am a facebook-aholic. (You may now say, "hello Ande.") Yes I am ashamed to admit that I was sucked into the black hole we call Facebook. I recently noticed I was spending (wasting) a lot of time on facebook with absolutely nothing to show for it. Not only was it extremely unproductive, for me it was mostly just a virtual way to get gossip…and I spent hours in this faux community all in the name of “keeping in touch.” I’ve thought about deleting my profile more times than MCA thought about making a new Land Before Time movie. Instead I started a blog. I wanted something that was somewhat of a journal, pushed me, and used and stretched my talents. I guess that is the reason I started my blog. Not to mention the fact that my mom and Cali have been pushing me to do it for the last five months. (Then again, the last time they pushed me to do something…I ended up getting a boy’s haircut and consequently went through a sad little complex during elementary and middle school. Hmmmmm....)

99 Things about Me

1. My hips pop when I walk or swim. I can also move my right hip in ways that definitely aren’t normal.
2. I love to make pies (raspberry, peach, and apple are my personal favorites).
3. I don’t have a favorite color. It changes too often. Red is the only color I consistently like, but for the last little while my favorite color has been orange.
4.Some of my favorite movies are:

• Singing in the Rain/Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (it’s a toss up)
• Citizen Kane
• Life is Beautiful
• What About Bob?

5. I want to go to the Louvre before I die. 6. My lips get sunburned really easily and swell if I don’t use a lot of chapstick in the sun. It’s actually pretty embarrassing.
7. My favorite chapstick for the above is Blistex Silk and Shine.
8. I always have red polish on my toes.
9. I like to only wear clean pajamas to bed. I also like them to match a little. 10. My closet is color coordinated. 11. I enjoy driving stick shift.
12. My favorite book is Dark Angel by Robert Kirby.
13. I usually always have more than one favorite. For example, my other “favorite” books are:

• The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak
• The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
• Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling

14. I love to give and receive gifts.
15. I love old movies. Especially ones with Gene Kelley, Frank Sinatra, and Judy Garland.
16. I am committed.
17. I love spicy foods. I especially like curry, jalapeños, and chilies.
18. My dream job is being a high school English and Art teacher. (English Education is my major with a K-12 Art Education Endorsement).
19. I like road trips, but I usually fall asleep in the car.
20. I peel the skin off of grapes and the shell off of Peanut Butter M&Ms before I eat them. It is just about impossible to go back to eating them normally.
21. I am eager to please and easy to please.
22. I swam the 100 meter breast stroke in high school…and the 50 meter free-style, but only because it was a rule you had to swim two events. I hate free-style. I still love to swim breast stroke.
23. I am a bargain shopper. I rarely buy something that is not on the sales rack. Right now my best save is $240 off the original price. I feel very proud of this fact.
24. I get better grades in college than I ever got in high school.
25. Whenever I go to Safeway I go to the bakery to get a free day old cookie. For those of you who don’t know about this wonderful feature of Safeway, if you go to the bakery and look behind the counter, there are free cookies. A lady is always there to remind you to only take one. My favorite is when they have the poofy sugar cookies with the really thick frosting.
26. I am a peacemaker. For the most part I hate conflict and will try to smooth it over.
27. I hate blow drying my hair.
28. I enjoy the smell of corn growing. One of the best parts of Summer to me is the fact that my house is surrounded by corn fields. I always drive past them with my window down.
29. Fall and Summer are my favorite seasons. In the Fall I like the mornings and how crisp they are, (I know its cliché) crunchy leaves, and school starting. In the Summer I love it being warm, being tan, and getting to read whatever I want. For the most part I hate Spring. Except the lady bugs. I like the lady bug and the blossom part of Spring. Winter is ok.
30. I like to read short stories and I love poetry. True to myself, I have a lot of favorite authors.
31. My shoe size is a 7 1/2.
32. I love cherry and grape jolly ranchers.
33. I like to take showers at night.
34. I love Disney Land. I genuinely like all of the rides…except “It’s a Small World After All” and “Tarzan’s Tree House”…go figure, no one likes them.
35. I love getting notes.
36. I listen to movie soundtracks while doing my homework. Here are my favorites:

• Finding Neverland, especially “Neverland, Piano Variation in Blue” and “Why Does She Have to Die?
• The Man from Snowy River, especially Jessica and Clancy’s themes.
• Cold Mountain, especially “Anthem” and “Ada Plays”
• The Lord of the Rings, especially The Return of the King CD.

