Random facts about Charity Bates

I was thinking about this yesterday, and I realized that most of the people who read this blog don’t really know me that well. There is actually someone who has me on their blog roll and has misspelled my name. Charity Bates. Yeah, I'm not naming names, but maybe, you should fix that. So that thought concerned me, and therefore, I decided to compile a top-ten list of mostly random, totally true facts about myself. Kristine can attest to all of them, they are all true. So, I hope you enjoy it, and if you think that I am a pretty great person, then maybe we could actually get to know each other outside of the ‘blog world.’

1) I love old books. I went to the library yesterday and got the most amazing books, old classics for $0.25 a piece. I was so stoked. I bought 13 of them! But hands down the best one was ‘Modern’ English drama. (In quotes because all of the plays were pre-1800’s). Including: Dryden’s ‘All for Love,” Sheridan’s ‘School for Scandal,’ and Goldsmith’s ‘She Stoops to Conquer.” Words cannot describe how happy these books make me. This leads me to my next point.

2) I am a total Theatre Nerd. I say this unashamedly. I love theatre. I love theatre history and dramaturgy. I am just a sucker for a good play. In fact, I have over 200 plays at my house right now!

3) One more point about theatre is that I love musicals. My favorite musical is Urinetown: the Musical. This is not a joke. It is HYSTERICAL! It is a self-referential play, brechtian in style, a satire on the adverse effects of monopolizing corporations on society as well as a shameless a parody of Les Mis. Come on, it’s just wonderful. My favorite quote goes like this: Officer Lockstock – “People hear lots of things about Urinetown of course, and that’s just the way we like it. For example, a little boy once asked me, ‘Is Urinetown actually a nice place to live? Gingerbread houses along golden frothy canals, like Venice? Only different?’ I didn’t say yes, but I didn’t say no either.”

4) During my senior year of college, I go so burnt by my church that I switched churches and started going to a church that meets under the overpass of I-35. The congregation was mostly made up of homeless guys, hippies and bikers. It was awesome.

5) I am 25 years old and I still sleep with a stuffed animal. His name is Holzwarth and he is a 1 ½ foot tall penguin.

6) When I was growing up, I went to a French Immersion School. What does that mean? It means that when you get to school on the first day of Kindergarten, the teacher only speaks to you in French. I took all of my classes in French: math, science, social studies etc. We only took ½ an hour of English a day to study reading, writing and spelling. I did that for 8 years and then I moved to Texas where everyone speaks Spanish.

7) I have this one prayer that I found in a book and loved and so I pray it everyday.
Father, grant me the grace to never loose sight of:
the exceeding sinfulness of sin,
the exceeding righteousness of salvation,
the exceeding glory of Messiah,
the exceeding beauty of holiness,
and the exceeding wonder of grace.

8) My car’s nickname is “The Chariot.”

9) I absolutely love food. Lots of food. All types of food. I know that this flies in the face of all that the ‘fasted lifestyle’ stands for, but there is nothing I can do about it. However, there are two things that I cannot tolerate, coconuts and popcorn.

10) I am the oldest of 5 kids. I really love my family even though I haven’t lived at home for the past 7 years. Here is a picture…an old-y but a good-y.



That's it. I hope you enjoyed your 'random Charity facts day'!