Happy 100th Post Day!

Hurrah! 100 posts since I started my blog... not even six months ago. Wow. Anyway, I thought I would commemorate by posting the 100 Things list that I created when I was in Sheboygan. By that time, almost my entire family had been bitten by the blogging bug, and they had all made lists of 100 things about themselves, and Matt sent a copy of everyone's to me. I so loved reading everyone's lists that I decided to make a list myself (Hood was incredulous that I could think of 100 different things about myself, but it wasn't that hard, in fact, I thought I could probably think of 100 things to say about HIM as well!), and although I think Matt posted it on his blog or somewhere for all to see, I'm going to post it again here in honor of my 100th post. It just seemed appropriate. If you've read this already, definitely no obligation should be felt to re-read.

I'll just quote the whole affair (some minor edits made for grammar and clarity, as well as to make some points more current and relevant):

All right, based on the recent interest nearly my entire family has expressed in writing 100 things about themselves, I guess the time has come for me to make my contribution. Some of these might be kind of... touched by a missionary? considering my current situation, but whatever, it's still me. So, here goes.

1. My favorite color is blue (of any kind), though as a child I claimed green (blue was Matt’s, Amber’s was pink, Cami’s was yellow).

2. I have a fear of change, but at the same time, desire and recognize the necessity of it (for example, on the one hand, I have done my hair almost the same way my entire life, and wear the same watch I wore in grade school, but also sometimes do things like grow a goatee and try really hard to lose my tummy).

3. I hate shaving, but I have to do it all the time, and recently, more than usual...

4. I have made some of my best friends ever in the last year. I am sure Elder Johns and I were desined to be BCFs.

5. My best friend in the world, however, is and will remain Elise (NOTHING PERSONAL, I love and have a special, invaluable bond with all of my siblings, for which I will be forever grateful). I owe my relationship with Harry Potter to her.

6. I am a musical snob. Sometimes, I'm sure, to the frustration of those around me. But really, I can find something I like in every genre of music (almost--as far as I'm concerned, rap is not considered music). Musical theater and soundtracks are my favorite genre, and I can find something I like about almost every musical, but get mad when people claim to be fans when they only know Phantom and Les Mis.

7. If I could make a living singing, I would. In a heartbeat.

8. I have kept an on-hand, take-with-me-everywhere sketchbook ever since Grandma Julie gave me one when I was 12 or 13.

9. Brownies are my only weakness.

10. I also make amazing cookies. It's the only thing I really bake. Though, I once made an amazing chocolate cake at Cami's house (don't you dare say it was from a box!).

11. My top 10 favorite movies are (in no particular order): The Lord of the Rings (counts as one), Harry Potter (also counts as one), The Passion of the Christ, The Prince of Egypt, Aladdin, West Side Story, The Hudsucker Proxy, Brigham City, The Sixth Sense (and anything by M. Night) and... I reserve the right to skip the 10th. On second thought, I’ll add Sleepless in Seattle, the quintessential romantic comedy, just to make it an even number.

12. Some crazy combination of Frodo Baggins, Harry Potter, Klaus Baudelaire and Edmund Pevensie is my literary hero.

13. I was inordinately happy when the new Mormon Tabernacle Choir CD (Showtime!) was released, as well as The Testaments on DVD.

14. I can never eat egg rolls again without comparing them to Hmong egg rolls (just so much better).

15. I only eat rice with a spoon nowadays.

16. I have an unhealthy crush on Jasmine. I even currently have a Pez dispenser of her that sits on my desk. I have since given a Belle Pez dispenser to Elder Johns, and an Ariel one to Tom Strawn.

17. I hate basketball. I just cannot like it. I like shooting, but I hate playing. Edit: Elder Hood has done the impossible: Not only did he get me to play one-on-one, but actually kind of enjoy it.

18. I still miss my cellphone. A lot. (Current edit: I depend on my cellphone. A lot.)

19. My favorite author is Thomas Hardy (thanks a lot, Cami), though he's hopelessly depressing. I think that's why, actually. Until Harry Potter book the sixth, he was the only author to bring me to tears (in Jude the Obscure).