37. I have a wide variety of food tastes and I love good food.
38. I love shoes. Pumas, Nike Shox, and any kind of high heels always do it for me (With a special emphasis on “hooker boots.”) I’m also becoming a fan of Chacos.
39. I lose all sense of reality in movies. Yes I am the person in the movie theatre who screams, gasps, and jumps at the scary parts. It doesn’t matter how many times I have seen the movie, I still get scared. I also laugh at the same spots when I re-watch movies.
40. I like to paint. My favorite medium is watercolor though I think I would like oil if I was brave enough to try it. 41. I like to hike and rock climb.
42. I love cilantro.
43. I used to have an imaginary friend named Michael. He got eaten by dinosaurs.
44. I can sympathize with Scarlett O'Hara. She is both one of my favorite and least favorite characters.
45. I love the headers Google has. My favorite one was the one for Earth Day and for Mozart’s Birthday in 2006…yes I copy paste my favorites into a word file and yes I know it’s pathetic.
46. I look at the MSN/NBC week in pictures almost faithfully. They usually make me very grateful for the life I have.
47. I am trying to read from the book of Isaiah every night. Being an English major I love it. I have to read all the footnotes to even come close to understanding it, however.
48. I love school. Always have. Except Middle School.
49. I genuinely love to learn and grow (see above).
50. I recently spent two months in Alaska being a mentor to 40 Alaskan Natives in the Upward Bound program. It was one of the hardest, but most rewarding, jobs. (As a side note: The only wildlife I saw while I was there were birds. I think that is a record.)
51. I love toast and cereal. My favorite cereals include:

• Honey Bunches of Oats
• Cinnamon Life
• Trix
• Cap’n Crunch with Berries
• I used to love Frosted Mini Wheats until I survived on them my second semester of my freshman year.

52. Michelangelo Buonarroti is one of my favorite artists. I love his first Pieta. There really are no words to describe how beautiful it is.
53. I look terrible in hats.
54. I am an excellent multi-tasker. I usually blow dry my hair while either putting on make-up or shaving my legs.
55. I feel that I am, for the most part, a kind hearted person.
56. I often feel it is my duty to make the world a more beautiful, happier place.
57. I get genuinely excited each time it snows before Christmas. After New Years I, for the most part, hate the snow.
58. I love fruit and I hate most vegetables.
59. I like to jog but can’t motivate myself to do it without music. I hope no one ever judges me by my ipod jogging playlist. They might think I am a schizophrenic.
60. My favorite kind of ice cream is Ben and Jerry’s Chubby Hubby.
61. I wish I knew ballet and how to play the piano. Both are on a to do list.
62. I love organization but am rarely well organized.
63. I love going to plays. I have seen Les Miserables and The Lion King and hope to see many more.
64. I enjoy making pottery though I have vast room for improvement.
65. I feel a bit silly starting each sentence in this list with the word “I.”
66. I love clean towels.
67. I want to be a good mother some day. I think children are the world’s best asset and that they are often selfishly overlooked as such. I feel that this will be one of my most important roles and I don’t take that lightly. Secretly, it scares me.
68. I almost always have a list of books I want to read next.
69. I like paisley.
70. I bite my nails when I am uncomfortable.
71. I don’t enjoy walking into big groups of people…this is usually when I begin biting my nails.
72. I actually enjoy dating. For the most part.
73. I have bad hand/eye coordination. There is a reason I don’t do team sports.
74. I love to play card and board games. My favorites include:

• Settlers
• Speed
• Canasta
• Pounce

75. I like Normon Rockwell.

76. I love my family and they are most important to me. They are an amazing group of people.
77. I once slept in a closet for five months when I was little. One of my similarities with Harry Potter.
78. I am a terrible speller. Spell check and predict-a-text are my best friends.
79. I like and welcome change.
80. I am a hard worker but I have no problem relaxing and doing the things I want to do. There is a specific time for work and a specific time for play. I like to think I rarely cross the two.
81. My car’s name is Rocky. It is a blue 1987 Oldsmobile that was given to me by a family friend. It has the most comfortable seats though they have been around longer than I have. My car’s name is Rocky because no matter how hard he tries (and he tries hard) he just can’t win. I love my car and will be sad to see him die.
82. My favorite physical feature is my eyes.
83.I always wear a ring my mom gave me. It is small gold band with a ruby set in. It is now perfectly conformed to my finger.
84. When riding on an airplane I am usually asleep before the snacks come.
85. I like to cook.
86. I love the TV shows LOST, The Office, Firefly, and Seinfeld.
87. I like guacamole flavored Doritos and wished they were still made.
88. I think I was born in the wrong era sometimes.
89. I don’t like disappointing people. I think that is the worst, worst, worst feeling.
90. I hate math. I think it is terribly boring and I don’t understand it. I had to suck on jolly ranchers the entire hour to stay awake in my first (and last!) college math class.
91. I am naturally shy, though I have tried to get away from that mentality and have tried to become a more easily outgoing person.
92. I try to be socially considerate. It really bothers me when people aren’t. I actually get offended.
93. I love to give and receive compliments. A good compliment can last me a very long time.
94. I want to contribute to society in a meaningful way. Whether it is through being a teacher, a mother, or just a good person, it is very important to me.
95. I love color. As silly as it sounds, it will always be an important part of my life.
96. I am friendly and rarely get mad.
97. I have been debating starting a blog for over five months.
98. I have a firm belief that fresh lime juice, peanut butter, or salt and pepper goes on to almost everything that enters my mouth. 99. I decided on the number 99 because 100 things about me might be too much.