An Announcement

Today is my one-year blogiversary!

(Woo!)

To commemorate the occasion, I’m making the move to a Blogspot-free existence over at DefinitelyRA.com. Join me at the new digs (which, by the way, might feel very familiar), update those bookmarks and feeds, and see how I’m ringing in a new year of bloggy fun!

My Kennett Square

I know I’ve been silent lately; my brain gears have been spinning too rapidly to form something coherent. I tried four times yesterday, but to no avail. Thankfully, I read a post that prompted me to think about my hometown, which I interpreted as the town in which I live now. The thought exercise shook me out of my funk, so thanks, Janet!

- - -

My Kennett Square, PA

• Age: 20-something
• Occupation: Proofreader
• I lived there for: 1.5 years, so far
• I lived there because: It’s halfway between JG’s and my jobs, so that’s where we bought our first house
• My neighborhood: Stenning Hills
• My favorite restaurant: Half Moon
• If you go to this restaurant, be sure to order: Definitely the crab nachos. They also have a huge selection of Belgian beers
• My favorite museum: Brandywine River Museum, even though it’s not technically in Kennett Square
• My favorite tourist destination: Longwood Gardens, which has way too much prettiness per square foot, especially around Christmas
• Best insider spot: The Farmers’ Market in the spring and summer
• My favorite area: State Street, the one-street “downtown” area
• Best place to go shopping: The Mushroom Cap and The Paper Market
• When you visit, don’t forget to pack: Good walking shoes for the First Friday Art Strolls
• But leave room in your suitcase for: Yummy mushroom goods like soup mix or infused olive oil
• The one local cuisine you should try when you’re in town is: Anything mushroom-centric at a local restaurant like Newton’s or Challie’s
• The best way to get around: Driving is really the only option, sadly
• If I had to describe this city in one word, it would be: Quaint
• I tell my friends to stay at: Our house!
• The one thing most outsiders don’t know about this city is: If you see mushrooms at your supermarket, there’s a 50% chance that they were grown here or in neighboring small towns.
• They say “Virginia is for lovers.” So fill in the blank: Kennett Square is for present and future mushroom fans. (And we celebrate at the superfun festival every year!)

#50

Connecticutian

Friend: You have your New Englanders, your Bostonians, your New Yorkers… What do you call someone from Connecticut?
Me: A Connecticutian!
Friend: Uh, that sounds like “execution.”
Me: Well, I’m not a big fan of Connecticutter.

Ah, the Constitution State! The Nutmeg State! The home of the river actually pronounced “Thames” and not “Temms”! A recent e-mail conversation with Jen awakened my deep-rooted love for the little state people drive through to get to Boston or the Cape. I love New England in its entirety, but the second-smallest state (take that, Rhode Island!) will always be special to me.

When I first came down to this mid-Atlantic area to go to college, I amused people by telling them that I was from “the eastern part of Connecticut.” They ogled me for a second before asking incredulously, “Connecticut has parts?” Um, yeah. Like how Delaware has northern and southern parts, Connecticut has eastern and western halves. At least we have eight counties to your three! What now?

I’m not normally so defensive about this. Well, now that I think about it, I am. I just think that Connecticut is a neglected gem of New England and it doesn’t deserve all of the little-state ridicule heaped upon it. I’ve always found myself in a position of explanation of my home state because people always assumed that my family was rich. No, not all of us live in Greenwich. But we have Mystic Pizza, you know. And Yale University. And the UConn Huskies, even if they didn’t make the tournament this year. And Rachael Ray visited us one time to spend $40.

I feel like my corner of Pennsylvania is noticeably different from Connecticut, but it’s hard for me to put my finger on it. At first, I thought it was the Revolutionary history I grew up with: the Charter Oak and Fort Griswold and all that. When someone reminded me about a little thing called the Liberty Bell and some guy named Ben Franklin, I realized that the Philadelphia near me wasn’t just in my history books. Then, I thought it was due to a more generally flat landscape, but I ended up working in the Poconos for a couple of summers, so that theory went out the door. I’m still not sure what it is, but I can feel a change when I get to Connecticut.

