105 Things About Us

I know that most people do these 101 things about themselves....but seeing that Jason and I are co-owners of this blog...and today is our 3 year wedding anniversary....I thought a list of us would be just as interesting...and just a little too cutesy. And, being truly spectacular, we could not be contained to 101 items, so you get 105. What can I say, we're rebels.

1. I was born and raised in and around Chicago...a city girl at heart.
   
2. Jason was born over the border in Fort Wayne, Indiana...which is famous for...Frank Burns from M.A.S.H! But I think that's about it.
   
3. My high school graduating class had 500+ people in it.
   
4. Jason's went to a small private school, graduating with 48 of his closest friends.
   
5. Neither of us talk to anyone we went to high school with (for the most part).
   
6. I was on the Cross Country, Gymnastics & Track team in high school and headed to the state track meet in the quarter mile my senior year.
   
7. Jason was a FAMOUS bowler in the Fort....as he was the Fort Wayne city champion his senior year of high school.
   
8. We are both very tall....me coming in at 5'11" and Jason coming it at 6'3" (if you round up (and if he is wearing shoes)).
   
9. Yes, I was the tallest person on my gymnastics team.
   
10. No, I didn't play basketball
    
11. Jason decided to major in physics after taking it in high school (he was going to do Chemistry until he realized that it's stupid).
    
12. I took my dad's physics class in high school, got a C and then took art and photography my senior year. I went to IU undeclared.
    
13. Both Jason and I had our Dads as teachers in high school. Jason's dad is math teacher. Jason got a B.....way less embarrassing that my C
    
14. My freshman year I took a Calculus class and swore that I would never take another college level math class or major in anything that dealt with it. The professor didn't know anyone's name at the end of the semester.
    
15. I said that, but then I took Physics 201 my second semester because I think I needed some hours to fill in. I also took The History of Comic Book Art and the professor looked just like Clark Kent....when he was wearing his glasses (naturally).
    
16. I got, like, a 98% in the physics class.
    
17. My GPA that semester was almost 4.
    
18. Even though I got mono and missed the last 2 weeks.
    
19. I decided to major in physics because I did so well in the class and loved the professors.
    
20. Jason's freshman year couldn't have been more different. He had a set class schedule
    as he was un-undeclared.
    
21. He took the Honors physics course that went over the first two semesters.
    
22. We didn't know each other that year at all.
    
23. Sophomore year started and I took P222. This is the second semester of the calculus based physics program. I took P201 the year before so there was a bit of a jump. My dad asked the professor if there was anything I could do over the summer to be ready...the professor said that it was summer and I would be fine come the school year.
    
24. In that class I met Emily and Clayton who would be close friends for the next 3 years.
25. After college they both worked for NASA at Harvard. Clayton has since left the computing world for the natural world and moved to Maine and opened an organic farm with his girlfriend. Emily moved to New York City while her husband went to seminary school. She was at NYU for nursing...but I don't know what happened after that.
    
26. That semester I also took an astronomy class. We had to do that introduce yourself and state your major crap.
    
27. I said "Leah...physics"....everyone else said their name and Astronomy....except one boy who said, "Jason...physics".
    
28. I thought I should get to know that guy because maybe we would have some classes together. He had long hair that I thought looked kinda goofy.
    
29. Then he didn't show up for classes anymore....but only because he was playing ping pong and skipping all his classes.
    
30. Later that semester I was in the Teter dining hall with Bridgette and I saw a tall skinny boy across the room and I thought he looked familiar. I told Bridgette, "Hey I think that cute skinny boy over there is in my astronomy class! He cut his hair, he's really cute." (only in true girl fashion....maybe I need a "he's sooooooo cute" in there) Bridgette said he was too skinny (she ended up marrying the center for the IU football team...she's not so into the skinny stick look like me).
31. The second semester we both took the Physics Lab class. There were computers on all the tables where we had the lectures and Jason would watch the Cubs games on Gamecast while the lecture was going on. I sat behind him and just thought he was pretty cute AND a Cubs fan AND watching the games during class.
    
32. Then we were randomly assigned lab partners and I was so excited to be paired with him. He said he was as well...I was one of 3 girls in the class, the other two were "physics" girls...so I understand the excitement.
    
33. I didn't want to tell him I was dating someone at the time....so I didn't mention it until I absolutely had to.
34. We became really good friends that semester and I always looked forward to that class. From that time on we would have almost all of our classes together.
35. At the end of the summer following the semester I got an e-mail from him asking about the books that were used in The History of Comic Book Art class and if he could borrow mine. I almost peed when I saw that I had an e-mail from him. He said he couldn't believe I wrote him back.
    
36. Junior year started and we had most of our classes together.
    
37. We would frequently study at the Union and "just take a break" and play some pool or bowl....but we would play for hours...I rarely won either game.
    
38. We would always go get Cokes at The Den....$0.50 for a 32 oz drink...quite the bargain
39. The Den closed recently which we were sad to see.
    
40. At the end of the year we had a dinner at our professor's house and after I dropped Jason off I asked him if he wanted to go to a movie or go shoot some pool....
41. He said he hadn't seen his friends for awhile and so he was going to pass....
42. I said..."uh...really?"
43. No I haven't let it go.
    
44. Yes he still claims he didn't realize I was asking him out.
    
45. One of the friends he was hanging out with, Joe (who was the best man at our wedding) said Jason was stupid (and Leah has since never let it go).
    
