My 100

Ms. Jill, my wonderful neighbor and friend, inspired this post. I had read her 100 things list she posted in honor of her 100th post and loved it. So I'm gonna gank the idea and offer more little known? details of myself in honor of MY 100th post.

1. I am a cancer survivor...Hodgkin's lymphoma to be exact. It was brutal and I gritted my teeth and came out on top. Pretty darn proud of that.
2. I was born in Japan and spent the majority of my young life there. Sadly enough, I cannot speak the language. Why so? I was lazy.
3. Reading is one of my passions. I can finish a good-sized book in less than a day. Then I go back and re-read my favorite parts.
4. I love HGTV and any show that features decorating. Candice Olsen is one of my faves.
5. Dark chocolate is heaven! Especially wrapped around those orange jelly sticks.
6. I like my homemade cookies and brownies semi-burnt and crunchy. L and D always bake a batch a few extra minutes just for me.
7. I am the worst teacher in the world. I get it from my father. If D needs help with homework, he needs to go to his dad, 'cuz if he doesn't get it the first time I explain to him, I start pulling my hair out at the roots. When dad's not here, he's SOL.
8. I was in the varsity volleyball team in high school. I did double duty--I was also the boys volleyball net height checker...if I could stand up straight UNDER their net with the bottom of it grazing my head, then it was in regulation height.
9. I was the salutatorian in my graduating class. Impressive...until I say my class only had 21 people.
10. Utah is the place I have lived the longest. Before moving here, I believe I have lived in one place for at most 4 years.
11. I worshipped Olive Garden! I would get thoroughly annoyed whenever L cut it down as "not real Italian," until I went to Rome and had the real thing. Now, I just go to OG to have OG food, not Italian food.
12. I can disassemble an M-16 assault rifle and put it back together without having to refer to the manual.
13. I used to kickbox in my heyday. No, not aerobic kickboxing classes, but badass sparring. I made a 6'4" 220 lb man cry from a well-placed kick in the thigh.
14. L says I can find info on any given thing online. I suppose I should be able to with all the time I spend on the net.
15. Tunnels and bridges scare the begeesus out of me. I will scream my way through and over them each and every time.
16. The same holds for those road construction concrete barriers, and also having to drive sandwiched in between two trucks.
17. I have an escape route from every room in the house. Paranoid? Maybe. Prepared? All the time.
18. I am absolutely awful at keeping in touch. I rely heavily on blogging and MySpace to make up for my shortcomings.
19. I love to eat cold cold watermelon sprinkled with salt OR blended with tons of ice.
20. As much as I love watermelon, I cannot stand watermelon flavored candy or gum.
21. I can do laundry all day, I just HATE folding it, and HATE putting it away even more. Let's not even talk about ironing.
22. Until recently, I hated taking my contacts out at night...so I didn't. A severe eye infection later, don't think I'll be doing that again.
23. I'm a toolbelt diva now! I can officialy operate a miter saw, orbital jigsaw, and nail gun.
24. Guilty pleasure: weekly gossip magazines. I've cut myself off now, but L keeps buying them for me.
25. I love to cook. Everyday Italian by Giada DeLaurentiis always has recipes the whole fam can appreciate.
26. I enjoy sitting in the tub,in a scalding hot shower.
27. I eat SPAM, the classic mystery meat. It's a fave in the Philippines, and I grew up eating slices of it fried and served with garlic fried rice for breakfast.
28. Starbucks Cafe Mocha with extra whipped cream is a fave of mine, although the caffeine in the drink makes me drowsy.
29. I prepare pancit bihon (rice noodles) for each birthday. It's a Filipino tradition that is believed to symbolize long life.
30. I was selected through a taped audition to participate in the Pacific-Wide Honors Choir. A whole week of no school and only hours and hours of singing in Okinawa...can't beat that.
31. The only good popcorn is saturated in butter, or salt and sweet kettle style, eaten one kernel at a time. Even better when matched with Whoppers.
32. Orange juice consumed in amounts larger than a shot glass triggers migraines for me. Apparently, UTA weekends at the guard base seem to do the same.
33. I LOVE LOVE LOVE Christmas and everything it entails: Christmas trees, ornaments, lights, commercialism, wrapping paper, tradition and peanut butter balls.
34. My high school senior crush was my best friend. I couldn't understand why he couldn't see me in the same way until after graduation, he confessed he was gay. Now he goes to parties in drag. Go figure.
35. I collect shot glasses. I have at least one from every state. But they're all stashed away in a box somewhere.
36. I hate dressing rooms. I have a habit of buying hundreds of dollars worth of clothes, trying them on at home, then returning what I don't like.
37. As a sophomore, I travelled to Tokyo to participate in a CNN Tokyo video-filming seminar for a week. We taped a news segment for CNN and it aired in the country.
38. I would love to be a professional photographer.
39. I would love to be an interior decorator.
40. I would love to be a chef.
41. Isn't it obvious I have no idea what I want to be? I am fickle and have momentary obsessive fixations on different career paths.
42. I love to write! THAT has always been a constant.
43. Digital scrapbooking is an awesome pasttime with a rewarding product...if only I can master Adobe Photoshop...
44. Strangely enough, I love the smell of bleach...it signifies cleanliness.
45. I HATE it when my left arm is more dirty brown than my other arm because of driving in the summer.
46. I can dance decently. It helps to have an awesome partner who can lead.
47. Next year, I will be running 5k's, and 10k's. So by 2010, I can run a marathon.
48. I have trained to run the Army Ten Miler Run in Washington D.C. A stress fracture in my shin prevented me from participating.
