If I write 25 things will you people stop tagging me?

Originally posted: Friday, February 13, 2009 at 4:59am
Context: For a while college facebookers were all "tagging" each other in these chain messages. In an act of pure procrastination and insomnia, I played along.

Alright, I've been tagged in these things a few times now, so I figured I'd take the time all early in the morning to go ahead and bare my soul to you all in a bullet point fashion. Because soul-bearing should be well organized if done at all.

1. When I was little I collected really weird things, and really half-heartledly:

• erasers (mostly Lisa Frank garbage, for those of you who remember that stuff)
• rocks
• my teeth (I waited for them to fall out naturally)
• stickers
• pencils
• letters and cards that people sent me
• baseball cards  (I have a ton of worthless cards. I was a big Daryl Strawberry fan. Ouch.)
• coins (when I say "half-heartedly" it means that there are Chuck-e-cheese tokens in there)
• hairballs (this collection didn't last long. My mom found out I was stealing the hair from everyone's brushes and got really freaked out. Made me stop.)
• diaries/journals (I pity the poor person who ever tries to write my biography. I've always kept at least two journals going simultaneously.)

2. I added a new collection about 2 years ago: bouncy balls. I think I wrote about it in another note.

3. I can't do math. Can't. Do. Math. I'm not being humble, people. It's bad. Yesterday I had to ask someone what 4+5 was. I would've gotten it eventually...

5. I can't count, either.

6. Almost all of my earliest memories of my brother Connor involve him getting me to ride on a bike/scooter/wagon/sled/skateboard with him down some big hill and then crashing. That and him laughing whenever my sister Reagan or I would get mad at him.

7. When I was in elementary school Reagan would babysit us when we got home, and Connor would get me to mutiny with him against her and lock her in her room so we could watch tv instead of do homework.

8. I've never really belonged to a group of friends that I hang out with every day. I'm more of a drifter who has friends in different groups of people and spends time with them randomly.
* I will make a slight correction here, as I definitely had best friends in Cairo who I saw ALL the time. Ya'll know who you are.

9. Whenever people find out that my parents met in the circus (no, not *at* the circus) they almost always feel compelled to be witty and say something like, "Well that explains some things."

10. I'm pretty indecisive on most things. When people ask me about my favorites I usually make something up for that moment. Sorry if that makes you all question whether you really know me.

11. I am prone to becoming a part of strange stories. A few weeks into my semester in Egypt, I accidentally dyed most of my clothing *pink* in a terrible, terrible decision-making process.

12. I recently followed up on room-for-rent ad at a house only to find 6 dogs named Doodle, Doo-dah, Two-toe, Maximoose, Small thing, and Smaller thing ... and 5 cats. One cat "helps" a guy who lives there (he goes by the name Meow--the man does) composing music by "telling him when it's right on."

13. Last semester I rented an apartment in Egypt from the ex Egyptian Ambassador to China. Craziest time there had to be when we had 8 girls living in an apt meant for three: Me and Daphne from USC; Lindsey from Michigan; Karla from El Salvador, but living in Israel; Dina a Russian-Israeli; Armen, Samah, and Juliet from Jordan. IHOM - International House of Mormons (minus Daphne, but she's kinda Mormon by association).

12. In Cairo, I got addicted to soda. Me + soda is as close to drunk as you'll ever see me. Under the influence of soda I composed a number of impromptu songs about people and other stuff.

13. I'm not allowed to make fun of Uggs or people who wear them after I had to wear a pair of pink Uggs for about a month straight in my senior year of high school. Bone spurs in my achilles tendons necessitated loose boots.

14. I had a pet lobster and crawdad and some fish until the crawdad, Gilligan, ate the feelers and all but one leg off the lobster, Fivel. I fed Fivel with chopsticks for a few days and watched in horror as he could only push himself in circles. And then he died. Gilligan laster slightly longer until I trusted him to Elisa while I was in Cairo. He made a few attempts at escape and then died of a broken heart. Even ruthless lobster-mauling machines have teeny-tiny, gross little hearts, people.

15. When I was in Egypt, men would always ask if I was German and I'd say yes so they couldn't talk to me anymore. Until I realized that there are quite a few Egyptians who can speak German...so I switched my story and told people that I was from Argentina so I'd be safe if anyone tried to call my bluff.

16. I can sing with my mouth closed. No, not humming, it's singing.

17. I procrastinate. Last semester I had a book review due, woke up at (Lindsey, correct me here) 6am, read the whole book and took notes, wrote a 12 page review, and got it in to class by 4pm. Favorite quote during that episode as I crouched over my laptop in our dining room: "Lindsey, if I pull this one off I won't learn my lesson, but I sure will be happy."

