A Little Introduction

My name is Andrew Price and this is my first time blogging ever, which is no small accomplishment in these modern computerized times.  Let's all pray that I'm doing this right.

A few things about me:  I am from Charlotte, North Carolina, though not originally, which is why I have no Southern accent.  I have moved around a fair bit in my life because my dad used to be in the Army.  He joined in order to pay for medical school.  I was born in Bethesda, Maryland just before he graduated from medical school.  From there I have lived in El Paso, San Antonio, Denver, Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany, and Fort Bragg.  After my dad retired from the Army we moved to Charlotte and have been there ever since.  I consider Charlotte to be home since it's where I went to high school, and I love it there.  I am the third of five children.  I have an older sister and brother, and two younger brothers.  My sister lives in Indiana with her husband and son, and my older brother lives in Charlotte with his wife and three kids.  My two younger brothers live at home.  I served a mission in Ecuador after my first year of college, so I speak Spanish.

I really enjoy reading and writing.  I have kept a creative writing journal for several years.  I mainly write short stories and personal essays.  I love good books.  I have lots of favorites, but one of my all time favorite books is Jurassic Park.  The reason why it's one of my favorites is twofold:  1) It's a fun, exciting story, and 2) it's the book that first got me really hooked on reading.
When I was in the 4th grade our class was doing this kind of reading competition.  You had to read at least 25 books over the course of the year and then you could go to this pizza party at the end.  Whoever read the most books would get an extra prize.  I was getting way behind near the end so I took advantage of a loophole that the teacher told us about, which was that every hundred pages that we read in a single book could count as a new book (so in essence, if you read a two hundred page book it equaled two books, three hundred pages = three books, etc.).  I pulled Jurassic Park off the shelf because it is close to four hundred pages, and because I figured that I really liked the movie, so the book probably wouldn't be too bad.  I loved it.  It really had me riveted the entire time.  In the end I think I squeaked by with something like 26 or 27 books read by the time of the pizza party.  So I didn't win the competition, but (at the risk of sounding sappy) I gained a lot more from that experience than I ever could have realized.  Ever since then I have been a ravenous reader, always looking for more to read.

Following my mission I went back and forth about what I wanted to major in.  All along I had been taking English classes with the intent of minoring in English, but at the last English Symposium I realized that English is my real passion and I officially became an English major.  I love literature and writing, and it is what I want to study.  I always like to explore new books and learn new things, which is why I am taking this class on Milton.  Last winter semester I was taking a class on British Literature and I kept seeing that many poets and writers kept pointing to Milton as the greatest English poet of all time, which is certainly saying a lot considering his competition includes people like Shakespeare, Chaucer, and Spenser.  Another thing that attracted me to this class is the fact that I don't know much about Milton.  I'm no expert on Shakespeare by any stretch of the imagination, but I feel like I don't know enough about Milton considering his status in the world of English Literature.  I am taking this class because I want the challenge of exploring something new (for me anyway).  I'm looking forward to this class!

In conclusion, here a few quick facts about me:

• My in no way exhaustive list of favorite books include Angela's Ashes, Jurassic Park, No Country for Old Men, Assassination Vacation, The Book Thief, More Information Than You Require, the Harry Potter series, anything by P. G. Wodehouse, the short stories of Flannery O'Connor, A Christmas Carol, etc., etc.
• I have an extensive collection of movies (way more than I realized until I had to move them).
• My favorite movie is Duck Soup, which is a Marx Brothers movie, and if you have seen it then you are automatically awesome.  If you haven't seen it, you are probably still awesome, but seeing Duck Soup would definitely make it a sure thing.
• My favorite color is green.
• My favorite food is my mother's pasta.
• I am 25 years old.
• I'm excited to be here.