It’s time for this week’s Friday Four, a fun survey I’m doing so that my readers can get to know me a little better. This week it’s Four Places I Have Lived. This may get a little boring because I’ve only ever lived in North Carolina, but here goes.

1) Wilkesboro, NC. I was lucky enough to grow up in western North Carolina, surrounded by mountains and beautiful lakes and friendly folks. It’s a small town and I couldn’t wait to get out when I was a teenager, but now I cherish every holiday and weekend trip back to visit family. Even though I will never live there again, it will always be my home.

2) Greenville, NC. Home of the East Carolina Pirates, arrghh! G’Vegas (as the college students lovingly refer to it) is THE quintessential college town. During football season, everything turns purple and gold from restaurants to grocery stores to local businesses. That is one of the things I truly loved and will miss about Greenville. Other than that, I was also happy to leave after undergrad.

3 & 4) The Triangle. I’m lumping 3 & 4 together because they’re basically the same thing, just different cities. I’ve lived all over the Triangle, from Morrisville to Raleigh to my current location in Durham. The Triangle, which gets its name from the Research Triangle Park and its anchor universities (NC State, Duke, and UNC-Chapel Hill, which form a triangle when you connect them on a map), is where my heart is and where I will probably live for the rest of my life. There is so much to do here that it’s the perfect place to live, and I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else!

Of course, home is where my family is so it doesn’t matter where I live as long as I’m with them!

*All photos by me except for the bottom right, which was taken by 2+3 Photography.

It’s time for this week’s Friday Four, a fun survey I’m doing so that my readers can get to know me a little better.

Four books I’d recommend: This is a really tough one because I don’t know if I can pick just four! I really enjoy reading but I don’t feel like I have enough time to read for fun (grad school life) and I don’t really read any of the best sellers, I just read what sounds interesting. I also like reading books before they become movies; I’ve read the Sookie Stakehouse Southern Vampire Mystery novels (the books that True Blood was based on) and the Stephanie Plum series (the books that One For the Money – the movie with Katherine Heigl was based on). So, anywhere, here are four books that I’ve really enjoyed.

1. Yes Please by Amy Poehler. “In her first book, one of our most beloved funny folk delivers a smart, pointed, and ultimately inspirational read. Full of the comedic skill that makes us all love Amy, Yes Please is a rich and varied collection of stories, lists, poetry (Plastic Surgery Haiku, to be specific), photographs, mantras and advice. With chapters like “Treat Your Career Like a Bad Boyfriend,” “Plain Girl Versus the Demon” and “The Robots Will Kill Us All” Yes Please will make you think as much as it will make you laugh. Honest, personal, real, and righteous,Yes Please is full of words to live by.”

Technically I’m still reading this one but I love Amy Poehler and will support anything she does. So far this one has been very inspiring so I would definitely recommend it to any and everyone.

2. Full Frontal Feminism: A Young Woman’s Guide to Why Feminism Matters by Jessica Valenti. Feminism isn’t dead. It just isn’t very cool anymore. Enter Full Frontal Feminism, a book that embodies the forward-looking messages that author Jessica Valenti propagated as founder of the popular website, Feministing.com.

This book is terrific for anyone who is interest in learning the basic foundation of feminism or for any seasoned feminist who wants to have a reference guide. I love this book because it explains the bad-ass principals of feminism for all of us bad-ass feminists. It’s definitely worth a read!

3. Smoke Gets In Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory by Caitlin Doughty. “Most people want to avoid thinking about death, but Caitlin Doughty—a twenty-something with a degree in medieval history and a flair for the macabre—took a job at a crematory, turning morbid curiosity into her life’s work. Thrown into a profession of gallows humor and vivid characters (both living and very dead), Caitlin learned to navigate the secretive culture of those who care for the deceased.”

This is one of the most informative and thought-provoking books I’ve ever read. It made me reconsider death and how I would want to be cared for after it happens to me. Doughty has the ability to navigate this difficult subject in a way that makes it interesting and fun. It’s definitely worth a read.

4. Blindness by José Saramago. “A city is hit by an epidemic of “white blindness” which spares no one. Authorities confine the blind to an empty mental hospital, but there the criminal element holds everyone captive, stealing food rations and raping women. There is one eyewitness to this nightmare who guides seven strangers—among them a boy with no mother, a girl with dark glasses, a dog of tears—through the barren streets, and the procession becomes as uncanny as the surroundings are harrowing. A magnificent parable of loss and disorientation and a vivid evocation of the horrors of the twentieth century, Blindness has swept the reading public with its powerful portrayal of man’s worst appetites and weaknesses-and man’s ultimately exhilarating spirit. The stunningly powerful novel of man’s will to survive against all odds, by the winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize for Literature.”

This is another though-provoking read because throughout the book, I found myself wondering if humanity would really react the way they do in the book, how I would react if this situation were to happen in real life, and the chances of this situation happening in real life. I will also say that you should see the movie because it is really good! It’s as close to the book as any movie I’ve ever seen.

Bonus: The Sookie Stakehouse Southern Vampire Mystery novels

*All photos by me.

Hey everyone, I’m guest posting over at Work Clothes, I Suppose today while Bri is on her fabulous honeymoon, so be sure to head over there to see what I put together as a potential interview outfit! But since you’re here, I’ll answer this week’s Friday Four, a fun survey I’m doing so that my readers can get to know me a little better.

This week’s question is four movies I’ve watched more than once. Basically, these are my four favorite movies!

To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar: Long and strange name, but extremely funny movie! The movie is about three drag queens (played hilariously by Patrick Swayze, Wesley Snipes, and John Leguizamo) travel cross-country until their car breaks down, leaving them stranded in a small town. It’s funny and heart-warming and has lines that I still quote to this day. My dog, Chico, is a black chihuahua mix and one of my favorite things to say to him is from the movie, “Little Latin boy in drag, why are you crying?” HI-LA-RIOUS!