Maybe it’s the crisp air, rocky coastlines, and lighthouses. Maybe it’s the worn-down, green faces of those soothing Appalachians. Maybe it’s town greens, white churches with sharp steeples, and the smell of the Long Island Sound. Maybe it’s wearing fall clothes as soon as school starts, scraping snow off of cars in November, and welcoming spring after Easter. I don’t know what it is, but I find it all so comforting.

Of course, I could be a little bitter because I can hardly find a good cup of clam chowder around here. I’m just saying.

#1

Shameless Plug

Guess what! I’m writing a column!

Two weeks ago, I started to write at a site focused on long relationships, like dating and marriage. The plan is to share my reflections on my married life so far, give suggestions to couples out there, and comment on relevant articles and the like. I would love for folks to hop on over, check out the site, and offer any comments or feedback. I hope to have content that’s helpful and entertaining, so suggestions are always welcome.

The blog is part of the 451 Press network, which publishes websites on all sorts of topics, like entertainment, hobbies, and parenting, so click around and check out what’s available! 451 Press is always looking for new talent, so if you’re interested in writing about a specific topic, I encourage you to apply and see if it’s a good fit.

Of course, I’ll still post about life in general over here. If you have a spare second or a glimmer of curiosity, click on the link in my sidebar - there will be something new to read over there every weekday morning. I hope to see you there!

100 for the Hundredth

In honor of my centennial entry, I present 100 things about me, including some I’ve already revealed around here. I’ll try and elaborate on some of these in the future, too.

Let me know if you make to end of the list!

