Who I Am

So I saw Pekka's comment on the previous post, and I realized suddenly how very right he was... We can spend hours chatting about absolutely nothing, we're perfectly comfortable with FB-stalking each other, and we know perfectly well how most of us can turn everything into sexual innuendos. We have random nicknames, and MOST of us are aware that Melissa is not my name... :P

And at the same time, we know almost nothing about each other. I mean, besides the obvious. Everyone knows I'm OCD when it comes to anything remotely cute, etc. So I thought I'd take this opportunity to re-introduce myself, and tell you all sorts of random stuff about me! [aka, the things that are constantly referenced but have never been actually stated]

I'm from Minnesota [not Michigan], as most of you SHOULD be able to remember T_T Not that it's completely obvious or anything *eyeroll* ;) I have two parents [still married], and one little sister, currently a freshman in high school. I have two cats, Simba and Zippy. Simba is mine, and looks like a mini mountain-lion. Zippy is my sister's, and is splotchy dark grey and white. Both are boys, despite the humane society mistaking Simba for a girl all those years ago... Simba is about 9 or 10 now (we don't know quite how old he was when we got him), and I believe Zippy is about 4 years old.

I'm currently in Des Moines, Iowa, at Drake University (because you totally forgot that as well, I'm sure, Dave *sarcasm* ;) ) I'm studying Theatre Tech/Design, and Terry should come join me... right, right? *pokepoke*

I play two instruments, the flute and the piano. I started Piano when I was 6 or 7 years old, and flute when I was about 11. I'm absolutely hopeless at sports, although I did do horseback-riding for several years. Someday I'd like to get around to studying a martial art; I'm also interested in Archery and Fencing, as well as getting back into riding (I'd like to learn English-style).

I spend my spare time drawing, reading, hanging with friends, sleeping, and JN-ing with my lovelies <3

I love my family, but I have issues if I'm around just them for too long a period of time. My dad is 50, and is CFO at a concrete company (not giving names for privacy reasons... never know who'll find this :P), and my mom is head of corporate and public relations at an international adhesives company. I'm a lot like my dad; we're both very frugal, while my mom is a clingy shop-a-holic (I love her, but...). My sister is at the age where she goes from being semi-nice to totally bratty *sigh*. I also have a very tight-knit extended family. My dad grew up on a farm, and has 6 brothers and sisters, all of whom are married with children. Several of those children are grown and married now, with kids of their own (and two on the way!), and we also hang with some of my dad's cousins, as well as his parents at their farm. My mom has 2 siblings, with a total of 5 children between them. One of those is currently a sophomore at Drake, the another is considering coming here next year. One is a junior at Luther College, one is the total baby of the family (Hannah Banana!), and the last is one of my closest cousins.

Every year, we go up to a resort in northern minnesota with my mom's side of the family. It's over 100 years old, and it's one of my favourite places in the world (if not number one). It's not anything like most resorts (all hotel-y and commercialized), it's very rustic. We have fans instead of AC, gravel roads instead of Dirt, etc. We're good friends with most of the people who come up the same week as us, and have been for longer than I've been alive. I've worried in the past about it eventually being sold off (the land has to be worth TONS), but with the economic downturn, they were doing better business than ever this summer - people taking closer vacations and all, instead of flying somewhere. If ever it is sold off, my goal one day is to purchase the land and restore it to how I remember it, and keep it that way. It's kind of weird, I'm sure, because it's hardly what most people would look at and think "Perfection"... but to me, it's the most beautiful, perfect place in the world. I feel more at home there than I do in my own home or dorm. It's both isolated from the real world, and yet not isolated enough that I have family here, there, and everwhere. That's the reason I hate going to our personal cabin in Wisconsin; there's NOTHING there. At all. I don't know the neighbors, and I can NEVER avoid my own family. I know the rest of them love it, but I only like it when I remember the weekends I spent with my friends there for my birthday in years past.

Friends are by far the most important thing in my life, but I'm going to avoid going through and listing them, because it would take forever... and I love them all, and I'm afraid I'd leave someone or something out. I'm so used to them that it's been über-weird here, where no one really knows me... but I'll leave that for the earlier rant ;)

I think if I had to sum myself up in one word, it'd be, as I set my name here as, "Dreamer". I don't consider myself like most "dreamers", though... I'm the girl who dreams and aims for it all to be real. If I'm doing something, it's because I'm aiming to make it real. I'm foolish enough to wait and expect everything to come to me; I'm going out there to grab it and make it perfect as can be. One of the quotes that catches me most in life was said by Johnny Depp - "I remember when i was a kid, I used to dream of flying a lot. I guess most kids do. You grow up, and a bunch of hardship gets thrown on your shoulders, you don't dream of flying anymore.".

I'm the girl who still dreams of flying. Somewhere inside of me, I still believe anything is possible, no matter how unrealistic it may be, or how many people may think it makes me seem like a kid. Even if it is only in my dreams, my wings are there. They're never the same, but they are there.

And they are beautiful.