Secret #5

Sometimes, I forget to breathe.

That sounds like a cheesy line from a sappy chick flick.

But really, it is how it sounds. A lot of times when I dance, I'm concentrating, and realize after I finish that I'd been holding my breath for much of it. Today, I noticed on at least 3 occasions that I would say something to someone and at the end of the last word take a big gulp of air, and then, for some unknown reason, hold my breath.

It's not like I hold my breath so long that I'd pass out or anything. It's just weird to catch yourself not breathing.

The last 2 years

I've had my computer for 2 years now.

The main thing I do with my computer is listen to music; I'm the kind of person who always has music playing.

Today, I did a little math. I have listened to various songs 38,541 times (as of this very moment, although I'm currently listening to music, and that number is steadily increasing) in the last 2 years. And that doesn't count the hundreds, if not thousands of songs that I listened to most of but skipped the last 10 seconds, songs from my ipod, songs I listened to while practicing dance, and the probably hundreds (again, if not thousands) of songs I've listened to on YouTube and Pandora. So, we'll round up to 40,000, which is probably a great underestimation (as noted by my roommate, who experiences this music playing), but we'll go with it.

There are 730 days in 2 years. Do the math, and that's just under 55 songs a day. We'll say an average song is 3 and a half minutes long. If that assumption is correct, that means that on average, every one of my days in the past 2 years has included 3.208 hours of music in it. That's only 13% of my day. However, think about it:

We'll assume that I spend 7 hours sleeping. That's 29% of my day right there, in which music cannot be a part.

We'll also assume that I spend roughly 4 hours a day in classes, during which I can't listen to music. That's 17%.

All together, those equal 46%. Nearly half of my day is spent doing things where listening to music isn't an option.

I also just realized that I spend roughly 6 hours a week practicing dance, if not more. We'll add enough to make it 4.5 hours.

I work 20 hours a week, and I usually spend 90% of my time there listening to music. That adds 2.9 hours to the number.

7.4 hours spent listening to music out of 24 hours in a day is 31%, and 7.4 our of 13 (24 minus the hours spent sleeping and in class) is 57%.

Fifty-seven percent* of my available time is spent listening to music.

I do not have a problem with this.

*Not a definite number. May actually be more or less; my guess would be more.

The Shower

Think about it. The shower really is a sort of secret world.

You never really see anyone else shower (hopefully), so you don't really know what anyone else does in the shower. I mean, obviously they bathe themselves and get clean, but, for example, what order do they do it in?

I've thought about this many times while in the shower. I have a natural routine, and can't imagine doing it any other way. First off, I'm not the kind of person who gets in the shower and then turns the water on. If you do that, you run the risk of getting sprayed by freezing cold water--not high on my list of things I want to do. So, I turn the water on, get in when it's the appropriate temperature, and get myself completely wet. Then, I wash my hair, leaving the shampoo in my hair to sit while I wash my body, starting with my neck and moving down my body. I rinse off both body and hair, put conditioner in my hair, and let it sit while I wash my face. Then I rinse it all off, and get out. This is the only way that feels right to me.

However, I'm sure you do it differently. And I will never know. And that, my friends, is why the shower is your own secret world.

You could be doing it wrong, but is there really a right way? Who's to say? To you, whatever you do in the shower is the right way to do it. And no one is going to convince you otherwise.

Secret #4

Sometimes I like to do things the hard way.

For example, sometimes** I enter things (like into spreadsheets in excel, printing a bunch of envelopes, etc) into the computer by hand.

Maybe I just don't trust the computer to do it right (or my ability to tell the computer how to do it right), but I think its more to validate myself, to feel like I can accomplish something without the need to use some fancy mechanical technological whing-dingy dealie-bob (say that 10 times fast). I just like to do stuff on my own.

**By sometimes I mean if I can get away with doing it while at work, and always when I'm at home.

Secret #3

Words to the song "Silent Night":

Silent night, holy night.
All is calm, all is bright
Round yon virgin, mother and child.

When I was little, I thought there was a period after bright. Which meant, in my head, that "yon virgin" was round.

Which confused me, because I thought that Mary was supposed to be "fair." It just didn't make sense.

When did I realize what it really meant?

Probably sometime in high school, if not later.

Kids

Instead of studying tonight, I started blog surfing. It seems that most blogs out there are for families to post pictures of their kids on, and especially for people who've just had babies. Strangely enough, I've come across a lot of blogs about people who are infertile. It doesn't seem like something I'd blog about, but whatever floats your boat. Oh, and along with the baby blogs, it seems like all the other ones are Asian teenagers, mostly girls.

I am not a part of any of these qualifiers. Should I stop blogging?...

At any rate, I've learned a few things.

One of my biggest fears is that I'll have ugly kids. Qualities I hope my children don't have:

1) Razor teeth. Some kids just look like they could rip you to shreds and eat you alive. Those kids scare the crap out of me.

2) Big heads. Some kids have the most gigantic heads! And tiny little bodies. It's just not right.

3) As a subset of 2, I hope my babies don't have weirdly shaped heads. Some babies have the sideways cone head, or gigantic protruding foreheads...this one isn't as important cuz some kids grow out of that, but...yeah.

Ok so maybe I'm a little harsh. I just want cute kids. It's kind of a crapshoot, really. Some of the most beautiful people I know have the ugliest kids, and vice versa.

And I'm pretty sure I'm just saying things that all of you are thinking, you just don't want to say. But that's what I'm good at.

Secret #2

Fact 1: I live in a town house, and it has 3 levels. Heating this thing is a nightmare. The top floor gets really hot, the middle floor is pretty cold, and the basement is freezing. I've complained to myself about how much it costs to heat this place for awhile, as well as the fact that I don't get to use my winter quilt because it gets really hot upstairs.

Fact 2: My apartment has 3 bathrooms. One on the main floor, and 2 that connect to the bedrooms upstairs.

The connection I made between the two today: I may have complained about how it's hot upstairs, but it's so much better to sit down on a warm toilet seat than a freezing cold one, especially when you just come in from the cold.

Get to the chopper!

Somehow my old job has managed to remove me as an author on their blog, but still hasn't terminated me.

I really couldn't care less except for the fact that it makes it so I can't see my time card for my new job, which is really getting old. So, if you work at the Math Lab, give someone a hard time for me about not terminating me yet. It can be your Christmas present to me.

Happy Holidays.

Secret #1

This is the beginning of an experiment. Sometimes I just don't know what to write, but I really want to write. I have a friend who has "confessions" on her blog, so I've decided to do secrets of my own. While I can't promise any of them will be juicy, or used to blackmail me, or even interesting, maybe you'll glean just a small part of who I am from it. So, here goes.

Secret #1

I've never cried in a movie.

I don't plan on it ever happening, either.

I've never cried during a play, concert, or any other activity of that sort.

It's not that I'm a heartless rock, although I have considered the possibility. Perhaps I can realize the fact that the characters in the movie are usually fictional. I'm not really sure what it is.

And there you have it. My first secret.

Don't touch that door.

I'm not a feminist by any stretch of the imagination.

But sometimes, I just want to open my own door.

Is that bad?