1. I was born and raised in southeastern Connecticut.
2. My dad is a civil engineer and my mom is a teacher.
3. I have one sister who is four years older than I am. She and I are eerily similar in regard to mannerisms but vastly different in terms of taste.
4. I am Asian, but when someone asks me where I’m from, I automatically say Connecticut.
5. I like to think that I’m a good source on how to be respectful when discussing race. I have a few really good examples up my sleeve of when people were not tactful. Or I guess they could be really bad, depending on how you look at them.
6. It was my parents’ intention that I would play classical piano, so I started taking lessons when I was 7. Today, I am grateful that I can read music pretty fluently.
7. My future as a pianist was sidelined by competitive gymnastics. Three years after I started taking classes, I began competing at the age of 9.
8. I trained for 30-40 hours a week, depending on the time of year, in the hopes of making it to the Sydney Olympics.
9. I didn’t make it. I chose to quit gymnastics at the age of 13 because I was very stressed out.
10. A down side to the gymnastics was that I was never allowed to do any other kind of physical activity due to the risk of being injured. I’m glad that I learned how to swim before all of that. I learned how to jump rope in high school; as a result, I am terrible at it.
11. An up side to the gymnastics career was that I discovered an awesome human trick that has trumped all others I’ve encountered. I can lie on the floor on my stomach and arch my back so that my feet go over my head and land on the floor. Then I can stand up.
12. I was in practically every club in high school except for a sport. My favorites were colorguard in the marching band and drama club.
13. I never paid attention to the football games; they were just an arena for band performances.
14. My colorguard friends started calling me RA and it has stuck ever since.
15. Variations have included Amon-Ra and RaRa.
16. In my junior year, I played mean people in both of the plays: Juror #4 in Twelve Angry Jurors and Baroness Elsa Schräder in The Sound of Music. It was so much fun.
17. I applied to seven colleges during my senior year. I don’t recommend that to anyone.
18. I went to the University of Delaware for chemistry because I wanted to become a brilliant pharmaceutical chemist and get a PhD.
19. I took two semesters of only math and science and realized that I missed reading and writing. So I switched my major to English and kept a chemistry minor. I’m fairly certain that I am in the very small minority of English majors who also took Instrumental Methods of Analysis and Intro to Biochemistry.
20. I had a concentration in Business/Technical Writing, which can cover anything from writing instructions for machinery to writing advertising copy. I enjoy organizing information, doing layout, and proofreading, so it was a perfect fit for me.
21. People assume that, since I was an English major, I have a complete hold on the English language. Even though I loved Eats, Shoots & Leaves, I do not wholly grasp all of the nuances. English is hard.
22. What I do know (how to use apostrophes correctly, the difference between lie/lay and that/which, when to use objective vs. subjective pronouns) I know very well.
23. I am trying to become a better writer, by which I mean a communicator through the written word. A picture might be worth a thousand words, but I want to see what I can do with a thousand words.
24. I love to read and I love getting book recommendations almost as much.
25. My favorite author is Madeleine L’Engle and I have a running list of her books that I do not currently own in case I run into them somewhere.
26. I am addicted to used book stores; it’s almost impossible for me to pass one without at least going inside.
27. My favorite Madeleine L’Engle book is A Swiftly Tilting Planet. I have three different copies and I read it probably every other year just because I miss it.
28. I still really enjoy chemistry, especially the periodic table. It’s a thing of beauty.
29. If you accidentally get me started, I will pontificate on the wondrous properties of water. It is amazing, amazing stuff.
30. I will celebrate Mole Day with anyone will will celebrate it with me. Experience has taught me that Mole Day is not as much endearing to people as it is annoying. I’ve been forced to repress jokes about avocados and molasses.
31. I love puns more than anyone probably should. My mom gave me a 21-pun salute for my 21st birthday and I still have it. I’m one in a bullion!
32. During my freshman year, I went to Trinidad for a missions trip and it was amazing. It wasn’t a bad way to spend two weeks in January, either.
33. I met my husband, JG, in our first week at UD.
34. JG and RA are the nicknames we use for each other. When we’d meet for brunch on weekends, we called it “JARG time” because it’s an anagram of our “initials”. We call our inside jokes JARGon because we are that cool.
35. JG and I started dating in the beginning of sophomore year. If you ask him, JG will not hesitate to tell you how I reacted when he brought me flowers on our first date.
36. We both worked at a summer camp for a few years (2 for me, 3 for him) as lifeguards and program facilitators.
37. It was probably the most thankless work I ever did, but I made some of the best friends of my life. It was a good life experience to do thankless work, too.
38. JG and I learned how to climb and belay at camp. I still really like to climb, but we don’t get out nearly as much as we’d like.
39. I studied abroad in London during our five-week winter session. I loved that I could walk everywhere, do my reading in the British Museum, and see plays all the time.
40. While overseas, I spent a weekend in Scotland. It was gorgeous and freezing cold in the highlands.
