Little known facts

This is Gloria Estefan. -->

You remember when you were little and when someone said something at the same time as someone else then one of them would say "jinx!" and you were cursed with some kind of condition (usually silence) until someone unjinxed you? Remember how you would roll your eyes at the ridiculousness of it, but somehow the jinx always worked?

I've been "tagged" by Robin to blog about 8 personal facts or habits of mine, and while I don't think it's ridiculous, I will tell you that my mind has not been at ease until I completed the assignment. I've tried to compile lesser-known facts and habits (which has been difficult because I'm fairly open about most things) so you had something new to read. So here we go:

1. I had never had a bloody nose in my whole life until last semester, when I received one playing water polo in a water aerobics class. I kept saying with pride, "I've never had one of these! Never!" as the lifeguards attended to me. They weren't impressed... they just didn't want me to bleed any more in their pool.

2. I have a phobia of speaking on the phone to strangers. This is slowly subsiding the older I get and the more I'm forced to do it for my job, but it used to be so bad that I refused to order pizza, and at one point I left a temp job in tears 15 minutes after I got there because I found out they wanted me to work the switchboard.

3. Until I was 11 years old my favorite music was a Gloria Estefan tape that I found of my mother's. I would listen to it over and over while I put together puzzles and painted in my room. Maybe it's because she speaks the truth; eventually, the rhythm IS going to get you.

4. I had a lazy eye when I was little and had surgery on it in 3rd grade or so. Thankfully it has corrected the problem, but my left eye muscles are still pretty weak. I can still make it wander slightly on command and I have a blue spot of scar tissue on the white of my eye that people can only see if I'm looking to my extreme right.

5. Ever since I was little my mom would save leftover lasagna noodles after making a lasagna, and I would eat them plain. She still does if I'm living at home, and I actually stopped at her house the other day and found a bowl of them in the fridge, just waiting for me. I don't know why; I don't enjoy eating plain spaghetti or macaroni. Something about the lasagna noodles does it for me. I love them.

6. I was named after Hailey Mills. My dad allowed my mom to name me Haley as long as it was spelled without the "i". And thus began a lifetime of identity confusion. My name is spelled 7 different ways in my yearbook.

7. I played softball until I was 12. Then I got a mean coach and stopped. Not to mention the older you get the faster they thow the ball, and the less cool I was about standing in front of it.

8. I began college as an anthropology major because I've always been fascinated by archaeology. Then I took an anthropology class and decided it wasn't a good idea. Still, I would like to hike the Inca trail and see Macchu Piccu sometime before I die.