49. My friends used to tease me about my "finger toes" since they seem abnormally long and because I can pick things up from the floor with them.
50. I am obsessive when it comes to countertops. They MUST be free of random items, and gleaming clean.
51. With three munchkins, my OCD nature concerning countertops have been constantly aggravated on a daily basis.
52. I love the lines on the carpet left behind by the vaccuum. It's evidence I have cleaned.
53. My brain keeps telling me to get rid of my dogs. My heart breaks every time I think about it.
54. There is nothing more heavenly than the feel of itty bitty baby hands on my face.
55. I have three wonderful wonderful children. I have been forbidden to have any more by my physical therapist lest my pelvis gets whacked out permanently.
56. As sad as it is, I am somewhat relieved to know once O is potty-trained, diapers will never be a household staple ever again.
57. At boot camp, when wearing it properly on my shoulders, my duffel bag hung below the backs of my knees. It made marching extremely difficult.
58. I developed a major case of shin splints during boot camp. My stride was half that of a normal person's...again...marching sucked.
59. To make things worse, the TI's found it amusing to make me a road guard just so they can see me run my little heart out.
60. I gave birth to D and S without an epidural or any other type of pain meds.
61. By the time O was ready to be born, I had the epiphany I had nothing to prove to anyone and gladly welcomed a more comfortable epidural-relieved labor.
62. Only until I met L did I ever have a happy Valentine's Day.
63. Every single year, it rains (or at least sprinkles ever so lightly) on my birthday.
64. When I was a kid, I fell into an open sewage canal in the Philippines. EEWWW.
65. When I was six, my sister pushed me, three fingers first, into an electric fan. Clank! Clank! Clank! Severed tendon later, I cannot move the first joint of my left ring finger.
66. As much as we hate each other at times, I cannot live without my sister nearby.
67. I am a sympathetic eater. If I see someone eat, I need to also...hence, my current figure. I need to hang out with anorexics.
68. I am also a sympathetic vomitter. Can't stand to hear or see it. Hanging out with anorexics and bullimics would make me REALLY thin.
69. I did not step foot in the U.S. until I was 18. (But that was Hawaii)
70. I did not step foot in the mainland U.S. until I was 20.
71. I was accepted into New York University's Stern School of Business under the Honors program, and also Yale University. But I was stupid and stayed in the PI.
72. One of my favorite books: The Alchemist by Paolo Coehlo. I plan to give all my kids a copy--it has such a great message.
73. I once had to play in a war exercise in which I had a backpack full of $1.5 million dollars. I had to form a makeshift "office" outside a tent with a cot, cash box, calculator, and four armed guards in 115 degree humid heat. Fun times.
74. O's conception was the lucky break that kept me from a tour of duty in Iraq.
75. I can float but somehow manage to sink when I try to move my arms and/or kick.
76. I cannot doggy paddle.
77. I had a driver's license before I learned to drive. I bought it in the PI, then learned to drive a manual afterwards.
78. I have the dirtiest sailor mouth in the history of short Asian women. Utah has somehow mitigated this condition.
79. I was a huge New Kids on the Block fan. My walls and ceiling were plastered with their posters...especially Jordan Knight (who is still hot).
80. Now, I have acquired a more mature taste for James Bond yumminess Daniel Craig and 300's Gerard Butler.
81. I once had my hair "styled" and cut as short as D's hair. EEEWWW. L forbids me to get this cut again (not that I ever would).
82. I love iced green tea with milk and sugar.
83. I will not tolerate multi colored lights, tinsel, or popcorn garland on my Xmas tree. It gives L justification to have his own gaudy tacky tree downstairs in the basement.
84. I am fluent in Tagalog, the main Philippine dialect. However, I am having trouble passing it on to my children.
85. I was once hypnotized in a show and jumped on stage and danced and lip-synched to Madonna's Vogue.
86. I would love to visit the Philippines again...if only to EAT all of the local foods I miss so much.
87. I am vacillating between the Philippines and another trip to Europe sans kids for the next big vacay.
88. My mind is constantly on-the-go, even when I sleep. According to L, right before I fall into a deep sleep, I am mumbling the next day's grocery list.
89. As a freshman in high school, I worked as a cashier at a McDonald's in Japan. I had to greet every customer with a "Irrashaimase!" (Welcome!) Needless to say, I quit after two months.
90. I love potato chips, the weirder the flavor, the better. But black pepper and sea salt chips are timeless.
91. When I was pregnant with D, I craved unripe green mangoes dipped in rock salt and I would also eat half a semi-frozen papaya all the time.
92. When I was pregnant with S, I craved McD's double cheeseburgers.
93. When I was pregnant with O, I craved Starbucks Cafe Mochas (de-caf of course). Can you tell which pregnancies got me fat?
94. I believe in Jesus Christ and his teachings of love. I am loving and accepting of all people, regardless of race, culture, religious and sexual preference. It is not my place to judge.
95. I want an IKEA kitchen complete with organizers and matching new cookware.
96. I want an orderly and weed-free backyard even more. Realization of my patio dream continues to elude me.
97. L and I stayed at a mansion in Key West for our honeymoon. It was only afterward did we learn the place is a well-known stop on the local ghost tours.
98. I almost got kicked out of the Sistine Chapel for touching Michelangelo's walls not once but three times.
99. Right before going to vacay in Disneyland, I found out I was preggers with O. I got suck waiting for L and D to ride the Matterhorn and Space and Splash Mountain. Booo!
100. This took me a whole week to come up with all this nonsense. Hope you enjoy.