20. I love being at the beach but hate the summer, and I don't really care for being in the mountains but love the winter.

21. When I left for the MTC, I was DETERMINED to learn to be a good letter writer. I think I've done well so far. (Current edit: I think I did really well from start to finish.)

22. I have an unusual admiration for and reliance on the dictionary. There's even a song about it in one of my favorite contemporary musicals.

23. I spent a semester drawing on napkins, flirting with Disney characters and dodging accusations about my sexuality while serving popcorn and ice cream at the Disney-MGM Studios at Walt Disney World in Orlando, FL.

24. I have a BFA in animation from BYU (and it only took me six years to earn!). (Current edit: ...And I am working toward applying to graduate school in the Clinical PhD Psychology program at BYU.)

25. All through junior high and high school, I could never use a planner, no matter how many I bought or tried, until now, which I currently use every day. (Current edit: ... until the mission, where I used one every day.)

26. I like to think I have a relatively extensive vocabulary. This sometimes extends to my writing, making it pontificatious (might be a fake word) and verbose (which explains the length of this list).

27. I have been to Europe (Belgium and France), and adored visiting Notre Dame, Marseilles, Montmartre, The Louvre and the Eiffel Tower.

28. I have kissed six girls. I have (honestly) loved two of them.

29. Whenever I see a play, particularly a musical, I have an intense desire to be on stage.

30. I have a secret desire to be famous, if just for a moment. This has led me to apply for Survivor and audition for American Idol (Current edit: twice) and the Young Ambassadors.

31. I love being in plays, but I hate the audition process. I have never wanted anything more (in this field) than to be Frederick in BYU's Pirates of Penzance or to make the top 12 on American Idol.

32. I have in recent months developed a desire to audition for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir when I get home (you only have to be 25).

33. Although I have learned to love the Hmong people, it has never been a desire of my heart to visit the Asian countries, especially Thailand and Japan. I may try Hong Kong Disneyland one day, and do a Laos/Thailand Hmong trip, but it's just so foreign.

34. I have never cared for video games, although I have in the past had mild obsessions with Minesweeper and Solitaire (on the computer), if those can qualify as "video games".

35. I am convinced all the world's problems would be solved if the UN leaders all sat around with a nice helping of ice cream.

36. I was relentlessly teased in elementary school, which I was promised by my siblings would end when I entered junior high school. It didn't. I was promised it would end in high school. It didn't. It ended in college.

37. Mom says I have a high tolerance for pain. When I was a baby, I didn't mind having minor surgery, and I can only remember twice feeling like I was in so much pain I would I would die (both events, incidentally, having to do with my teeth). Of course, this tolerance doesn't extend to my emotions (oh, the drama).

38. In high school I joined the clogging team to get out of taking a gym class and to earn the necessary PE credit.

39. I love classical music, and think some of the best composers in the world are Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Beethoven, and, more contemporarily, Gerswhin, Copland and the untouchable Bernstein.

40. I love the Oscars (shallow and petty though they are). I threw a huge party the year The Return of the King was up for everything and did a run for joy up and down the hallway of the Glenwood apartments when they announced it won Best Picture. I’m still upset Beauty and the Beast (the only animated feature nominated for Best Picture) was beat by the Silence of the Lambs in 1991, and also that Shrek beat Monsters, Inc. for the first-ever winner in the Best Animated Feature category.

41. I know an exorbitant amount of Beatles music, though listening to it growing up was rarely my doing. I fell asleep for much of my childhood to the tunes of the Beatles and the sound of a computer keyboard typing.

42. I did two Eagle projects. One counted for the award.

43. While some collected baseball or football cards, I collected Disney cards, convinced they were excellent reference material for drawing practice and that they would be very valuable one day. I never intended to sell them. I still don't.

44. I have only ever participated in minor scuffles in school. I usually ended up in trouble, though he usually started it. I'm not much of a fighter.

45. There are only a couple physical features on me that I am really fond of. My eyebrows and my hands. I am also vain about my hair, which may be my downfall one day. I also think I have a kind of nice voice. See #7.

