About

About the Girl: March 25, Relay For Life, Appalachia Volunteers, Real Food, running, golf, yoga, reading, traveling, learning new languages, cooking, blogging, frolicking, picnicking, food shopping, driving with the windows down, list-making, giggling in my sleep, photography, music, foreign languages, coffee, Nintendo, LBI, breakfast, llamas, the smell of clean sheets, autumn, Tetris, hockey, snowstorms, froyo, Christmas, pretzel salt, leftovers, Food Network, crossword puzzles, airports, purple pens, connoisseurship, sunshine, French baguettes, Belle & Sebastian, Ben Folds, Bloc Party, Bon Iver, Damien Rice, Dave Matthews Band, Death Cab for Cutie, Ingrid Michaelson, Iron & Wine, Jack Johnson, John Mayer, Joshua Radin, Shout Out Louds, Sufjan Stevens, The Kite Runner, The Sun Also Rises, The Poisonwood Bible, Angels and Demons, The Things They Carried, Jane Eyre, Pride & Prejudice, Harry Potter, The Other Boleyn Girl, Something Borrowed, The Awakening, Love Actually, Garden State, Crash, Almost Famous, Good Will Hunting, The Notebook, The Wedding Date, Mighty Ducks, Blood Diamond, The Holiday, Scrubs, 30 Rock, Lost, 24 and Friends.

Random Facts

1. I love traveling. I studied abroad in at Sciences Po in Paris for the Spring 2010 semester.  During this time, I traveled to Brussels, Bruges, Dublin, Galway, London, Rome, Cinque Terre, Pisa, Florence, Bologna, Venice, Madrid, Barcelona, Arles, Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, Oslo and Bergen.  My dream job is to become a travel writer, which would enable me to travel the world, eat incredible food, take photos, and write about it.

2. I’ve been going to Long Beach Island, NJ every summer since before I even existed. Summer wouldn’t be the same without it, and that’s where I met Drew and Katherine.

3. My day is not complete until I’ve dribbled water on myself. Drinking is difficult.

4. I bat veggie cleanup…and almost always finish Ashley’s vegetables. I have particular weaknesses for asparagus and lemon-parsley turnips.

5. I have an almost unhealthy obsession with fiber. Except fiber is healthy, so it’s not really an unhealthy obsession, I guess…?

6. Pretzel salt is the BEST part of a bag of pretzels.

7. I love going to shows. I’ve been to 15 Dave Matthews Band concerts (although this pales in comparison to the 30+ shows Mike and Alexis have been to). I’ve also seen Death Cab for Cutie (twice), Joshua Radin (twice), Ben Folds (twice), Bloc Party, Missy Higgins, Donavon Frankenreiter, Belle & Sebastian, The Shins, Dispatch, Ingrid Michaelson, Cary Brothers, Ted Leo & the Pharmacists, State Radio, Lupe Fiasco, Blackalicious (don’t ask), Dashboard Confessional, and Brand New (never again).  I’d really like to see Damien Rice, Shout Out Louds, and Bright Eyes, sooner than later.

8. I could talk about corn and the global food crisis for hours…so really, don’t get me started.  I’m going to write my thesis on it…

9. I love llamas! I have two little stuffed animals and I love them both dearly.

10. I hate the idea of taking on a traditional woman’s role…and yet I LOVE cooking, baking and knitting.

11. I’m incredibly clumsy. The worst fall I ever took was at a golf match when I was a senior in high school. Kristen and I were due to tee off in a couples minutes, but we had to go to the bathroom. We started to run to the clubhouse, and I lost my footing (damn ditch). Before I knew it, I was tumbling head over heels (I made two full rotations) and flailing around in the mud. Both golf teams, both coaches, and stray club members all witnessed my spill. Needless to say, my pants were no longer white, and I laughed hysterically for the entire match.

12. I love photography. I saved up for a Canon Digital Rebel XSi, and now I’m saving up for a couple of nice lenses to go with it.

13. I’m obsessive-compulsive about keeping the end of my toothpaste tube clean.

14. I will probably attempt to tell you the same story at least three times. Feel free to call me an idiot, and then kindly remind me that I already told you.

15. Coffee. I love it. I live in French Press Coffee Shop on the weekends. And I have a crush on the barista. French Press is no longer open (I may or may not have cried for days on end), so I migrated further into the city and now reside at Espresso Royale Caffe.

16. I love wine!  Studying abroad in Paris made me want to learn more about it.  My favorite kind as of right now is a red wine from a southwestern region called Cahors in France…it’s delicious.

17. I have no idea what I’m going to do with a degree in International Studies, but I do know that I want to find a job that will help me make the world a better place. I want to travel and interact with as many kinds of people as possible, hopefully touching some small part of everyone I meet along the way.

18. I’m starting to form a true relationship with God for the first time in my life. I felt like something was missing from my life, and realized that talking with the big guy helps. I hope he doesn’t mind that I start off saying “Yo God, what’s up?”

19. I’m a nerd at heart. I say and do nerdy things. Examples: I was the technology coordinator for my class in high school. I play map games…for fun. I say “I’m stuffed to the rafters” when I’m full.