41. Much to my parents’ relief, in the summer before senior year, I finally got an internship that could actually go on my résumé. I was a technical writer for research students in UD’s civil engineering program.
42. I knew nothing about structures but I learned to love bridges with the sort of affection that most people lavish on houses or gardens.
43. My favorite bridges are the Delaware Memorial Bridge and the Brooklyn Bridge. So far.
44. During my internship, we all took the Myers-Briggs type indicator and I was an ISTJ. When I read the description, it was scary-accurate.
45. JG proposed the day we moved in to college for our senior year. I said yes.
46. Finishing school, finding a job, and planning a wedding were a bit too much for me. I think I could have handled two out of the three things, but all three made for a lot of stress.
47. We were married in June 2005. We loved every minute of our budget wedding and wouldn’t have changed a thing.
48. I experienced my first no-stress vacation during our honeymoon cruise in the Caribbean and I would recommend it to anyone.
49. On the first anniversary of our engagement, JG and I found out that the offer we made on the house we wanted was accepted!
50. In October 2005, we moved out of our apartment into a house in the Mushroom Capital of the World. Veggie mushrooms, not druggie ones.
51. I am at my most geeky when I’m using Excel. I try to incorporate it into as many aspects of my life as possible, like wedding planning, Christmas shopping, and blogging.
52. I get unnecessarily excited when I put together a formula and workbook that just plain work.
53. I’m also really geeky when I subconsciously anagram words or try to make up palindromes.
54. Anagramming makes me pretty good at playing Scrabble, which is one of my favorite games. It also has fun derivatives that I love to share with people.
55. I love to play games in general, especially Cranium, Catch Phrase, and Apples to Apples.
56. It’s disappointing to JG that I don’t like cards very much, but I don’t mind dealing for Texas Hold ’Em.
57. We’ve discovered that I’m a good teacher for Texas Hold ’Em for girls who might be intimidated. I think the key is a list of the hands in order of “value” and then playing as a team with whispered commentary.
58. I’m not as proficient a cook as I would aspire to be. Hot oil and flame generally freak me out.
59. I really enjoy baking, especially if it requires the use of my mixer. When I make dinner, it’s usually a casserole so that I can bake it.
60. JG and I watch our TV shows religiously. My favorites are How I Met Your Mother, Gilmore Girls, CSI, and Best Week Ever.
61. I watch the Food Network compulsively. I hang on every word from Alton Brown, but Emeril makes me want to claw my eyes out.
62. I also watch HGTV all the time. I think it’s gotten worse since I have a home I can decorate with something other than posters and putty.
63. If I were on What Not to Wear, they would take away my collection of v-neck cardigans. And then my drawer of funny socks.
64. If I were a Friend, I’m afraid that I would be Monica.
65. I am terrible at anything involving hitting, catching, throwing, or kicking a ball.
66. I am a very good spectator and cheerleader as long as I know what side I’m on and what they’re trying to do. Sometimes I need a quick tutorial, but after that, I’m good.
67. When I was a child, I constructed my opinion of football from beer commercials, which made me think that it was only for overweight, body-painted men who liked their cheerleaders buxom and blonde. I’ve since learned that it’s not just for them.
68. Watching UD football has helped to broaden my view of the game, but my tolerance for sports is still relatively low.
69. I love comfort food. Give me pasta or meatloaf over dessert any day.
70. To go carb-free would be a form of torture for me.
71. I don’t really enjoy chocolate even though I’m not allergic to it. I know that it’s kind of unfeminine of me, but there it is.
72. I highly prefer fruity candy to chocolate, especially Swedish fish or Twizzlers.
73. I love root beer and my favorite dessert is a root beer float.
74. My favorite color is green, but not in sickly shades. You know which ones I mean.
75. I have a very weak stomach. I need to avert my eyes whenever those dive-in shots come up in CSI. I can’t really handle any scene with the coroner.
76. I love to ride roller coasters, which is surprising to most people.
77. I’m petite in every way; there are 15 inches between JG and me. He would like to clarify that he is “not not petite”, from a chubbiness perspective. He is a beanpole, if you really wanted to know.
78. My most frequent facial tics are raising my right eyebrow and rolling my eyes.
79. I type from the home row and very quickly.
80. JG and I prefer to host the party rather than be guests because cooking and cleaning up is a fair trade for not having to drive.
81. I would rather be a passenger in any vehicle than drive. I’m a good co-pilot; I’ll hand you money for tolls, hold a soda, change CDs, and look for street signs or house numbers.
82. I still drive the car in which I passed my driver’s test. I’m afraid that whenever it dies, I’m going to have to relearn everything.
83. I am terrible with directions and spatial reasoning in general.
84. I am, however, very good at loading the dishwasher to maximum capacity, which doesn’t really make sense.
85. I would love to be a backup singer for someone. I enjoy singing harmony much more than the melody.
86. My favorite movie is The Emperor’s New Groove and I have seen it over 35 times.
87. If I had my way, I would buy everything online.
88. I am a very good bargain shopper. JG says I can sniff the air and know whether something is on sale. I love to display my purchases and say, “Originally priced at X, but I got it for Y!”
89. This pride spills over into everyday conversation when, instead of thanking someone in response to a comment like, “Nice sweater,” I say something bizarre like, “Ann Taylor Loft, ten bucks!”
    
