If you don't know me by now...

Que crees! I got tagged by my impresionante amigo Jarrett E. Casey to list 25 Random Facts about myself! I love being tagged and I'm IT! Aqui las instruciones: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. Orale pues...

1-I have an incredibly flexible back. I can bring my legs up around my back and touch my head with the tops of my shoes.

2-If there is anything broken, ghetto, run-down, dilapidated, in need of repair or sketchy-looking, I seek after those things! I'm also disdainful of really luxurious, expensive or nice things. I’m not sure why I am like that; but I will chose the proletariat over the bourgeois every time.

3-I worked as a figure drawing model for the BYU art department for 10 months and had a BYU issued bikini. I had to sign a document affirming that I would not wear said bikini on occasions other than modeling shifts. I know, it was SCANdalous.

4-When I was 12 I played Dorothy in a production of The Wizard of Oz.

5-I prefer to read while I eat, so I like to eat alone. I can adapt and be social, but sometimes when someone comes in while I am in them middle of a book/meal I get really irritated (secretly).

6-I saw the first Pirates of the Caribbean 9 times in theaters (and only paid for it twice)

7-My best friends from HS and I had porn names based on inside jokes, which we have never revealed to anyone (at least I haven't).

8-On occasion I can do really good impersonations of people. Also, when someone with an accent is speaking with me, I automatically copy it when I speak back to them. I promise I don't mean to do it.

9-I still know all the words to most Eminem songs although I have been off the Slim for awhile.

10-Some of my songs with boyfriends have been (this is in chronological order)
99 Red Balloons by Goldfinger
Drowning by the Backstreet Boys (hee!)
Hold Me Now by the Thompson Twins
With or Without You by U2
Motorcycle Drive By by Third Eye Blind
Beautiful Mess by Diamond Rio
End of the Road by Boys II Men
You're Still You by Josh Groban
Romeo & Juliet by Dire Straits
Another Day from Rent
Wake Me Up when September Ends by Green Day
You & Me by Lifehouse
Volverte a Ver by Juanes
Wow, there's a good range there of poignant to embarrassing, which I guess can also describe the relationships themselves. :)

11-I alway wanted to have *12 children* but I think it's a little late for that now. I also wanted them all to be sons, I have never wanted a daughter.

12-I love onions and spicy food. Si no pica, no rica!

13-I love metaphors and when other people describe things in metaphors it delights me.

14-My favorite GA is Jeffrey R. Holland. The GA I am most terrified of is Elder Bednar.

15-I am constantly plugged into my ipod (in ancient times it was a discman) and I love to walk places while listening to music.

16-I was a solo sister in the MTC and my "companions" were 7 of the raddest elders of all time.

17-When I took the ACT, I got 36 on the reading, 17 on the math. I had to get diagnosed with a math disability in order to waive a remedial math class so I could graduate from college.

18-I am horrible with directions and anyone who trusts me is insane because I will get you lost. I can barely find my way out of a building. It's demoralizing.

19-I am a fan of fake special ops positions and giving titles to groups of friends and significant times in my life. (The Dynasty, NRA, the Yahtzee Boys, the Summer of George, the Bravey Bunch, commissioner of Christmas Celebrations, Caroling and Baptism Specialist, the Quiet Police, Chief Judge, Zone Leaderette)

20-I suffer for people who suffer.

21-When I lived in Romania I loved to go "gypsy hunting;" I would visit gypsy villages and make friends with them. Once before I left my favorite family dressed me and my friends up in their traditional gypsy wedding clothes and we took fake engagement pictures with all the guys in the neighborhood. Gypsies still fascinate me and I wish I could live among them for awhile like Isabel Fonseca, but once again being a white girl is ruining my life.

22-I had a really hard time getting called stateside and even though I loved! my mission sometimes I am still a little sensitive about it.

23-I have a real live soul-mate but we are star-crossed and will never be together. (It was just that the time was wrong.)