20. Music has a way of penetrating my mind and soul. Sometimes when I’m listening, I become aware of things that I never knew about myself. Sometimes, these are things that I don’t want to know about myself.

21. Je parle français depuis 9 ans. Hace un año y media que hablo español. Me gustan mucho los dos.

22. I LOVE doing research on restaurants and picking out where to eat. I love Yelp, and I think it’s time for me to get a Zagat.

23. Sometimes I look up at the clear, night winter sky and am overwhelmed with the beautiful world we are all lucky enough to live in.

24. I love running. It clears my mind and lets a sense of calm wash over me.

25. I’m Irish and Norwegian, both of which explain why I can turn from pale to scarlet in a matter of milliseconds.

26. I have wrinkly hands. They’re really weird. And they make me self-conscious. Thanks, Adam.

27. I’ve been “learning” guitar for 6 years.

28. I LOVE wearing Winnie the Pooh and glow-in-the-dark SpongeBob band-aids.

29. My sense of smell is best at triggering memories. Sometimes it’s amazing. Sometimes it’s the worst.

30. I’m the girl that picks all of the red peppers out of a red and green pepper mix at salad bars. My apologies to anyone who is craving red peppers at BC.

31. I haven’t had nail polish on my finger nails in seven years.

32. I’ve been in two serious relationships and have learned so much from both of them.

33. I’m territorial and in order to feel comfortable somewhere new, I need to set aside a place to call my own.

34. I have an amazing relationship with my mom…we’ve always been really close. In fact, she and my dad could never go out when I was a tot because I would scream bloody murder until they came home.

35. I’m glad my brother decided to come back home after he graduated…I feel like we’ve gotten closer over the past several years.

36. My iTunes library has 15,017 songs in it.

37. Bunny ears. It’s the ONLY proper way to tie your shoes.

38. My nickname when I was younger was Chatterbox. I used to wake up from my naps, throw my feet into the air above my head, and start talking to them.  Things haven’t changed much.

39. I don’t know how many people have asked me, “does your middle name begin with a K, because if it does, your initials would be KKK.” Right.

40. I often contemplate getting a tattoo above the birth mark on the back of my leg that says “it’s a birthmark” so that I don’t get asked “what the heck” I did to my leg.

41. I LOVE Giada De Laurentiis from the Food Network. And watching Rachael Ray is my guilty pleasure…I laugh at her corny jokes.

42. Crust is my favorite part of a dish of baked Mac & Cheese…I will fight you for it.

43. I enjoy dancing interpretively to Trepak. Especially next to the director of the IS department at University Chorale concerts.

44. I’m allergic to the skin on apples, so I have to peel them before I eat them…which, unfortunately, strips them of most of their fiber-y goodness. I somehow developed an immunity to this little issue, and now am a happy apple-a-day girl.

45. “This Modern Love” by Bloc Party is my favorite song ever. And of course is the most-played song in my iTunes library.

46. I ate my first peanut butter & jelly sandwich on February 13, 2009. Yes, I really did live on this earth for 19 years before trying one. Sad, I know.

47. One of my goals in life is to buy one of those gigantic Lego sets so I can build one. A life-size Darth Vader would be preeeetty clutch.

48.  I’m rarely an impulsive shopper…except when I’m in Teavana.  Every single time I go into that store, I end up leaving $30 poorer, canister of delicious loose tea in hand.

49.  I want to purchase everything from Williams-Sonoma.  Even if I won’t ever use it (i.e. the Splatter Screen).

50.  I love wearing two different colored socks.  The socks, however, must be the same brand/cut, and must generally be from the same pack.

51.  I want to have a library in my future house, complete with a big leather chair and sliding ladder.

52.  I love the cold, underside of the pillow.  I also love my pillow, in general.

53.  I have a food-sharing issue that I’m in the process of overcoming.  I think this problem stems from an experience I had at the beach when I was younger.  My dad took me out to ice cream when I was 4 or 5, and I got plain vanilla ice cream in a cone with rainbow sprinkles.  My dad asked if he could have a little bit before me, and I was happy to oblige.  Until I saw him lick my ice cream cone clean of practically every single sprinkle.  Traumatizing.

54.  I love driving with the windows down.

55.  I want to be environmentally friendly…yet I can’t seem to cut my showers shorter than 18 minutes (I can’t even calculate how many gallons of water I waste every day)…and have cut my showers down to 11 minutes.

56.  I HATE flat sheets.  I only sleep with a fitted sheet and a comforter.  I don’t understand how no one else finds it incredibly annoying that the flat sheet ends up crumpled up at the foot of the bed every single morning.  Such.  A.  Pain.

57.  I refill the toilet paper roll incorrectly, and have no qualms about it.  Everyone puts on a new roll so that the loose sheets come from the top, but I put it on so that they come from the bottom.  It just makes more sense to me, and I don’t think I’ll ever stop doing it.  It’s unfortunate that my mom and I are the only ones who reload this way.

58.  I am, at times, worse than an ESL student at using idioms and expressions.