90. I feel uneasy if I don’t have anything to write on and with.
91. I take notes in bullet form, with dashes.
92. I kept a journal faithfully from the age of 8 to 18. I’m glad that moving out of my parents’ house has forced me to stop looking back at the stack of journals because, clearly, I was a raving lunatic.
93. I love learning new words and trying to incorporate them into my conversations.
94. For the most part, I am a very good speller, except for a few recalcitrant words that always seem to end up with red, squiggly lines underneath them.
95. When I was in fifth grade, I was buzzed out of the state spelling bee because I misspelled “plethora”. You can bet that I know how to spell it now.
96. I am not a morning person and I emerge from bed very, very grumpy.
97. I love stationery and I have a habit of hoarding blank cards. You never know when you can use them!
98. I am startled very easily, but I don’t readily admit to being tense or uptight.
99. I hate surprises, especially ones that involve people jumping out of dark places and yelling at me. Please don’t do that to me. I’m more likely to burst into tears than to be glad to see you.
100. I am horribly nearsighted.

I Guess I'm It

Here we go – I've been tagged by Janet to identify six weird things about myself. It was a little bit of a challenge to separate the many, many geeky things about me from the almost as many weird things, but here we are:

1. I love to dance in my kitchen, which is a small isthmus of hardwood in a sea of carpet. Turning pirouettes in my socks is one of my great joys in life. When JG gives me the inevitable eye roll, I always respond matter-of-factly, “Kitchens were made for dancing.” Okay, and maybe cooking and other stuff, but definitely dancing!
2. My favorite movie is The Emperor's New Groove (not the straight-to-video sequel or the superlame television series) and I have seen it over 35 times. I probably say, "This is my favorite part!" twenty times throughout the whole thing. What, you haven't seen it? C'mon, you'll love David Spade in llama form. But I’ll warn you that it takes about three viewings to appreciate the quirkiness.
3. I subconsciously anagram words in my head, producing gems like:
   - "You know what Madden anagrams to? Damned." – while watching football
   - "Mutiny plus I-M equals immunity, you know." – while watching Survivor
4. If I'm writing with a pen, I only use blue ink if I can help it. My logic tells me that I'll be able to tell that my version is the original because blue photocopies to black. Because forgers and counterfeiters only use photocopiers, or something.
5. Foods people usually eat by the handful I eat one at a time. Chips, Goldfish crackers, Smarties, and even Nerds. The one time I tried to tip the Nerds box backward into my mouth, I started to choke on one of the little buggers – that'll teach me! Since then, I've eaten them one at a time out of my hand. By size. Littlest first.
6. I can lie on my stomach and arch my back so that my feet go over my head and are flat on the floor. And then I can stand up. This little ditty usually trumps all of the ear-wiggling, tongue-nose-touching human tricks in the room and it came in really handy during a game of Cranium when I had to act out "contortionist".

And…what do I do now? Eh, I tag whoever reads this, if you haven’t already done it…

Quick Facts about RA

• I work at a small consulting firm that lends itself to my quirks, like my affinity for making lists and Excel spreadsheets.
• I am a proud Fightin’ Blue Hen and I love that we live only 20 minutes from campus.
• There is a 15-inch height difference between JG and me, and yes, he is the tall one.
• I am always reading and I enjoy any new book recommendations.
• I’m kind of a geek, especially when it comes to punctuation and the periodic table.
  
• I am startled easily.
• I love candy, with the exception of chocolate, and I know that’s strange when I’m not even allergic. If it’s there, I’ll eat it, but I could really go to town with a bag of something red, like Twizzlers or Swedish fish.
• In my spare time, and when I'm not reading, I work on this blog, knit scarves because they’re all I know how to make, watch more TV than is probably necessary, and try to learn how to play the guitar.

• I appreciate comments very much and I try my best to respond via email.
  
• I can be contacted at definitelyra[at]gmail[dot]com.