I’m way behind on doing three memes, and since no one else seems particularly interested in biographies of UN officials (lol), I thought I’d take a break from reviews for you to learn more about Eva!

Six Random Things About Me (C.B. James just tagged me for this one)
1. When I was in ninth grade, we went on a family vacation to Egypt (we lived in England at the time). We spent three days in Cairo, and a week cruising the Nile, and it was amazing. I’d been obsessed with ancient Egypt since I had to do a report in fifth grade on King Tutankhamun (and yes, my mom and I went down into his tomb!!), but the experience of modern Egypt was what made me realise I wanted to get into international relations and become a diplomat (*fingers crossed*) so I could move around the world. Pretty much a formative experience.
2. I absolutely love toy dogs, and I won’t apologize for it at all. Toy dogs were bred to be companions, which is all that most people I know expect from their dogs. I think it makes a lot more sense to have, say, a Maltese as a pet than a German Shepherd. And I get really annoyed by big-dog owners who judge little dogs.
3. I played the violin for five years, and I have a beautiful eighteenth century French violin. Once I make enough money to afford lessons, I want to pick it back up.
4. I’m a natural blonde, but I’ve also been a brunette (for about a year and a half-I looved it) and a redhead (for about a month, lol). Now I’m back to my natural colour, which involved getting a pixie haircut. I loved that haircut, but now that I’m trying to grow it out, I curse it on an almost daily basis. (The picture of me is my natural hair colour, when I had a pixie cut)
5. I adore old movies; my favourite actresses are Audrey Hepburn (I secretly want to wake up one day looking just like her), Ingrid Bergman, and Bette Davis. My favourite actors are Cary Grant, Gregory Peck, and Humphrey Bogart.
6. My ideal temperature range is 75-85 degrees. I don’t worry too much about humidity (years in San Antonio will tend to acclimate a person) either: just as long as it’s that warm outside, I’m very, very happy.
I’m supposed to tag six people now…let’s see….Jeane (once she’s settled into her new house!), Eloise, Verbivore, Logophile, Poodlerat, and Lisa. Obviously, y’all can say no if you want, but where’s the fun in that?

Seven Weird Facts About Me (Emily tagged me for this ages ago)
1. Two years ago, coffee started giving me horrible headaches. After about a week of that, I realised I couldn’t drink coffee anymore (not even in things like Iced Mochas). It was a tragic realisation, as a college student, but now I savour my morning cup of tea. And if it’s hot, I go for an iced chai! Fortunately I can handle the amount of espresso in a slice of Tiramisu: otherwise we’d have real problems.
2. I talk to movies and TV shows as if the characters can hear me. I have to work really, really hard to keep quiet for an entire movie (unless I’m in a theater-then my good manners take over); as a result, my sister hates watching movies with me. My friends don’t mind though.
3. I love cemetaries. I used to study in this gorgeous old cemetary (lots of pre-Civil War tombs) about a block from my college campus. I find them very soothing and peaceful!
4. On the other hand, I’m incredibly superstitious about some things. I frequently tell people to ‘knock on wood’ (or the Russian equivalent, if no wood is handy), because I’m afraid they’ll jinx something. I won’t walk under ladders, even if I have to cross the street to avoid it. When a mirror of mine fell and shattered in my dorm room freshman year, I almost had hysterics. (I find the number thirteen and black cats to be lucky, though).
5. My feet are almost always cold, I mean blocks of ice cold, even if the rest of me is normal or even hot (the only exception is if my feet are in direct sunlight). But I hate wearing socks-in fact, I can’t fall asleep if I’m wearing them. So sometimes I buy guys’ pajama pants, because they’re long and have the elastic bottoms, so I can pull them over my feet and fall asleep easier. (Hey-Emily said weird things!)
6. I hate whipped cream. I don’t like it in hot drinks, I don’t like it on pie, milkshakes, anything. Sometimes, when I ask for no whipped cream, people are like “You could stand to gain a couple pounds,” because they think I’m worried about the fat and I’m skinny. I used to try to explain that it had nothing to do with that, but now I just stare at them until they pipe down.
7. My mom thinks that this is weird (I asked for help coming up with this last one): I’m petrified of white water rafting, to the point that even the idea of it makes me want to run away screaming and jump into my bed to hide under the covers. However, I really want to skydive and would jump out of a plane tomorrow if it was free. I don’t think it’s weird at all: as a first-time skydiver, I’d do a tandem jump w/ someone who knew what they were doing, and there are parachutes strapped to me, there aren’t any rocks in the sky, and I’ll be surrounded by air, which I need to breathe to live. In a raft, I’m not attached to anyone, and the first big wave can rush me overboard, where I could drown, even if my life vest did work. And at the very least get banged up amongst rocks. See the difference?
I’m not going to tag seven people for this, because it’s a bit old. But if you want to do it, go ahead and I’ll link it in comments!

