This is my 200th Post - 200 Things - Part 1

WOW, 200 posts! I'm pretty impressed I reached this number so quickly. I've only really been actively blogging on a daily basis since June.


So, in honor of my 200th post, I've decided to do something I've seen others do, and that is give you a "100 things about me" post...times two. However, because I don't want to hog all your "blog-hopping" time today...I'm going to break this up into pieces. I'll give it to ya 50 at a time.

So I give you - 200 things about me: - The first 50


1. I was born in Africa

2. Specifically, I was born in Luanda, capital city of Angola a country on the western coast of Africa.

3. Angola was a Portuguese colony at the time, and my parents both moved there as youngsters, met and were married there, and had me.

4. That last one wasn't really about me, but it was about my history so it counts.

5. I left Africa when I was 8 months old, for Portugal

6. I lived in Portugal until I was almost, but not quite, 10 years old.

7. While I lived in Portugal, we moved 9 times.


8. I have wonderful memories of my childhood in Portugal, and even though money was tight, I only remember ever being happy and thinking we had it all.


9. My brother was born when I was 9 years old and became the love of my young life.


10. To this day my brother and I have a bond like few siblings I know. I don't think we've ever had a "real" fight, and I love that even now, at 23 he still comes to me for advice and support.


11. I'm really proud of the man my brother is finally growing up to be.

12. I left Portugal for the U.S. the day before my 10th birthday.

13. I became a U.S. citizen at the age of 17 (I think) because my parents took the citizenship test while my brother and I were still minors so we'd become citizens automatically.

14. I have now lived in this country almost three times as long as I lived in Portugal.

15. I consider myself to be an American in every way that matters.

16. I think this country is flawed in many ways, and wish we'd do a better job of being Americans.

17. That said, I'm proud to be an American, love the freedoms and opportunities that this country has afforded me, and don't plan on ever living anywhere else.


18. However, I do have fantasies of retiring to some tropical beach somewhere in Mexico or Jamaica, and won't completely rule out that possibility.


19. Since moving to the U.S. I've moved 5 times, the first four within the same city, the last time to the next town over, about 5 minutes from my parents' house.


20. I live about 45 miles north of Boston.


21. I went to college in Boston, at Suffolk University.


22. Suffolk was a commuter school at the time, so I never had a "campus" college experience.


23. I don't have a problem with that.


24. My time at college was what "they" say high school should be. "The best four years of your life"...or something like that.


25. College was really an eye opening experience for me, I learned a lot about myself, about life, about others.


26. While in college, I went to school full time, worked full time, and still managed to have time for a pretty darn active social life.


27. I also managed to keep a GPA above a 3.5 the entire time I did the above.


28. My major in college was Communication and Journalism because I wanted to be a reporter or just any kind of writer when I "grew up".


29. I had a minor panic attack my junior year in college when I realized I'd never get a paying job doing the above, and I had way too much debt to risk it, so I added a paralegal minor when most other students were taking the "rocks for jocks" sorts of classes.



30. Suffolk is NOT a sports school, our most celebrated sport at the time was soccer, but the only one we all partipated in attending was intramural basketball. Which was HUGE and I loved going to see.


31. Therefore, I never experienced the "college" sports phenom that seems so widespread in this country.


32. So, most of our extracurricular activities involved more cerebral or artistic pursuits.


33. On that note, I joined the Forensics team my junior year in college. (Yep, along with adding a minor and working full time).


34. No, Forensics doesn't actually have anything to do with dead bodies and CSI investigations. It's just a fancy word for the Speech and Debate Teams


35. I was actually pretty good at this Speech stuff, and won several awards in my short time on the team.


36. With the Forensics team I was able to travel to several schools in the New England and New York area for competitions, and also to a national competition in Flagstaff, Arizona.


37. That trip to Arizona is pretty much when the travel bug bit me long and hard, and hasn't let go yet.


38. One of the speeches I delivered was an informative speech on Pez (yes, the candy). Go ahead, ask me anything about it's history, I can tell you.


39. From the time I was young my dad would tell me that I should become either a lawyer or a politician because of how much I loved to debate.


40. At one point I had aspirations of going to law school and becoming a hot shot Boston lawyer, litigating major cases like you see them do on Law and Order type shows.


41. I knew, however, that it's not exactly like that in the real world, so decided to work in a law firm as a paralegal for a while after college, to decide if that was in fact the world for me.


42. It is now 10 years later, I'm at my fourth law firm, and still working as a paralegal. Obviously, I decided against law school.


43. I'm extremely confident in that if I had chosen to go to law school, I would have done well and would be, in fact, working at some Boston firm, making good money.


44. But I'm even more confident that I made the right choice when I decided that I just didn't want the school debt to enter a career that would practically require me to give up any personal life I have in order to be successful.


45. I think it is extremely tough for a female to be taken seriously in several different professions, and law is one of those professions, and therefore, women have to work twice as hard as men, in order to be seen as the "bitches" they need to be to be taken seriously. I didn't want to deal with that crap.


46. Most lawyers I know, male or female, hate their jobs.


47. I won't tell you that being a paralegal was or is my dream job, but I actually enjoy what I do, and aside from my gripes here at The Firm, I like my job.


48. I especially like the fact that when I leave at the end of the day, I leave my job behind me. I don't take work home, I don't have to think about it until the next morning, and I can focus on the rest of my life.


49. While at one point I thought I would be a "career driven" person, I've realized that my motivation to work has changed as I have gotten older. I'm now driven by the desire to have a good, happy, comfortable life. I work to live, I don't live to work.


50. I don't have a problem with that.


Check back tomorrow for part 2, or The Next 50.

Also, check back later for Follow-up Friday.