And they're off!

Hey all! Before I get to anything else, let me do this really fast. Bevchen over at Confuzzledom recently gave me the Liebster award, which means now I have to give eleven facts about myself or die painfully. Then I have to answer Bevchen's eleven questions, pass on the award to eleven new bloggers, and pose eleven questions for them to answer or else the gods will smite them eleven times.

Here we go with these eleven interesting facts about me:

1) I don't have eleven blogs to pass this on to because I don't read eleven blogs. Actually, I read two. One is bevchen's blog, the other is Alex from http://www.ifsandsandbutts.com/. 

2) I am already failing at the Liebster award.

3) I think people who can ride a bike without hands are magical.

4) My goal in life is to learn one language for every day of the week. Currently I've got all of Monday, all of Tuesday, a half hour of Wednesday, ten minutes of Thursday, and thirty seconds of Friday.

5) Half the people in my life don't know I've been taking classical voice lessons for the last four years because I'm too embarrassed to tell them.

6) I clean to 50s rock and roll.

7) I prefer living in places to backpacking through them.

8) Good music gives me goosebumps, every time.

9) I hate NYC, with a passion.

10) I take on adventures (cough, Mexico, cough) just to see if I'm capable of coming out the other side.

11) I distract myself from the terror of coming adventures by planning future ones.

And now to answer Bevchen's questions:

1. If you could change your first name to anything at all, what would you pick?

Sometimes when I sign up for things online, I put my name as Marie instead of Tina Marie. I wouldn't change my name, but if I were forced to, I'd probably just go with Marie.

2. Where were you born?
Ohio, but we moved to Jersey when I was little.

3. What is your favourite quote?
"Just think, if everyone in the world were great friends, then we wouldn't be such terrible enemies."
And no, I have no idea where it's from

4. Tea, coffee or hot chocolate?
Hot chocolate, with marshmallows

5. If you could own any animal, what would it be?
Dog, alpaca, elephant. In that order.

6. Why did you start blogging?
To keep my family and friends updated while on study abroad

7. Who is your favourite author?
Lev Grossman, I've read The Magicians more times than I can count. Also Stephen King, because he's awesome. 

8. What is your favourite flavour of crisps (chips for the Americans)?
Salt.

9. Apart from blogs, which website do you spend most time on?
Probably Facebook or CNN.

10. Do you have a talent? If so, what?
I can play the ukulele? Does that count?

11. What was the last song you listened to?

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Brilliant! So I'm off to Mexico tomorrow and, needless to say, I am freaking out. Freaking. Out. I haven't gotten a full night's sleep or woken up without a stress headache in four days, so I'm also tired and cranky to boot. I don't know if this happens to anyone else, but for me, there comes a point before every big trip where I'm so terrified that the trip ceases to be exciting or even remotely desirable in any way, shape, or form. I hit that point with Mexico about a week ago, so fun times. I've never done research before. I have six weeks to figure it out. I have no plan. I've never felt as grossly under-qualified or under-prepared for anything in my entire life.

Objectively, I know everything will be fine. If only my stomach could be so easily untied from the metric fuckton of sailor's knots that are going on in there.

And that's all I got! I'll have internet a least for the first couple days, so definitely expect a blog post Sunday or Monday. See you guys in Mexicoland!