just a few things about me

1. when i was a kid at cesar chavez elementary, we would have school-wide reading contests. i wasn't super athletic, so this was totally my game. i mean, i read on my own, outside of school anyway, so if i could actually win something for it, there was no way i was going to pass up that opportunity to shine.

each week, we turned in a sheet with all the pages we had read. those baby-sitters club and bailey school kids books were good to me.

these reading contests were also one space where being a mormon was a distinct advantage. i'm pretty sure none of those other kids were regularly reading the book of mormon with their families. 531 pages, baby!

if we were the top readers, we received medals. i think one year i won five medals. the next year (probably the book of mormon year) i read so much that i got a trophy. a trophy for reading! so awesome. i thought it was especially cool because it had a magic lamp on it, and i loved/still love aladdin. i think i still have that trophy somewhere. that might have been the last trophy i ever got.

2. i really love march madness. during the season, i have no idea which schools are really good or what duke is up to. i know what's going on with byu and whatever i hear from my dad or my brother or from rare occasions when espn is on, but that's it.

but once the selections are out and the big dance is upon us, i cannot WAIT to get on espn.com and make my bracket(s). i bug my family to make their own, too, so we can have a family group. last year i forgot to make a bracket on espn.com and i was so bummed for the rest of the tournament. this year i am in three groups and have two brackets, so i'm happy.

mostly what i like is that espn does all the work for you and shows the odds of the match-ups and then tells you who wins and loses and calculates all your points and everything and it's all right there in front of you. i'm no bracketologist, obviously, but it's fun to make picks and hope that i end up with a pretty good bracket, even though i have no idea what i'm doing, really.