It is not even 10:30am, and so far this morning I have done the following:

• Attend class, where I had to give a short introductory-type speech
• Hand in my class portfolio
• Purchase ingredients to make Thai iced tea for a class potluck
• Make Thai iced tea
• Buy something for the boyfriend (he sometimes reads this blog, so I’m not going into anymore detail)
• Take notes on my Chinese presentation so I (hopefully) won’t butcher the pronunciation
• Make (and eat) breakfast
• Wash and put away my dishes

I can’t remember the last time I had a morning this productive.

Inspired by eemusings‘ version of this, I decided to try my hand at my own version of “20 Memorable Moments: A Chronology.”

1. My first memory is of visiting my mom and baby brother at the hospital when he was born. I wore a pink cardigan and held my dad’s hand.

2. When I turned five, my family moved away from Hong Kong and to Delaware, USA. I sat by an upstairs window in the new house and watched the movers unload boxes upon boxes, wondering when we would go back to Hong Kong.

3. I won a reading contest in first grade. I read 105 books in a month. The second place winner only read 23.

4. I was cast as the lead for the production of Firebird at my summer ballet camp at the ripe old age of six. While ballet would captivate me until age 15, Firebird would be the first and only time I was the lead in a production.

5. At age 11, my family moved to Australia. This had more of an impact on my formative years than anything else. Also, it is the reason why I am reasonably skilled in Aussie slang.

6. I had my first brush with rebellion at age 13. While remarkably short-lived, it sustained any desire to pursue further rebellion until I grew out of that phase altogether.

7. An avid writer, I completed my first manuscript at age 15. Totaling over 100,000 words, it essentially wove together three individual stories. However, it will never see the light of day.

8. I injured my knee during a dress rehearsal at my ballet studio at age 15. Any dreams of pursuing ballet further are put on indefinite hold. I have never danced ballet since (and miss it more than I thought possible).

9. In my fifteenth year my family moved once more, this time to Chicago. My first day there, I sat in my new room and cried as a blizzard roared outside the window.

10. My senior prom was one of my favorite memories from high school. It was a really fun evening that had glow-in-the-dark ice cubes and was a great send-off for the end of that chapter in our lives. My date was a friend who gave me a beautiful corsage that had eight roses.

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Yes, it is possible that a college student would choose to read narrative non-fiction over YA fiction or fiction in general. If someone had told me this in high school, I probably never would have believed them, but there you have it.

I also never thought I’d have to defend my choice in reading narrative non-fiction over other genres (usually it’s the other way around!), but that seems to be possible, too.