So I finally caved in to this viral chain mail. Here goes…

1. I was born in Crystal City, Virginia, where the Pentagon is. I must admit I’m pretty flattered that they named the city after me.
2. My first word was “fei”, which means “to fly” in Chinese. I would excitededly point at the sky, clap my hands, and yell “Fei! Fei!” each time an airplane went by.
3. I went to one year of preschool in China, but the only thing I remember about it is having three teachers named Ms. Sheep, Ms. Cow, and Ms. Pig.
4. When I came back from China to enter school as a first grader, I couldn’t speak English and was enrolled in ESL (English as a Second Language). My parents also decided to enroll me in the optional French Immersion class, where we learned all our classes in French.After six years of French schooling, I can’t remember a single word.
5. Whenever I watch a show/public event/am in a situation where silence is expected, I have an urge to break out into song and sing really loudly. I once stood up from my desk during silent reading period in first grade and started belting out “Can You Feel the Love Tonight”. That was the first time I learned it was inappropriate to do so, but I still secretly do it in my head.
6. I have an amazing aptitude for surviving cold weather. I can mentally numb myself to coldness immediately just by telling myself to stop feeling cold. This comes from years and years of training waiting at the elementary school bus stop in winter. I would imagine that I was in a place colder than where I was at the time (homeless, antarctica), and feel better than I wasn’t there. Now I don’t need to go through the imagination step anymore. I also have a lot of empathy for the homeless.
7. My dream job as a kid was to be a panda vet. My pre-med academic adviser once asked me whether I had ever considered a profession other than medicine. When I told her, she said, “Well, that’s just a childhood dream, anything else?”.
8. I used to imagine that I was the girlfriend of cartoon characters. My favorite boyfriend was Little Foot, from The Land Before Time. Other ex-boyfriends include Simba and Aladin. What happened to Nala and Jasmine you ask? Of course they were no match for me. That seguays nicely into..
9. I loved dinosaurs as a kid. I slept with my expansive dinosaur figurine collection on the head of my bed. I watched the Fantasia dinosaur scene over and over (and cried every time the T-rex killed the stegosaurus).  My favorite book was about two Dinosaur skeletons breaking free from the museum and heading to the beach.
10. My earliest email handle was mushroomgirl, because I liked (and still LOVE) to eat mushrooms. Unfortunately, I didn’t learn until senior year of high school what it could imply when during a scholarship interview, my interviewers asked me to explain my email address.
11. In sixth grade, I had the biggest crush on the guy in our school known for being good at math. I even wrote a poem called “Dan Dan the Math Man”. I stopped liking him after I won first place in the school math competition and he came in second.
12. I enjoy giving people nicknames by sticking together two consecutive syllables in their name that normally don’t go together. e.g. Zabeth (Elizabeth), Ickel (Michael), Topher (Christopher)
13. I love to play mahjong. My ideal white noise machine would play the random clacking and shuffling, followed by the more ordered stacking, of mahjong tiles.
14. I never wear matching socks, but I can’ stand having socks of different thicknesses or lengths.
15. One of my favorite hobbies is to make miniatures out of sculpy and fill doll houses with them.
16. My current desktop wallpaper changes everyday to a different picture of my grandmother. My favorite is this one when she bought all the balloons from the balloon man for me.
    
17. I have an irrational fear of surfaces collapsing from weight. While I can usually control it enough to stand on higher floors of buildings, I absolutely freak out (i.e. mini panic attack) when things “land”. I don’t do well with jumping or bouncing balls. No wonder I hate basketball.
18. I collect shot glasses. My inaugural shotglass was purchased in a hotel giftshop in Paris. Since then, I’ve bought one wherever I go and my friends also know to buy me one when they travel as well. At my wedding, I plan to have all my shot glasses laid out and let each guest toast me with one.
19. I can do this with my hands:
    
20. I really enjoy playing road trip games, even when I’m not on the road. My favorites include: 20 questions, Guess my famous person, Contact, Trivia, telling riddles, and 7 degrees from Kevin Bacon.
21. It takes me forever to tell the time from a clock face. When I ask people what time it is and they offer me a glance at their analog watch, I tell them that I can’t tell time.
22. I love the the letter “J”. I want to name my kids Jeremy and Julia, and I often write these names over and over just to sweep my pen across first the tip and then the loop of the J. The rest of the words just become scribbles.
23. If I could be any other race, I would be an Indian, because they have the most beautiful women, the best food, and the coolest movies!
24. One thing I want to do before I die is open a really unique restaurant. I’ve spent my life collecting restaurant ideas. Right now the best one I’ve got is an Indian one called, “Naan Sequiter”.
25. No matter how much I resist following trends, I always inevitably follow them; but only when it’s not trendy to do so anymore (e.g. tights, bob haircuts, and this chain letter).