Twenty Questions, Part I or Ten Questions with 10 More to Follow

Below is one of the final exercises for my writing class. The purpose of the exercise is to get to know yourself. My teacher believes that you must know yourself in order to write characters to which your readers can identify.

A lot of times, when people write, they have a tendency to gloss over the bad parts. We were encouraged to be honest when answering the questions and to write the good and bad about ourselves.

The lesson was not intended to be viewed by others, -- we were instructed to answer the questions and then destroy them -- but I want to learn to feel more comfortable with revealing my whole self and not just the cleaned up version of me, so I am posting my answers here.

1.) How would you describe yourself in three sentences?

Believe it or not, I am not much of a talker. I only speak when I have something to say. Also, I am a hopelessly good person who always tries to do the right thing.

2.) What have you done that you are proud of?

Wow. I'm having such a hard time answering this question. I don't know if it's because I feel I haven't done anything noteworthy, or if I feel uncomfortable tooting my own horn. It would be lame to bypass this question without offering at least one thing I've done that makes me want to puff out my chest, so I'll go with this: I was really proud the first time I had one of my posts showcased on indiebloggers.org, but that event was tainted when I emailed the link to all of my friends and only one of them (a freelance writer) wrote back to congratulate me. I was disappointed by the lack of response I received from those who care about me the most, but I was still proud of my achievement.

3.) Do you have any bad habits?

I am a notorious nighttime snacker and have the waistline to prove it. It's a habit I have a hard time breaking. Everyday I make the declaration that this will be the day that I stop snacking, and I'll do fine for a few days, maybe even a week, but sooner or later, I'm back to my old ways. Will someone please volunteer to come to my house at 7 pm every night and duck tape my hands and mouth? I think that's my only hope at this point.

By the way, this was the cleaned up version of my bad habits. I said I wanted to learn to reveal my whole self; I didn't say that I was going to be 100% successful at it. Besides, no one really wants to know that I sniff toe jam on occasion.

4.) How do you feel about the way you look?

Every once in a while, I'll look in the mirror and like what I see, in spite of my imperfections, and I'll feel amazingly beautiful. Most of the time, I feel uncomfortable with the reflection staring back at me. I spend a lot of emotional energy trying to recapture that confident feeling, and it always seems to allude me.

5.) What kind of work do you do?

Incredibly unchallenging, uninspiring, life-sucking administrative work.

6.) How do you feel about your parents?

I love my mom dearly. She is my rock. Whenever things start feeling shaky, I lean on her, and she steadies me. My mom and biological father divorced when I was a baby. He went back to his native country and we haven't seen or heard from him since. I'm a bit unhappy with him for that, but not so unhappy that I wouldn't pursue reconciliation. My stepfather is no longer in my life, and I'd like to keep it that way.

7.) How do you feel about your siblings?

I am an only child so I don't have any siblings. My mom was pregnant once when I was in elementary school. I was happy and all but I wouldn't allow myself to get carried away with excitement. Deep down inside, I knew that I was not destined to be a big sister. A few weeks later, my mom miscarried.

8.) What's your attitude toward money?

I am horrible with money. HOR-RI-BLE. I set another goal this year to save a certain amount of money and have failed miserably. Again. Eating out, another one of my bad habits, was my downfall. My attitude toward money is I wish someone would save me from myself and manage it for me.

9.) Tell me about your childhood in one paragraph?

My childhood wasn't great -- there was a lot of dysfunction and sadness -- but it wasn't completely horrible. There are people out there with much more tragic childhoods than mine. I have quite a few happy memories, most of them involving my mom and grandmother, but some of them involve my stepfather and his side of the family. I spent most of my childhood alone, but I wouldn't necessarily call it lonely. I had one close friend in my early youth, but by the time we reached junior high school, we had drifted apart. I never had any friends that I hung out with after that until I reached young adulthood. Being alone is an environment that I learned to adapt to and enjoy.

10.) What's your philosophy of life?

