twenty-five random things

i was tagged on facebook, and i thought i'd post it on here. 25 random things about myself.

1. the summers after my freshman, sophomore, and senior years of high school, i attended a summer camp. it was called "upward bound math and science camp" but it wasn't really a science camp, you know? during the mornings, we would take classes -- math, science, spanish, and english -- and in the afternoons we would do fun activities. there were two fun trips a summer, one short (like to hot springs) and one big. i traveled to atlanta, denver, and houston/galveston. the summer after my senior year i was able to take college classes from carl albert for free. it was a great opportunity, i made some great friends there and had the time of my life. i love my memories from those summers.

2. i was born and raised in mena, but there's nothing really tying me down here. i don't see myself here in 10 years.

3. my little brother is one of my best friends. if my child is a boy, i will be naming him after my brother.

4. i started college as a nursing major, and three semesters in (right before clinicals) i switched to education, which lasted for a whole semester. after taking a year off, i went back as a general studies major, and i'm about 12 hours away from a bachelors degree in gen studies but don't know when i'll finish it. i'm hoping to get accepted to the LPN program at rmcc next fall.

5. i am a very different individual than the rest of my family. it's hard to explain, and you've got to know both them and myself really well to understand it.

6. the only season i really don't love is spring. i love summer because it's so fun -- pools, vacations, tanning, there's so much i love about it. fall is wonderful because of the colors and the transition to cooler weather. winter i love for the snow, Christmas, and hot chocolate. maybe spring will grow on me eventually.

7. i've had a lot of "best friends" in my lifetime. the one i miss most still lives in mena and we still talk occasionally and when we do it's like we've never been apart -- but we lead such different lifestyles now than we did 2 years ago, it's hard to explain but we just can't see each other as much now. she was like a sister to me, and "gets me" more than anybody else i know. i miss our closeness so very much. (just typing this has made me cry.)

8. i have a freakish memory when it comes to conversations, dates, names, stories, etc. but, ask me where my keys are right now -- i would have no clue.

9. i am a big-time blog lurker.

10. types of cancer in my family history: breast, pancreatic, uterine, lung, colon, brain, testicular, and prostate. all of them are from my grandparents, except for the prostate, which my dad is in recovery for.

11. i love to read and wish i had more free time to devote to reading. i've always love it -- when i was in 3rd grade, i got in trouble for reading a book during recess.

12. this is my second pregnancy. i miscarried twin gestational sacs on september 17th, 2008 -- 4 days before mine and stephen's wedding.

13. i love love love to travel. there are so many places i want to visit before i die.

14. i also love theme parks. alot of the places i want to visit before i die are theme parks! i will ride any rollercoaster. stephen is still a little iffy about them.

15. when i was little, i took my brother outside, wrapped a garden hose around his whole body, and told him to look down the hose because Thomas the Tank Engine was going to come out of it. (he was a BIG thomas fan.) then i turned the water on. hehehe.

16. i'm definitely the emotional type. (as i proved in #7) i can cry about almost anything.

17. my memories of my dog toby are among my most treasured. (and here come the tears again.) it's been almost 2 years since he died, but i still miss him so much.

18. i have no living grandparents, which i think is so sad. both of my grandfathers died before i was old enough to really know them. i was 3 when one died, 6 with the other. i was 11 when my dad's mom died, and 16 when my mom's mom died. i hope my children have a lot of long, happy years with their grandparents, because i hate that i didn't.

19. i have the best mother-in-law a girl could possibly ask for!

20. i was in the ouachita little theater's production of "steel magnolias" during the summer of 2007, and the director told me he thought i brought more to the role of shelby than julia roberts did in the movie.

21. i attended the arkansas school for mathematics and sciences for the first semester of my junior year of high school. it was an experience i will never forget. i will always wonder what would have happened if i had stuck it out and finished my high school education there instead of returning to mena in january.

22. i chose to go to henderson state university for a few reasons. one was because i really liked the campus -- it was just the right size, and i thought it was beautiful. another was because it was only an hour and a half from home. i also like the town of arkadelphia -- about the same size as mena. in the end, i hated arkadelphia, and wished i would have gone somewhere farther away. i don't think it was the right school for me -- although i did make some great friends there -- i wish i would have chosen a different college, and i think i would have liked college more, and would have finished my four years instead of dragging them out the way i have done. part of me wishes i would have gone out of state. you only get to do the move-away-from-home-live-in-a-dorm-be-a-college-student thing once, and i wish i would have had a better experience.

23. i love trucks and suvs, but right now i'm driving a chevy impala. the best vehicle i've ever owned is a jeep liberty, and i LOVED it and i MISS it.

24. i don't re-use bath towels. once i dry off, it goes in the dirty clothes and gets washed. this is something that stephen finds extremely weird. my brother does the same thing, and his fiance thinks it's weird too! we just grew up doing that, so it's natural for us.

25. i cannot watch scary movies. i like to watch them, but i'll have nightmares for weeks afterwards. the ring scared the ever-loving crap out of me. after i watched that movie the first time, i couldn't sleep and crawled into bed with my brother after he'd fallen asleep. i was a sophomore in high school. i watched the exorcism of emily rose when i was a sophomore in college, and i had PRIVATE dorm room. i slept (badly) with a light on for weeks.