sixteen.

its winterbreak and i have more time on my hands than i know what to do with. today, i spent some time going through my unpublished posts. some of them were purposely unpublished, but some of them i never finished like this 16 facts one. i got tagged on facebook for it over the summer, but i try to avoid writing facebook notes because of the stalkerfeed. so enjoy! (this means you daniel luu! haha jk)

1. my family was going to call me Alexa instead of Maia when I was born. 
2. my brother, sister, and i were all born on the first of the month. (april, january, and february) AND i have a half sister and cousin with the same birthday as me. 
3. as of december 2008, my writing has been published :)
4. i've been to 9 countries (as in actually traveled them, not just stopovers) and its not enough yet!
5. i've shaken hands with two former presidents. One was Clinton when my mom and I waited for hours outside of his book signing on Telegraph in Berkeley. He's really pink. The second one was Corazon Aquino, the first female president of the Philippines. It was a monumentous moment for be because at the time (6th grade) she was my hero. haha
6. i used to sing... in sophomore year of high school i won first place in the district solo competition for classical voice.. and i was part of the 4 person ensemble that sang the national anthem at graduation. 
7. i HAVE to spin my plate before i start eating. i have no idea why, its pretty OCD of me. 
8. for the past three weeks i've only been using spoons to eat, no forks. again, i don't know why. 
9. i eat really ridiculously slow because my family does... i feel like i'm starting to sound like a fat kid with all these facts about eating habits. 
10. as i get older i get more and more annoyed with running late for things. i'm definitely in the wrong ethnicity for a pet peeve like this one since filipinos are always late.
11. 95% of the time i knock out immediately when my head hits the pillow.. and i don't move at all when i sleep most times.. and i recently found out that i snore!  ahhhh. (sorry dan. haha) 
12. a lot of details about my family's life has been shared in my mom's monthly column, then eventually as an entire chapter in her book. its weird cuz when i'm at book/magazine events with my mom, she'll introduce me as her youngest daughter and people will respond "oh are you Maia? i raised my kids on the beatles too" or other random facts like that. 
13. i used to spend almost every thanksgiving in Eugene, Oregon with my (ex) step-dad's parents. 
14. i went through a stage in like 5th grade where i didn't think blonde people really existed. haha. but now i live in la jolla and i know they really do. 
15. i'm really, really sentimental especially when it comes to my friends. i remember little details really well and most of the time i write about them in my diary. haha
16. a lot of times i'm a wimp when it comes to my career plans. when people ask me "oh, what do you want to do with urban studies and planning?" i tend to give them whatever answer i think they want to hear (i.e. policy planning, architecture, etc.) but i'm slowly getting over that weird fear. what i really want to do is work with an NGO or the united nations on their millennium development goals, especially in the education sector.