One popular blog format among my squadmates at the moment is a Q & A blog, taking questions from family and friends. These are the questions that I received, as well as my answers. If there are questions that you want to read about that I did not address, comment! I will do another Q & A blog later in the Race.
-
What is the weirdest thing you have eaten? I tend to stay away from the “weird” foods. I have never been very adventurous in the foods that I eat, and that isn’t going to change just because of being on the World Race. There have been times when I do not know what I am eating, so I probably have eaten some “weird” foods without realizing it. During our time in Albania, our host took us to an authentic Albanian restaurant where they served sheep brain and sheep tongue, among other things. I did not try those things, but my teammate (Maria) did. There were also some times in Albania when we did not have a lot of food available, so we just ate what we had. Bread with cream cheese, nutella, honey, and popcorn is actually quite tasty.
-
What are some of your favorite foods? This is a hard one, because there are so many! Albanian bread from our favorite restaurant. Salep (even though I only had a sip of it once). Rotee. The grilled chicken from across the street (from our ministry location in Thailand). All of Mama Rose’s cooking. Deep fried wonton things with pork inside of them. Mugg and Bean’s chicken macaroni and cheese dish. The chicken kabob meal that we had in Greece. Popcorn (not that it is a new favorite, but rather because I’ve eaten it SO often). The salad that we had at the really fancy restaurant on top of a mountain in Albania. Chicken peri peri. Fresh pineapple. I’m hungry even thinking about all of these, so I will just stop listing them (yes, there are many more).
-
Have you seen any chickens crossing roads, because then we would finally know the answer to the joke? I have seen chickens crossing the road, as well as many other animals. They all cross simply to get to the other side.
-
How long is your hair? The first photo is from right before I left on the Race. The second photo is from today.
-
What do you miss most about NJ? In no order: I miss Wawa, being near my family and friends, diners, having people besides me say “water” as only people from South Jersey do, being able to drive, having more than a handful of clothing options for eleven months, Rita’s water ice, and other similar things.
-
What don’t you miss (besides the weather and HD)? I do not miss always having a TV. I don’t miss the over-commercialization of holidays.
-
How many photos have you taken? I do not have an exact answer, but I know that it is easily thousands and thousands.
-
Which country was your favorite so far? According to my friend, the answer I give of “every country, for different reasons!” is clearly a Miss NJ answer. I really cannot pick just one because I’ve left parts of my heart in each country.
-
Have you learned to appreciate dresses more? Yes, definitely! I have tried to find and purchase a dress on the Race that I can wear to ministry (aka it has to have short sleeves and is affordable), but have yet to find one (affordable usually being the most critical). I’ve looked and tried on many dresses though. In addition, the first few months of not having a working debit card made “spur of the moment” shopping trips and purchases difficult. At home, I did wear dresses upon occasion. Here, I have wanted to wear dresses, but just can’t find one that I like. I did get one from the free table in Zambia, but I may or may not put it on the free table again for our next debrief. Only having a handful of clothing options makes wearing dresses much more alluring.
-
When have you been most satisfied in your life? This is a very, very hard question to answer. I have so, so many moments that I could mention here. The one that I am going to mention may or not be the top moment of satisfaction in my life, but it is one that came to mind. The one that I am choosing is when I got the phone call saying that I was accepted to the World Race. I have been telling people lately that doing the World Race is the best decision in my entire life, after accepting Christ. This isn’t a cheesy, “I have to say this because I am a Racer” answer. I mean it with all of my heart. If you want to hear other answers to this question, ask me in person! 🙂
-
What do people tease you about yourself the most? I get all of the short jokes, all of the time.
-
Which team/squadmates should go on Dancing With the Stars? All of us. We clearly killed it in the dance-off part of Squad Wars at Training Camp, haha (we came in dead last in the dancing competition). The men of R squad also did a lovely number to “Let It Go” at Training Camp. We do have a lot of good dancers on the squad (I wouldn’t count myself among them, though). Knowing R squad, we would all cheer on (in person, of course) whoever got on the show. In the spirit of simple delights, this video from Training Camp highlights some good dancing from various members of R squad (video courtesy of Josh Schmutzer
BONUS QUESTIONS:
Would you rather go a week without bathing, but be able to change your clothes, or a week without a change of clothes, but be able to bathe? (Have you done either or both recently?) A week without bathing and being able to change my clothes for sure. I have done this recently. In fact, this started my World Race experience. Training camp was ten days long, and with the exception of standing in downpours and occasionally using some baby wipes, I did not shower. When we were in Cambodia, our shower situation was way less than ideal. My team stayed at hostels on the weekend. Once I experienced the showering situation, I decided to only shower on the weekends when we were at the hostel. I did stand outside in the rain at night. I also did rinse off my hair every night, but this was only to cool my body down enough so that I could sleep.
What is the strangest pick-up line that’s somebody used on you? I don’t know if this was meant to be a pickup line or if he really was curious to know where it was, but a few years ago, a male customer came up to me at work and asked where we kept our mistletoe. It was a very awkward conversation.
Would you rather have an extra $200 a day, or an extra 2 hours a day? I would choose the extra $200 a day. Extra time would be nice, but I am currently a World Racer with no income and student loans waiting to be paid off at home. If this lasted for even a month, there would be $6,000 more to my name, which means that $6,000 of my loans would be paid off just like that.
If you could impose a rule on future Racers, what would it be? Don’t bring a Chromebook as your computer. I will elaborate more on this in a future blog.
A penguin walks through that door (near you) right now wearing a sombrero. What does he say and why is he there? Words are not truly needed in this situation, but for the sake of the question, he would say, “I’m here to hug you and cuddle you and make you grin and laugh with every fiber of your being.” He would know that my love for penguins is quite, quite large and that one of my life goals is to play with an actual penguin. He would then remove the sombrero and we would hug, cuddle, spin around, giggle and laugh and smile and smile for whoever is documenting this wonderful moment in my life.