24-Kyle Kenny is going to make a movie about me being barren and it will be called BLOODLINE: rated PG-13.

25-On my mission in Houston, I taught a gang member who tattooed my name on his chest. This is possible the number one coolest thing about me, ever. :)

That moment in time when we'll be set free

I love walking in the graveyard here. I love the statues and the stories carved in wood and stone. I found this grave of Maria Ines Flores. Fallecido en 1955. Do you think she is the tree now? It's like she escaped and kept on living.

Every page begins with You

I have had a terrible dearth come upon my blog. I don't know if I'm ready to catch up on everything but I didn't want that whiny lesserthan post at the top of the page anymore. (I am effectively convinced of social work again. It's okay if I am not as quick or bright as other people, because I can be willing to learn.) There will be a few other new ones below, they are little fledglings not fully formed but I will let them fly anyway.

There's a Catholic picture that I just love that has Christ placing his hand on his heart (it is probably el sagrado corazon sticking grotesquely to the outside of his chest, but luckily we can't see it because of His Hand), and from his heart are glowing pink and blue lights. Every time I am out somewhere and I see a store of idolos or a stand of pictures at a feria, I have to stop and check if they have this image. Isai always tells me when he sees it somewhere, "They have your picture for 30 pesos at the mercado." I have three of these cuadros in my little room right now and every time I look at them I think of "glory streams from thy holy face, with the dawn of redeeming grace." The lights also remind me of lightsabers, which makes me feel protected. "Not peace but a sword." But really, at this time, just peace.


Today was the first grupo de adolescentes I have attended since early December and oh the glory to see the kids come running in! "Ay maestra, ya regresaste!" The directoras of TRACA left me to run the group today and we did a New Years activity; we folded a piece of paper in half and on one side drew a trunk, on the other side a suitcase. In the trunk we drew and listed the things that we wanted to lock up and leave behind from the old year, the experiences, memories, and behaviors that caused us pain. The suitcase we filled with all the things we wanted to take with us on our journey into the new year. At the end, we cut away our heavy baggage and left it there, the suitcases we took home with us.

This caught my imagination although some of the kids struggled with it. The ones who don't go to school sometimes stumble with artsy expressive projects. Luis needed me to write for him and I told him he could whisper his ideas if he felt shy. He said gruffly, "Write in the trunk that I don't want my parents to fight anymore." He had me write "tristeza, enojo, miedo, contencion" in the trunk. He wanted to fill his suitcase with flowers, love, and friends. He drew stick figures holding hands and flowers in between them. I loved his bashfully delighted look when we clapped for him later. Juan reminded me of my brother Bill when he said he was leaving the video games he played at the public arcade behind: "They are making me waste my life. " (HA!) Winchel might have the most full and cluttered trunk in real life, but the reality is that it's Pandora's box and at 12 there is not much he can shut away. I think he didn't know how to articulate that and that's why he sat silently for so long. Finally he said, "Put in the suitcase that I want to be a mechanic like my brother. And that I want to go to school." I do anything to make Winchel smile because his whole face is starving for it and when it comes it is so filling.

And me? What will I leave behind this year? More broken angels. In my trunk I wrote pride, intimidation, criticism, bad memories which I drew as dead leaves. I drew a sun in my suitcase for the esperanza I want shining brightly before me. 3 hearts for faith, charity, and love. Books and a chain of stick figures for being "bien accompanada" (well accompanied?). I could have drawn a yellow bird, but not yet, not yet, not yet. I feel tonight that I have the vida abundante. I have such a short time yet to love this and let everything sink into my heart before I get lost in a February song. I am going out into the morning sun of the open road with my suitcase. How can I regret this life? It is so beautiful streamed with earth sorrow, longing for home.

When Luis left this afternoon he gave me the besito on the cheek that everyone exchanges in comings and goings but then he threw his arms around me and hugged me, hard. I can't explain. I hope I can make them feel a little of how much I love them.