46. We started dating a few days later after an uncomfortable..."So like, do you want to go out with me?"
47. We stayed up talking forever, but nothing really happened. I stayed up all night and someone knocked on my door at about 7am while I was blow drying my hair. It was my friend Clayton who had seen Jason and I talking outside the physics building late the night before. He said, "If Jason comes to class in khakis and a button down shirt I'm going to kill him". (I didn't blow dry on a daily basis).
48. Jason and I officially started dating that afternoon.
    
49. Jason left for a summer internship at Stanford two weeks later.
    
50. We broke up a month after that...I'm not good at the long distance.
    
51. That summer I worked in the physics department and spent most of my nights with Bridgette at Yogi's...yes we were only 20....shhhhh.
    
52. Jason read every book by Kurt Vonnegut while in California.
    
53. Before we broke up I went to visit him out there. I loved San Francisco.
54. A naked women spit on Jason at one point during out site seeing.
    
55. That's the summer I read Atlas Shrugged and my life changed.
    
56. We named our cat Dagny after the main character.
    
57. The cat has ended up being very whiny & needy...just the opposite of her namesake.
    
58. We love her every minute....except when she's licking our noses at 2:37am.
    
59. We got back together after a physics club meeting at the start of our senior year...yes I did say Physics Club....shut it.
    
60. We were listening to Purple Rain by Prince.
    
61. We were in my old studio apartment in Bloomington.
    
62. I loved that apartment as it was MY first apartment.
    
63. Jason basically lived there our senior year.
    
64. Towards the end of the year we decided to move in together. I got a job at an engineering company in Chicago and we found a one bedroom place in Chicago.
    
65. When we moved in I stood in the living room while he was in the dining room and yelled, "I'm all the way down the hall in ANOTHER ROOM!". We had lived in a one room studio for the previous year.
    
66. We spent most of the money we made at a bar called Murphy's on Broadway between Wellington and Barry.
    
67. They still know us there even though we only go once a year for the Gay Pride Parade.
    
68. We realized that we weren't going to forever want to be in the jobs we were in, so we decided to head back to grad school.
    
69. I retook the Physics Subject GRE and did horribly.
    
70. I don't like standardized testing and I think it should be removed from the school systems. How can you quantify a person based solely on standardized testing...where is the test for your creativeness? How do you put a number on that? And what does it really mean if someone gets a certain number on a certain test and another gets a few points lower or higher? Is that person really "smarter"? Give me a break. Alright mini-rant done.
    
71. I am getting my PhD in physics within the year so apparently it was incorrect on my "smartness level"
72. Jason did really good on all of his GRE tests.
    
73. We went back to IU to work with specifically with the guy who is now our advisor.
    
74. Best decision we ever made.
    
75. He's the epitome of what you should be if you were to go the academia route.
    
76. Over spring break Jason and I went to Paris. Round trip flights were only 450 a piece and so we were like...ok let's go. I realized then that you go to Paris with the boy you are going to marry.
    
77. He didn't propose while we were there (and he doesn't understand why anyone would think he would have).
    
78. He did give me pewter Eiffel Tower statue on our last day there. I wanted to throw it at him.
    
79. The first summer after your core courses you have to take a qualifying exam which covers all the material you learned (or were supposed to learn in the first year). It's a two day exam going from 9am - 2pm each day.
    
80. It was one of the worst summers of my life.
    
81. After the second day of testing Jason and I jumped into the car and drove to New York City for 5 days.
    
82. We stayed at a hotel called The Jolly Hotel in Midtown. We got it off Priceline and I almost cried when the name came up....but it was awesome and in a perfect location.
    
83. While walking down 5th Avenue one day, Jason turned to me and said, "Let's go in here." I looked up and it was a jewelery store. It was a place that had the loose diamonds and so we looked at all different shapes and sizes and then picked one.
84. Sales tax in NYC is almost 10%....but if you mail something back you don't have to pay the tax. So we bought the ring, and it was put in a box to be mailed. We found another cheapish ring and went for a walk on the Brooklyn Bridge.
    
85. He officially proposed. I said yes.
    
86. We called everyone we knew.
    
87. No one was home.
    
88. We spent the next year finishing our course work and planning the wedding and moved to Chicago in May of 2004 to start our research at Fermi National Laboratory in Batavia.
    
89. We refuse to live outside of Chicago so we have a hefty commute.
    
90. We got married on Friday the 13th, 2004.
    
91. We danced to In My Life, by the Beatles.
    
92. People said it was the best wedding they had been to.
93. The summer of 2005 was the summer we trained for our first marathon
94. We followed a plan that was in the book, How to Train for and Run Your Best Marathon by Gordon Bakoulis Bloch.
    
95. We had no idea what we were doing.
    
96. We finished together in 4 hours and 20 minutes, 2 minutes ahead of schedule.
    
97. The next day we went out and bought Advanced Marathoning by Pete Pfitzinger and Scott Douglas.
    
98. The marathon hook had officially settled in our cheeks.
99. 2005 was also the summer I started this blog.
    
100. We still can't believe the friends and support that we have gotten from what just started out as a training log, moved to a place where we can become better writers just by writing everyday and now is just a bit of both.
     
101. This summer we are running our 3rd marathon.
     
102. On some days I hate it. On most days I love it and continue to strive to be faster and stronger than my previous races.
     
103. I am uber competitive and a bit anal retentive on my training schedules...and about everything in my life.
     
104. Jason isn't so much.
     
105. But he's him and I'm me. And we fit.