Where The Heart Is: Young Natalie Portman and a great story. “A pregnant 17-year-old rebuilds her life after being abandoned by her boyfriend at a Wal-Mart in Sequoyah, Oklahoma” -IMBD. I’ve been meaning to read the book and as soon as have more free time, I will. But I watched the movie in the theater with my best friend and her mom when I was in  middle school. I don’t know what it is about it, but I really love it and every month or so I get a craving to watch it. Good thing I own it on DVD!  “You feel that? That little bom-bom-bom? That’s where the heart is.”

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: “When their relationship turns sour, a couple undergoes a procedure to have each other erased from their memories. But it is only through the process of loss that they discover what they had to begin with.” – IMDB. In my humble opinion, this is THE BEST love story ever. It reminds you that you that true love persists through all of the bad times and that makes the good times even more worth it. Meet me in Montauk .

Pitch Perfect: I’m a big fan of Anna Camp, Rebel Wilson, and Anna Kendrick. So, when I saw the trailer for Pitch Perfect, I wanted to watch it regardless of whether it was good or bad so I talked Nick into seeing it at the theater with me. As it turned out, WE LOVED IT. Then it came on HBO and we watched it almost every single time it came on. Then we bought it on DVD and made our friends watch it. Turns out, they loved it, too! I bought it for my sister-in-law for her birthday and SHE loved it. My brother (who is VERY critical of movies) really liked it. If you haven’t seen it, you should. It’s worth it to get Pitch Slapped!

What are your favorite movies?

As I mentioned last week, I’m participating in a fun survey as a way to let my readers get to know me a little better. Each week I will answer four questions.

This week’s question is Four jobs I have had. Most of my jobs have been administrative, which is one reason I decided that it was time to graduate school; I was having a hard time moving up. So anyway, here are my last four jobs.

Graduate Assistant: As my current job, I’m a graduate research assistant for one of my favorite professors in my MPH program. This mostly consists of helping my professor with research, literature reviews, data entry, etc. One of my favorite tasks has been going to the state department of public health and reviewing every county’s community health assessment to find out what issues are considered a  priority in each individual county. It was  very interesting to see how each area prioritized health issues like cancer, diabetes, and obesity.

Communications Assistant: For three years I was the administrative assistant for the communications department of an international nonprofit organization that worked for women’s health and rights. It was my most favorite job by far because I learned so much about an area I’m incredibly passionate about.  This is where I had difficulties advancing because I didn’t have an advanced degree so I decided to go to graduate school to get my Master of Public Health so I could continue my career trajectory in women’s health.

Administrative Assistant: Prior to working for a nonprofit, I worked in community mental health. My Bachelor’s degree is in Psychology which is an incredibly broad field. This was something I both loved and hated. I loved it because I could do just about anything. I hate it because I could do just about anything! I decided after undergrad that I would work for a while to get an idea of where I wanted to go next, and that’s how I ended up as the admin assistant for a specialized program working with high-functioning adults with mental illness. It was a great learning experience because I found out that I didn’t want to be a Psychologist/Psychiatrist as I had originally thought.

Health Center Assistant: My very first job out of undergrad was working in a women’s health clinic, checking in/out patients, doing patient work-ups (i.e. blood pressure, height, weight, etc.), and my favorite (yet least utilized) duty was discussing birth control options with patients. I was only at this job for a few months because they asked me to learn how to draw blood and administer shots and I just wasn’t comfortable with that. I didn’t go to nursing school for a reason!

What jobs have you had? Have you ever felt stuck, and what did you do to overcome it?

The lovely Brynn of BrynnAsh has taken me back to my middle school/early high schools days by participating in a weekly survey on her blog. I say this takes me back because I grew up in a time way before social media and email was *THE* way to communicate with friends, so my girlfriends and I would always chain email each other with completed surveys that always asked the same questions and we always gave the same responses but, for some reason, it was the most fun thing ever. (Tweens, amirite?!) So, anyway, I liked her idea and have decided to participate… for old times’ sake, if you will. As she noted in her post, other bloggers have answered all of the questions at once, but I’ll follow her lead and answer one or two each Friday for the next couple of weeks. It feels like a good way to get to know me a little better.

And if you’re not reading Brynn’s blog, then you’re really missing out. Get over there and read it; she’s pretty awesome!

Selfie!

So, the first Friday Four question is: Four names that people call me, other than my real name:

Nikki. S0, I know that’s technically by name BUT I often go by my middle name, Nicole, at school and work and there are very few people that ever call me by my first name.  My friends and family have called me Nikki from day one, but it’s not the name on my birth certificate so it counts 😉

Snickerdoodles. This was my high school softball nickname and I loved it. During games, it was often shortened to Snickers (like the candy bar – even though I didn’t eat snicker doodle cookies or snickers candy bars very often) and I even have an old jersey with “SNICKER” across the back.  That nickname went away after high school, though, so it probably doesn’t really count being on this list.

Crewsinator. This is a newer nickname that my friend from my school program calls me. Interestingly, she and I are from the same hometown and went to the same high school, but we’re 5 years apart so we never knew each other back then. We connected in our MPH program and I love this girl; she’s so much like myself that it’s almost scary! Anyway, she calls me Crewsinator as a play on my last name and the terminator because I’m tough as shit. True story.

Mrs. Castillo. I’m including this one because it’s how some of our older family members address letters/cards/etc. to me, even though I didn’t change my last name when Nick and I got married. I don’t know who Nikki Castillo is, but she doesn’t live in my house!

Do you have any cool or fun nicknames that you go by?