Honorary Liebster (or 11 random things about me)

I’ve been a procrastinator with this, but I have some time this morning so I figure I’d take care of it!  Almost a month ago, Kayla passed along the Liebster award to me.  A couple of weeks ago, Celeste did the same.  The Cliff Notes version for the rules of the award are that I need to list 11 random things about me, and pass the award onto 11 other bloggers.  Knowing nothing of the Liebster Award, I did a quick google search to find out that I can accept an “Honorary Liebster Award” and just list 11 random things about me.  Being the party-pooper that I am sometimes (aka lazy), that’s what I’m going to do!

So, here are 11 random things about me:

1) I was 19 years old when I first got on an airplane.  My first flight was from Dallas to Tokyo.  I was in a middle seat, in the back of the plane, and thought it was awesome!  I had a friend teach me how to use chopsticks on that flight (had plenty of time to kill).  Now, I’ve worked for airlines for the past 7+ years, I fly all the time, and I don’t like flights that are longer than 90 minutes.

2) I was the “Camp Nurse” at a summer camp when I was 19 years old.  The regular (and appropriately trained as a R.N.) nurse had something come up last minute.  Evidently I was the next-most-qualified person, having recently completed the standard first-aid/CPR class!  On the first day of camp, when the parents were registering their kids, they had to come talk to me if their kid took medication.  Lots of the parents were nurses themselves, and wrote the medication instructions in medical terms (b.i.d., etc) that I had no idea what they meant (although I did find out before giving out any of their meds!).  I must have done an O.K. job faking it, because the camp didn’t get sued that summer!

3) I have a medical condition that many people blame their weight gain on (including Oprah at one point).  I refuse to accept that just because my thyroid doesn’t function normally, that I have to be overweight.

4) It’s weird to me that schools in the U.S. have cafeterias, and that students have to stay at the school over lunch break.  In high school, I went to my grandma’s house for lunch almost every day.  She would always have a pot of mashed potatoes on the stove. It didn’t matter what else we were having, the potatoes were always there.  Sandwiches?  Side of mashed potatoes.  Spaghetti?  Side of mashed potatoes.

5) About a year into our marriage, my wife and I needed to leave our current situation and make a fresh start.  We sat down with a map of the United States and took turns crossing off states that we didn’t want to live in.  We ended up moving to Fort Collins, Colorado.  No jobs.  No friends.  No plans.  We drove out there for a weekend (first time either of us had been to Colorado), found an apartment and signed the lease, and moved out there shortly after.  It was one of the best decisions we ever made.

6) I used to have my own photography business.  I was good enough to have clients that were willing to fly me out-of-state to shoot for them.  I had a lot of dreams about being an international photojournalist.  I closed the business after a soul-searching trip to South Korea.  I can still picture the subway station where I was standing when it hit me that I needed to move on.  I know I made the right decision, but I frequently have mixed feelings when I pick up one of my old cameras (which is why I usually just use my cell phone and take crappy photos for this blog).

7) My wife is the only girl I’ve ever kissed.  I have no complaints about that either.  We’ve been married for (a few weeks shy of) 11 years now.

8) I had an EKG done at a hospital in Nicaragua.  I thought I was having a heart attack (and was unhealthy enough that a heart attack wasn’t out of the question).  Thank God I’d had one done before and I knew that they didn’t hurt, because the archaic machine they used looked like it should have been hooked up to an electric chair.

9) Even before I was vegan, I wouldn’t eat eggs (unless they were mixed into cookie batter!)  I always felt that an egg was a chicken’s period (menstruation), because if it was fertilized it would have grown into a chicken.  I couldn’t bring myself to eat something from an animals menstrual cycle.

10) I don’t understand why football is so popular, and why most guys enjoy watching it so much.  I don’t want to see a bunch of dudes in tights, bending over, and grabbing each others’ butts.  My distaste for football leaves me out of almost every generic small-talk conversation that guys have.

11) I never had a single cavity until I started training for my 100-mile ultramarathon.  Eating and drinking nothing but sugar (gels, licorice, swedish fish, gatorade, etc) was enough to make a few holes in my teeth.