Gretchen, stop trying to make 'fetch' happen!

The lovely Brooke over at Oh My Seven tagged me for the six things meme. I thought about doing another six degrees theme, but that was kind of an effort to link it all together and today is not a "put-forth-effort" kinda day. Instead, you get:

Six Random Things About My Name
or
This is actually a lot more interesting than it sounds

1. "Gretchen" is German for "little pearl." It's a pet form of Margaret. (Margaret + chen (meaning "little") = Gretchen...I'd never put that together before just now.)

2. In numerology, my number is 7 and my soul urge number is 9. ("Soul urge" sounds like more of a musical movement than a test of my character.) My inner dream number is 7. The whole analysis is scary accurate. "You dream of having the opportunity to read, study, and shut yourself off from worldly distractions. You can see yourself as a teacher, mystic, or ecclesiastic, spending your life in the pursuit of knowledge and learning. At full maturity you are likely to be a very peaceful and poised individual." Heck yes!

3. I took a New Testament course my freshman year. This marked the first time where I WAS NOT THE ONLY GRETCHEN IN THE CLASS. Holy cow, this threw me off! I think it threw her off, too, since the prof would be all, "Gretchen, what did you think about this verse?" and we'd both start to talk. It was a bit of a blow to my ego, since I'm so used to being That Smart Girl With The Weird Name.

4. Over the years, I've garnered quite the collection of nicknames. Gretch-a-sketch (naturally), Gretch, Gretcher, Gretchie, Fetchin' Gretchen, GretchieGAL, Gretchizzle, and Hen.

5. I've had my own personalized version of "Hey There, Delilah" sung to me on the radio. You see, my friend Dan interned as DJ at his local Minnesotan radio. (Quick backstory on Dan: We met last summer and he could make me laugh like no other person I know. He's on a mission right now in Argentina. He's a couple years younger than me and apparently carried this massive torch for me...but it was sadly unrequited.) Anyhow, he got some friends together for the background vocals and at approximately 2 AM in the morning, the following song airs. "Hey there, Gretchen/What's it like in [hometown], Utah/You're a thousand miles away/But girl, tonight you look so pretty/Yes you dooooo/Temple Square can't shine as bright as you." He even managed to sneak in a "That's What She Said" during his dialogue. The whole thing was so amazingly cool.

6. Remember Recess? And the character Gretchen Grundler? I'm convinced her character was based off of me. In high school, I was a proud member of MESA, because I guess I needed to be even nerdier. So we buy our hoodies and in a moment of dorkiness, I decide to get "Grundler" embroidered on the hood. Two weeks later they arrive and I have one of those "Oh crap what have I done" epiphanies. I spend the rest of the year with the tip of the hood tucked in, so the name isn't visible. I'm not sure what I was so afraid of, becuase I'm sure the fact that I was wearing a Math, Engineering, and Science Achievement sweatshirt entirely NEGATED any minorly geeky cartoon reference I could have made. I still have it, too, but these days? I wear it with pride.

My previous tags (Elise, Marlayna, and KK) still stand, because I haven't seen your six random things yet, girls!