18. I stop at stop signs.

19. My elementary school had a milk program where they'd leave a crate of milk sitting outside each classroom, and you picked one up on your way out to recess. Well, some days they'd leave them out too long, or re-use the unopened milks the next day, and there'd be bad milk with chunks in it. So now I've got this strange compulsion to smell all milk before drinking it, and I'm always asking for a second opinion on it.

20. I can eat a lot more than people assume.

21. I'm surprised that I've been able to focus long enough to write this many things. Ummm... I love the internet or interweb or blogosphere, or blogonet, or whatever else it goes by.

22. Oh! I like nerdy games. My friend Stephanie Shin and I used to give each other hard words to spell in an attempt to stump one another. And Juli Kiyan and I were once reduced to playing 'Guess the Historical Figure' while waiting for Mr. Atchley to open the Hobachi room for us.

23. I love quirky websites that are useful and fun to peruse:
www.freerice.com
www.flashcardexchange.com
http://www.bored.com/getannoyed/general.htm -- A list of ways to annoy people. Some good ones.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXpYk7WGN5Y -- Most awkward Letterman interview EVER
http://www.virtual-bubblewrap.com/popnow.shtml
http://bored.com/dumb/ -- really dumb
http://letmegooglethatforyou.com/?q=cool%2C+huh%3F+-+Caitlin
http://images.google.com/imagelabeler/

24. I really like learning new languages. So far I can converse in English and Spanish, get by in Egyptian Arabic, greet people in Mandarin, and say animals, colors, greetings, and days of the week in Hungarian. I'm always up for learning more if you want to teach me!

25. If you really want to get to know anything else about me, just ask. I'm too tired to think up any more things. (yeah, I know I cheated with that whole "I can't count" trick up in #5, but whatever.)

Coptic Cairo and al-Azhar Park

Yesterday I went on a day trip to Coptic Cairo and al-Azhar Park. Those two places, more than any other two that I've visited in Egypt, gave me a real sense of being "somewhere else."

I think I may have mentioned before that people are people no matter where you go (even if I didn't mention it before, there you have it now). There's a certain consistency in human nature that makes me feel less confused about my being transplanted into a different culture from my own. ANYHOW, for a while I thought that, considering how people are remarkably similar even given vast distances between them, there was nowhere in Cairo where I would feel really, really far from the US. All it took was one day trip to Coptic Cairo and al-Azhar Park for the very real sense of being in an ancient and foreign land to settle over me.



There are a number of sites in Coptic Cairo that are thought to be places where the Holy Family (Jesus, Mary, and Joseph) visited so long ago. At one such site is a well that is said to have been blessed by the Holy Family when they stopped there. When my friends and I entered, there were some Greek pilgrims there, gathering water in bottles and reverently crossing themselves with it.

In another area of Coptic Cairo is another peaceful and strangely beautiful place: a cemetery. There are mausoleums that look like small churches, tombs with the occupants' pictures carved into them, graves with flowers and other plants that seem to be flowing from the graves themselves. There are pools of cooled wax from candles that seem to have been burning for years. And over it all is that fine, democratizing Cairo dust that mutes some of the differences from grave to grave. It's like a small, silent village. I almost expected to be greeted by shopkeepers, or to see children running around, or hear music winding between the statues and various architectural tributes to loved ones.



Most obvious was the silence.

Most other place in Cairo, one is bound to hear the honking of taxis and minibuses. The cemetery in Coptic Cairo is restful. I suppose the people there tend to get along. One image that impressed itself on me was where two mausoleums stood as neighbors with wildly different themes. One was obviously Greek with its Parthenon-like pillars and white marble, while the other was clearly more at home in the Middle East.



And then there's al-Azhar Park. It is a beautifully landscaped park on what used to be a landfill. We visited in the evening and, like many other Cairenes that night, got to enjoy Cairo's unbelievably crowded silhouette.



This was one of those places where it was abundantly clear that Toto and I were not in Kansas anymore. Minarets burst up over thousands of brick apartment buildings. Modestly-dressed women walk leisurely with their husbands and children, a hijaab covering many a head. And I had forgotten how it felt to be in open spaces until we got to look down over the city; in my mind's eye I imagined civil engineers staring drop-jawed at the insanity below.



Are you staring drop-jawed? Go ahead and click on the photo for a larger version. Stare. I did. The view caught me off-guard as I hadn't been out of that maze of buildings for quite some time. And then there I was, above it all. There is modernity built up right next to historic architecture. This is a land where some people can look out from their balcony and see pyramids in the distance and taxi cabs racing along downstairs.

How different this is from "historical sites" in the United States. In my own home town we make a big to-do about maintaining Victorian homes built in the 19th Century. Go to Egypt and you can do handstands on a structure built before 2000 BC. If that doesn't serve to make you feel the weight of history, I don't quite know what will.