What?!? You mean I have to pick just one philosophy that I have to live by and apply to every area of my life regardless of whether it's appropriate or not? Well, if you are going to put a gun to my head, I guess my philosophy would be this -- "So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets." Matthew 7:12. I truly believe that this world would be a better place if we all treated each other with more compassion.

To be continued...

Taking a teensy break

The coming week is the last week for my beginning writer's class. I am going to take a bit of a break from blogging while I finish up our final writing assignment. I am actually revising The Wedding post to turn in as my final assignment (Shh, don't tell anybody.) When I wrote it originally, I thought it would be a nice piece to use in my class, so I think I'm gonna go with that.

Another reason for the brief hiatus is so that I can spend more time with The Boyfriend. He's going to be on vacation from work starting Tuesday, and I want to make sure I have plenty of time for phone dates.

After this class is over, I won't be taking any more courses until the first of the year (There's way too much turkey and dressing to eat between then and New Year's.) Then I'll probably take two more of these lightweight workshops before moving to something more intense.

My mom is against me taking endless classes and thinks I should start putting out "product". To a certain extent, she has a point. I don't want to take class after class in an attempt to avoid experiencing the rejection that I am bound to get. But at the same time, I don't think my skills are developed enough to produce "product" that would make it past anybody's file 13.

And so I write, and learn, and write some more. I just pray to God that it's helping.

Sun Chips & Chocolate Cake

L.'s last day of work in our office was Friday and I took on the responsibility of planning her going away luncheon. The menu consisted of typical lunch fare but the star of the show, the reason to drag yourself out of bed and come to work that day was the chocolate cake.

At our office, we never pass up an opportunity to eat chocolate cake. We actually look for excuses to fill our mouths with moist, fudgy goodness. Your grandmother didn't die in her sleep? Let's celebrate the occasion with chocolate cake. You stubbed your toe on the coffee table? Chocolate cake will fix that right up. Your husband left you for another woman? Eat some chocolate cake. You'll feel better.

Even though there are very few questions in life where chocolate cake isn't the answer, woman can not live by chocolate cake alone (although Lord knows I've tried.) With that knowledge, I felt compelled to offer something more substantial to co-workers who don't actually enjoy bouncing off their cubicle partitions in a sugar-induced fit of hyperactivity. For those people, I provided sub sandwiches and chips.

Once she heard about my party plans, Melissa asked if she could do anything to help. I pretty much had everything under control. I had ordered the subs and picked up several 2-liters of soda at the grocery store. My only concern was whether the one bag of chips I bought would be enough for 10 people. Melissa eagerly volunteered to bring another bag. Great, I thought, problem solved.

The day of the luncheon, as I was arranging the sandwiches, plates and cups, I asked Melissa if she had remembered to bring the chips. "Oh, yeah, they're right here," she said and placed a bag of Sun Chips in my hand. "I brought these for people who wanted to eat something healthier." I stared at the bag for a moment and wondered how Melissa could have missed the mark on this one.

I mean, really. Who brings Sun Chips to a party? A party where everyone is looking forward to pigging out on chocolate cake, mile-high sub sandwiches and. . .chocolate cake. When you are eating food this decadent, what difference does it make how many fat grams your chips have?

As I grudgingly opened the bag and placed it on the table, I made a mental note to never ask Melissa to bring food ever again.

After I had eaten my sandwich and the fat-laden chips I brought, I decided to be a little adventurous and sample some of Melissa's Sun Chips. I put a few chips on my plate and then cautiously placed one in my mouth. To my surprise, I didn't feel like vomiting. The french onion seasoning was almost enough to mask the funny taste and texture. The not-so-bad flavor coupled with the belief that Sun Chips might actually be good for me may be enough to inspire me to buy a bag or two at the grocery store today.

I wonder what they would taste like smeared with chocolate cake?

Writer's block

I have a scandalous post swimming around in my head but I am really struggling with how best to tell the story. Please bear with me for a little while longer. I think I may be tired from all the busyness and drama of work.

In the meantime, go check out my interview at BlogInterviewer.com. If you vote for me to win $50, I'll promise the money will go towards important things like feeding underprivileged children in third-world countries. Or I'll spend it all on chocolate. It's a toss up really.