46. I am slightly OCD (who isn't though, really?). I may keep a messy room, but some things I just like to be organized and in order.

47. I have recently developed an affinity for volleyball (Hmong kids love it, and are quite good, although they're generally rather short).

48. I think Snape is working for himself, and will claim loyalty to the winning side in the end, whoever it may be (let it be written, 20 March 2007). (Current edit: Not exactly right, but not exactly wrong either.)

49. My heart of hearts thinks that Snape will be redeemed somehow, regardless of #48. (Current edit: I guess this is true.)

50. My experience with keeping a journal is vast and varied, from the mundane to the implicating, from the ridiculous to the sublime. I look forward to Giant Journaling again, and I am keeping regular mission journals. (Current edit: I kept regular mission journals from start to finish, and have since been documenting important events through blogging.)

51. Glen Keane's animation of Ariel changed my life.

52. My family is my most prized possession, and my fondest desire is to live with them in the Celestial Kingdom in the presence of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.

53. I have a very personal witness that the Atonement of Jesus Christ is real and (quite literally) life-changing.

54. Through the years, I have had methods of always keeping a pen on my person. For a while, it was in my sock, then often it was behind my ear, and currently, in my white shirt pocket. (Current edit: No longer in my white shirt pocket. Most of the time I just keep it in my pocket.)

55. My medium of choice has for years been what Elise would call a "delicious, blue pen", an ordinary, blue-barrel, blue-ink Papermate pen.

56. One of my favorite places on the face of the earth is Disneyland. I would rather be there than almost anywhere in the world. Some of my fondest memories (of childhood and adulthood) took place there.

57. I am very horrible at small talk with people I don't know very well. I hate trying to keep a conversation going, and I'm not really good with awkward silences.

58. I love reading, and I love writing. Part of me wants to "be" a writer. Some of this desire was realized when I spent a few months in 2005 writing a book.

59. I like being a living mystery (20 at BYU, 26 on a mission). People will think what they think, it's just kind of fun to watch the gears in their heads turning.

60. Elder Hood says that I am a mystery in many ways (one he cites is my "quick maneuvers" in the car). He is the one person who has expressed the most, open curiosity in my past, probably ever.

61. I have tasted beer. It was an unpleasant experience.

62. I am (almost) the only person in my family that has broken a bone. It was, ironically, my right wrist, falling off a tandem bike with my cousin Cody. I had to learn to draw with a cast, then relearn to draw without it.

63. I will spend three birthdays as a full-time missionary. (Current edit: I spent...)

64. I love TV, but I don't channel surf. I just have "shows". They are: 24, The Office, Survivor (it's NOT a reality show, it's a GAME show), American Idol, Prison Break, House, and last, but oh, so not least, LOST (!!!!!!).

65. I have been in many plays, including Pirates of Penzance (three times, twice as a pirate, once as a policeman, much more fun the last time), Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Fiddler on the Roof, In One Basket, A Christmas Carol, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (a trainwreck), and You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown.

66. My favorite role was Charlie Brown. Although it was a shortened production with a limited run, I felt I became him on stage.

67. I love Christmas music, and had a hard time when Elder Johns refused to listen to it until after Thanksgiving (he relented a little a week or two before, with little or no pressure from me). I am willing to listen to seriously saccharine music in the name of Christmas festivity.

68. I never really thought Asian girls could be pretty until two things happened: I started watching Lost (Sun is stunning) and I served among the Hmong people. I don't think I could marry one, but I really see how some of them are quite beautiful.

69. I love both coasts of the US, for different reasons.

70. I have long since accepted the fact that I will be the last of my parents' children to be married. (Current edit: Good things I came to terms with this, eh?)

71. My Hmong name means (roughly translated) "power shine".

72. I often have celebrity crushes. My most consistent include Cate Blanchett, Gwyneth Paltrow, Michelle Pfeiffer, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Natalie Portman, and Scarlett Johanson. Also, relatively obscure actresses like Claire Forlani (Mystery Men, Meet Joe Black, Antitrust) and Monica Bellucci (The Passion of the Christ).

