Passing Time

It's after ten and I'm in the middle of writing a proposal for a conference that I found out about four hours ago, which just happens to be due today (or today Arizona time, which is very, very early tomorrow Michigan time). At the moment I am waiting for feedback from my professor, so I thought I'd take a moment and write since I'm stuck until I hear back from her.

I was tagged last week, which means I'm supposed to share 10 weird things about myself, and now seems as good a time as any to do it :). So here goes. Some of these aren't weird necessarily, but close enough...

1. I have pi memorized to 25 decimal places. I try to act as though I'm not really a math nerd (after all, I didn't choose math, it sort of chose me), but I do like numbers and patterns. And my excuse is that it happened on a day when I was really, really bored.

2. I hate raisins. I'm usually pretty open to trying new foods, and re-trying foods that I once disliked, but I am quite certain that I will never like raisins. I cannot stand them, even when surrounded by good things, like oatmeal cookies or European chocolate.

3. Speaking of food, I am sort of a little addicted to cookie dough. It doesn't take much to convince me to make cookies (and I can convince myself pretty easily), and it's almost impossible not to eat the dough when I do. I mean, that's the whole reason for making cookies in the first place.

4. I once wrote a poem about doing laundry. And it's actually a pretty good poem.

5. I almost never wake up to an alarm. Even when I do set my alarm, I usually wake up minutes (sometimes seconds) before it goes off. I also cannot sleep in, no matter how late I go to bed. Unless you count seven or seven-thirty as sleeping in. This is usually a blessing but sometimes a curse...

6. When I was very young, I had only two recurring nightmares. One involved a picture of Mickey Mouse spinning slowly around and around, and the other involved a ball that kept getting bigger. Both were accompanied by an overwhelming sense of doom. To this day I am completely baffled by these dreams. Now my dreams are much more normal (if dreams can ever be called normal).

7. I collect stuffed monkeys. Or rather, I accumulate monkeys. I have about a dozen, but I only bought one or two of them myself. Years ago my mom gave me a stuffed ring-tailed lemur (I know, it's not really a monkey), and then the monkeys just started rolling in. Most of them are of the stuffed variety, and my favorite is a bright green monkey that I got as a birthday gift from a couple roommates a few years back. I also have a barrel-of-monkeys keychain (also a birthday gift), and a screaming monkey that, I learned, is not a good idea to hang above a pencil sharpener in a high school math classroom.

8. My fingers and toes get unnaturally cold in adverse weather conditions. Finding ways to keep them warm on the ski slopes has become my dad's never-ending quest. During the winter time my fingers are perpetually cold. I'm just used to it now.

9. I start playing Christmas music on the piano in September. (But listening to Christmas music is off limits until Thanksgiving. Mostly.)

10. I set my trip meter almost every time I get in the car. I know exactly how many miles it takes me to get to campus, to church, to the Kroger. I'm not entirely sure why I do this as it serves no practical purpose, especially after I already know (tomorrow I'm pretty sure it's still going to be 4.9 miles to my parking spot down by campus). But it's habit.

(And now it's midnight, my proposal is written and submitted, and I'm ready for bed. I've been going for fifteen hours (!), and for all that it's nice to come to the end having actually accomplished something...)