Living Responsibly (Andi tagged me for this awhile back): the Five Most Important Causes/Issues to Me
1. The increasing gap between rich and poor, both in America and in the world. I know a lot of Americans will disagree with me on this one, but I think there’s something just fundamentally immoral about such an extreme difference in wealth. In America, between WWII and the Reagan years, the gap was shrinking; after eight year of Reaganomics, it’s been widening. This seriously bothers me: I think that societies have a responsibility to give everyone an equal start, and those born into extreme (relative) poverty certainly don’t have that. In the US, I think education and security are big issues, while internationally I’ve been researching microcredit.
2. International security. I wasn’t sure how to put this one: basically, I’m very concerned with issues like nation-building and peace-keeping, as well as the aftermath of genocides. I read books about the issues, and I considered going into the field, before those books convinced me that another young idealistic American was not what those crises needed. Also, and this is what I want to work for, I think the spread of weapons, both small arms and biological/chemical/nuclear ones, is disgraceful. I’d love to spend my life helping to eradicate them: it’d help people and the environment.
3. Women’s issues. I get very upset when people tell me that there’s no point to feminism, since men and women are equal now. First, if we look outside the developed world, there is no way to make an intelligent case that women in the developing world have an equal situation in life as men. Then, even within the US, issues ranging from treatment in the workplace to domestic violence to reproductive rights mean that women face different decisions than men, and often times they’re at a disadvantage. Then there are the psychological difficulties women face (and I’m in no way discounting men’s psychological issues here), from body image to trying to balance work and family to deciding whether to give up a job to follow their husband.
4. This kind of combines numbers two and three, but lately I’ve been reading more and more about human trafficking, and I’m trying to figure out what to do to help. For those who don’t know, human trafficking is modern-day slavery: it tends to affect children and women most. It’s essentially slavery: children may be sold as indentured servants, women may be forced into sexual slavery, etc.
5. Trying to break my consumerist, American habits. This stems from my concerns over the environment: I’m already a vegetarian, but I’m researching veganism and once I live on my own again, I intend to eat vegan at least 50% of the time. Other goals include: acquiring reusable bags for shopping/groceries, making sure I recycle everything possible and try to avoid buying things that aren’t, and cutting down my electricity/gas use (I have a normal car, but it gets 35 MPG, more on the highway). The biggest challenge for me will be trying to just not *buy* so much. I love clothes and beauty supplies, and while a tight budget keeps me in reign right now, I really want to change my mindset. Russians have maybe five to seven ‘outfits’ that they love, and they don’t worry about wearing the same things again and again. I really want to start valuing quality over quantity, which I think is difficult having grown up in a ‘disposable’ culture. But I’m working on it!
So there are five issues I care deeply about. I think this was a really interesting exercise, so I’m going to tag five people: C.B., since he tagged me, Chris, because I bet he’ll have some interesting psychology topics, Myrthe, for an international perspective, Debi, because she has kids, and I bet that changes your priorities (and because despite what she thinks, she always writes interesting and thoughtful posts), and Nik, even though she probably won’t get to this for awhile since her parents are visiting.