4 questions.

If it were possible, would you want to know the day you were going to die?
As scary as it would be, I think so. I’d know my deadline and what I wanted to do up until that point. Plus, if it were guaranteed that no matter what I did, I was going to die on that specific date, no sooner, no later, I think I’d be more adventurous up until that point because I’d know that no matter what crazy thing I did, I wouldn’t die from it… I'd feel invincible. I mean, I don't know if that was realistically an option if I'd take it - probably not - but in this hypothetical world, I can see the benefit to it.

Do you have an accent?
I am a firm believer that I don’t, but according to linguists, I have an “inland northern american” dialect of english or more broadly, a "General American" accent, that they teach to newscasters, actors, and ESL students.
I'm fascinated by linguistics. How does that happen? How do people, even people within the same state, speak so differently? Like, when you go to southern Ohio, it feels like you're in the South and it's still Ohio. If I lived here in Toledo but had British parents, would I have a British accent or would I have the accent of my neighbors, teachers, local media, and friends? I know that kids learn to speak from their parents so any kind of linguistic trait is most likely passed on until they learn otherwise or choose to change certain quirks or habits. Like, I know I've picked up on my family's vocubulary and pronounciations of things and as I've gotten older, I've realized, "Oh, that's not right" and tried to be aware that I wasn't duplicating their errors. For example, my mom, who is a very intelligent woman, pronounces "library" as "lie-berry" which drives me crazy but she's been doing it her whole life and can't change it. Even things such as expressions can be family specific and not necessarilly connected to an area or a region - like, Katie's family calls over easy eggs "dippy eggs", which I found out is a Pennsylvania thing so then I wonder about her family history and if her family lived in PA and moved here and brought that with them. And I think about how my cousins from PA have kind of hard to define and pinpoint accents but clearly, they have accents. Of course, they don't think they have an accent. It's just fascinating.

Ever had someone sing to you?
1) Dinner Dance 2004. Tim and I were dancing to 'Brown Eyed Girl' and he was singing along and sang it to me, but changed the words to 'Blue Eyed Girl'.
2) James was playing the piano at the chapel one day and I was sitting and listening and he sang a little Radiohead. He was singing to me since I was the only one in the room, he knew that song, and liked Radiohead... It was not a romantic gesture, although let's not lie, my 19 year old self sure wished it was. haha.
3) On retreat one year, Brigette, Carly, Leslie, and I were sitting in somebody's bedroom, talking and James came in and sat on the bed opposite of us. He listened for awhile and suddenly got up, went out, got his guitar, came in and announced he wanted to play us a song. He sang "Pitseleh" by Elliot Smith.

Would you go back in time if you were given the chance?
I wouldn't want to go back permanently. I wouldn't want to try and go back and change things. I think I'd like to go back for a day or an hour or some short, set period of time and just observe certain times of my life again that are fuzzy now or that were such awesome memories that I'd like to re-live them. I'd like to see what I was like as a kid and how I treated others and how I felt and acted when my parents got divorced, because I don't remember that time. I'd like to go back and just watch, like I'm watching video, of some times at st pius or listening to a conversation at my high school lunch table or going on a middle of the night adventure with paul in college. And in the broader sense of like, time travel, not just in my own life - totally. I'd love to just spend a day in all sorts of different time periods, to get a perspective on what life was like for people.