Tagged-Six Things About Me

My friend, Cheryl, tagged me (again). But this time it's about six random things that you may not have known about me. Bare with me, it's kind of long.


1. If I had to choose one kind of music that I like the most, it would be the music from broadway musicals. I like many other kinds of music, like pop, alternative, country, oldies, etc., but for some reason I love musicals. I think it's because I can get lost in the story. It's not just watching a play or just listening to songs, it's the combination of the two. There is so much passion in musicals. I love that the songs tell a story. Another reason I love them so much is because they are so much fun to sing to them. I love to sing, although I'd never consider myself good enough to tryout for American Idol, but I can hold a tune and actually have a good ear. If you hear me listening to musicals, you'll hear me singing as loud as the music itself. Listening and singing to musicals always makes me want to take voice lessons. I can only imagine how it would feel to be standing on a stage in front of hundreds of people holding out a note that hits every heart in the audience. I think that has got to be an amazing feeling. Here are the plays that I have seen (that I remember off the top of my head), and I have loved them all.

Beauty and the Beast: I saw this in New York in the summer of 2002. My favorite song from this play is "If I Can't Love Her", written just for the play. It is sung by the beast and is amazing. He sings very high and it's perfect.

The Secret Garden: I actually saw this one at a high school play. I think it was at Timpview, but I'm not sure. The acting wasn't the best, but the story is so good. If you read my favorite books post, you'll know it's also one of my favorite books. My favorite song from this one is "Lily's Eyes". It's sung by Mandy Patinkin and another guy, and Mandy Patinkin hits such a high note you can't help but get goosebumps. Can you tell I love a man that can hit high notes? That's why I married a tenor.

Seriously, who doesn't love this play and the music that goes with it? It's just incredible and it's one of my favorites. My favorite songs from this one are: "Defying Gravity" (of course, I think it's everyone's favorite), "For Good", and the funnest to sing to is "What is this Feeling?". Love, love, love it!

The Phantom of the Opera: I saw this in LA, with Cheryl now that I think about it. It's a beautiful play, truly a classic. My favorite song from this one is "The Music of the Night". Again another great tenor, Michael Crawford.

Aida: I saw this one in NY. This was one of the few musicals I went into without knowing anything about it. Again, I loved it. This musical is full of passion, mostly because it's a romance story. My favorite song from this one is "Not Me". I enjoy songs where there are many parts going on at the same time, and that's what this song does.

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat: I saw this one in LA. It's such a fun play and made me want to learn more about Jacob and his sons. I found myself comparing it to the Bible and figuring out how much of it was accurate. My favorite song from this one, by far, is "Close Every Door to Me". Another great tenor, Donny Osmond.

Mary Poppins: I just barely saw this for the first time in NY this past summer. We got our tickets for free, which always makes it better. It was very fun. The way Mary Poppins flew was pretty cool. My favorite song was "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious".

Les Miserables: I saw this in Salt Lake years ago. Another classic. This is one that the story is just as incredible as the music. You can't help but feel a part of the story when you watch this play. This has always touched my heart. I cried when I saw this. I love so many of the songs from this one, but I think my absolute favorite is "On My Own". Mostly it's just a great song, but one of the reasons I like it is because I can sing with it. I'm an alto and can't sing very high, and Eponine has an amazing alto voice. It's one of those songs I imagine myself singing in front of an audience. It gives me chills just thinking about it.

2. I have been to Berlin and have stood on the both sides of East and West Berlin where the wall used to be. I remember when the wall came down. I remember not long after the wall came down that my dad went there and brought back a piece of it. I also got a piece of it when I was there. It truly is a historic place. There is a museum there with pictures of all the different ways people tried to escape: digging in tunnels, hiding in suitcases, hiding in cars, etc. I absolutely loved Berlin. It is a beautiful, clean city.

Here is a picture of what the wall looked like before it came down.

Me strattling the line of the Berlin wall. What's left of the wall is straight behind me.

3. I love to watch American Idol and more importantly, So You Think You Can Dance. I've watched AI every season, and yes I vote. I started watching it with my friend Lisa in season two. We were religious about it. We had a great routine, watch AI, eat Blast O' Butter popcorn with peanut M&Ms, drink water (occasionally I drank DP). Although I still watch American Idol (yeah! it just started here in the UK yesterday), my favorite is So You Think You Can Dance. I love, love, love it. Everytime I watch that show I want to take dance classes. It makes me so happy to watch the really good dancers. Some of my favorites have been:

Season 2: Alllison and Ivan doing a contemporary dance to an Annie Lennox song. It was beautiful, especially because Ivan was a hip-hop dancer. I loved it.

Season 2: Donyelle and Benji doing a broadway dance to "You Can't Stop the Beat" from the musical "Hairspray". This dance was so much fun. As Benji mentioned when they first did it, it was a marathon dance. They just kept going and going and they never let down at all. I watched this dance over and over again.

Season 2: Heidi and Benji doing the mambo. I just remember this one being amazing. There was a part that Heidi was squatted down and Benji was spinning her around and around with his leg. She was going so fast, it was incredible. So much fun!

Season 3: Neil and Sabra doing a jazz dance to "Sweet Dreams". Have you noticed the picture above? Need I say more? Awesome!

4. I am obsessed with Text Twist, an online game from Yahoo. It's a very simple game really. You're given a number of letters and you have to figure out all of the words you can make with these letters. If you get the word that uses all of the letters, you get to move on to the next round. I'm not sure why I love it so much. Maybe because it helps me look at words differently. Maybe because I learn new words each time I play. I don't know, but when I need to just get away but have no where to go, I play text twist. My high score is 208,850. If you'd like to play Text Twist you can click on the link on my sidebar. Then click play web version and have fun.

5. I have never broken a bone or been stung by a bee. Until I was 18 I could say that I'd never had stitches. This is not necessarily because I'm very lucky or because I'm extremely coordinated (nor am I clumsy), but because I am extremely cautious. I just really do not like pain. In fact I'm kind of scared of pain. The only time I've been in the hospital was when I had surgery on my shoulder in high school, when I got in a car accident in college (which is where I got my stitches), and when I had my babies. And of course with my first two I had an epidural, for the third, I wanted one, but it wasn't in the cards. I felt every bit of that pain, and I never want to do it again. The interesting thing is, blood does not bother me. In fact, it's quite the opposite. I'm completely fascinated by medicine. I always wanted to be a doctor when I was little. There's still a part of me that would love to be in an operating room just to watch what was going on. I think the human body is so amazing, and the medicine world can do so many things with it. I'm thrilled by it all, I just don't want my body to be involved with it.

6. I don't like lettuce. Any time I tell someone this they think I am crazy. "Lettuce has no taste", they say. It does to my taste buds, and they don't like it. Yes, this means that I don't eat salads, and I don't like BLTs (also because I don't like tomatoes). If I have to eat a salad, I can only eat it if it has dressing on it, and it has to be enough dressing to cover the taste of the lettuce. I realize there are some greens that have a lot of health value. For instance, spinach is particularly healthy for you. So to try to get some of that goodness into my system I'll make a health shake in the morning that has spinach in it. Once you blend it up in the blender with the other ingredients, you can't taste the spinach at all.

There you have it. Six very long, very random things about myself. I hope you learned something new.

I now tag anyone who wants to come out of their shell and let the world get to know them.