17-24 of "24 Things You May- or May Not- Have Known About Me"

17. I am a recovering perfectionist. When I was a child, everything had to be perfect. I remember making puff-paint shirts with my best friend Becca, and messing up one of the letters on my shirt. I was devastated and ran upstairs to my room, bawling. I think it was in high school that I began to realize that doing everything perfectly just wasn’t reasonable. But to a certain degree, that perfectionist mentality is still a part of me and always will be…

18. I love almost all fruit. My favorite fruit in the U.S. is raspberries. My grandma makes the most amazing raspberry freezer jam-it's to die for. My favorite fruit in Taiwan is mangoes. Ohhh la la la la la…you have never put such a piece of heaven in your mouth. When I go back to Taiwan, I will do everything in my power to go back during mango season.

19. I am excited to learn more about my ancestors. A lot of family history has been done on my mom’s side, but not much has been done on my dad’s. He is Swede-Finn (Finns who moved to Sweden- in my family’s case, it was because of a war with Russia) and Irish (hence my last name!). The ultimate goal there would be to learn about those who have lived in America, and then to travel to Finland, Sweden, and Ireland and go back even further! On my mom’s side, I am most English and Dutch, with a tiny bit of Danish and Scottish in there…and one French woman that I know of! But honestly, I’ve started to look at my mom’s family…you are a result of so many people, it’s not even funny. On my mom’s side, I’m related to Captain Cook- who is credited with discovering the Sandwich Islands, aka Hawaii. I’m also related to Queen Victoria of Holland. There is royal blood running through these veins! =))

20. One of my favorite things is to talk to people. I love meeting new people and finding out who they are. I love talking to people on planes. If I’m sitting next to you on a plane, I will have a conversation with you, unless I'm so tired I'm going to pass out, we don't speak a common language, or I can tell you are not in the mood for conversation.

21. When I was younger, I was be pretty shy. And you can probably still see that element in my personality. I used to be more of an introvert. When I took the MBTI (a test that evaluates your personality and tells you what jobs you would be good at/enjoy) when I was 19, I was close to the middle but more on the introvert side of the line. I took this test again a little over a year ago, and I was close to the middle on the extrovert side of the line. It has to do with discovering how much I love people. =) I especially love meeting people from different countries, because oftentimes, they have had very different experiences from you and see the world from different eyes. And it’s fascinating to learn about how other people see the world. It expands your vision.

22. I am a not a picky eater. Although I was a vegetarian for 14 years. You see, when I was seven, I asked my parents what meat was (I didn’t know!), and they told me. I thought that was pretty disgusting, and I would gag every time I would eat meat. It was a psychological thing. I was tired of gagging, and my parents weren’t necessarily fans of it, either. So I decided to become a vegetarian. I didn’t eat meat again until I was 21, in Italy. I had always wanted to start eating meat again, but I was scared that the same thing would happen again. But to my surprise, it was fine. And I’m glad I did it.

23. My eyes are blue-green: blue on the outside and green around my pupils. I was born with fairly deep blue eyes, but I think they began to change when I was a teenager.

24. One of the coolest experiences of my whole life was hiking Jade Mountain, the tallest mountain in Taiwan. You can check it out here.