73. Some of my heroes include Walt Disney, J.K. Rowling, Nephi, Abinadi and my parents.

74. I will be a first tenor forever.

75. I prefer altos. There is just something about a girl singing in her lower register.

76. I try not to take pride in my accomplishments, but in high school, I learned to play Peter J. Wilhousky's hairy arrangment of The Battle Hymn of the Republic. It runs about seven minutes long and pounded it out hundreds of times at home. I was allowed to accompany the choir for it for the final concert of the year (but not for graduation, my real dream). I can still play it.

77. One of the proudest moments of my life was watching Elise as Fantine in Lone Peak's Les Miserables. I daresay I was as excited she landed the part as she was. I cried when she walked on stage and didn't stop until curtain call.

78. In junior high I had a crazy obsession with the Muppets. I had a copy of every audio recording from them available. I still laugh my head off when I watch those movies.

79. I was extremely critical of others in high school, but it was just a reflection of my own insecurities and frustrations. I have since (I hope) become much more charitable and thoughtful.

80. When I live away from home, I usually eat things that are easy to make, and come in a box or a bag.

81. I am politically outspoken, and have wound up in trouble on more than one occasion in more than one venue/forum. I was once banned from an online forum (undeservingly). (Current edit: TWICE banned, both times undeservingly.)

82. I have taken second place twice, and sixth place once in school spelling bees. For the first two, I still remember the words I was eliminated on ("lozinge" and "hydrolic"--Elder Johns also lost on lozenge when he was in grade school).

83. I shop too much. In the past, sometimes I would spend money I didn't have, especially online. I'm a packrat for CDs and DVDs. I'm getting better, though my church music and DVD collection is quite extensive.

84. I love horses, and have since I was very young. I hate frogs, and have since I was very young (I had a VERY vivid nightmare as a child which probably contributes to this).

85. My childhood fear is Freddy Krueger. I once saw Matt watching him one night and it has haunted me ever since. Also, don’t get me started on that one episode of The Twilight Zone…

86. I feel like I have a problem with pride, but I also feel like if I recognize it, I'm on the path of overcoming it.

87. I have sustained some bad habits from my early childhood into my adulthood. I am very close to giving them up for good. (Willpower is not enough!)

88. I own a model of the Golden Snitch (thanks Elise!), a couple makeshift wands, two Gryffindor ties, and three Gryffindor scarves. (Current edit: I now also own an official wand as well, also thanks to Elise.)

89. I claim Gryffindor as my house, mostly because Harry is in it and I relate to him.

90. I think it's weird when people claim they're Slytherins or Hufflepuffs.

91. I always pick a part in every play that I would want to be cast as, and it's not generally the lead.

92. I was the school artist my senior year. I was unopposed in the election.

93. I was in choirs and was drum major for the marching band in high school. Band camp was almost canceled due to lack of interest and organization of the band director, but I decided to teach the band how to march instead. Also, halfway through the season, the other drum major quit. We weren't good, but I was still defensive of us. In college, I had to choose between choir and band. I decided I would rather sing. I was in Men's Chorus for six years straight (except for the one semester I was abroad).

94. I have crashed one car, and killed at least two other cars. My Trooper, Moses, will forever be my favorite automobile.

95. I prefer Italian food over almost all others, though Hmong food is growing one me...

96. I have always been insecure and introspective. This has led me to a lot of trouble in the past, including struggles with my very identity, until I learned to rely on the Savior.

97. I speak five languages (counting Pig Latin and Mongese-different from Hmong. Ask Matt).

98. I'm a hopeless romantic. I so wanted to be in love like they are in the movies, that I had to learn and relearn what it's like to actually be in a relationship.

99. I'm very dramatic. If there's not drama going on, I usually create some or exaggerate what little there is.

100. I have recently developed a more involved interest in getting in shape, including lifting weights, although in past years I have enjoyed swimming a little, and running as well.

101 (bonus). I'm a work in progress.

WOW, that was fun. But hard. But rewarding. And therapeutic. I'm sure there's a lot more, but whatev. What an idea, who doesn't love to talk about themself?