I hate to admit it, but I do have a Facebook account. No, the link does NOT take you to my actual profile page because at the moment, I kind of enjoy my freedom under the cloak of anonymity. Now ordinarily I’m not a sucker for such frenzies (myspace-which I ABSOLUTELY hate because face it, myspace just isn’t very pretty to look at- and friendster), but for the sake of my previous job I created an account. As a campus minister at a university, ALL the students had accounts since it’s THE thing to do. If I was going to have any credibility with them, I needed to have an online identity. I was amazed how much these few pages consumed them as the students worked and re-worked their elaborate pages. Now that I’m no longer working, though, I find myself spending more and more time on my facebook account, adding nonsensical applications, SuperPokin’ friends I haven’t seen or talked to in ages, and caring whether people gave me VIRTUAL gifts under my VIRTUAL tree last Christmas. Pathetic, I know. Today I received a “1 other request” on my homepage from my East Asia teammate, who has GORGEOUS blonde hair-by the way-that was instantly noticeable whenever we walked anywhere in the sea of black hair. It was a request to complete the above mentioned quiz. Now, I get a number of these “other requests,” that honestly, I usually ignore, BECAUSE PEOPLE I do NOT want my facebook page to be clogged up! I DO NOT WANT TO BE A PIRATE! I DO NOT WANT TO BE A ZOMBIE! I DO NOT WANT TO BE A FRICKIN’ WEREWOLF! Now I would normally join the group–”Stupid Useless FACEBOOK APPLICATIONS - Stop With The CRAP!” After all, I just quoted their description verbatim! But the thing is, I actually DO like virtual Christmas trees even if I only had 3 presents under it this last year none of which were from the husband, and I really DO like most things Jane Austen even silly little quizzes, so I can’t very well bring myself to join the stupid useless facebook applications group. It just wouldn’t be right.

So, I’m sure you’re dying to know which heroine I really am. But before the big reveal, I must confess that as much as I love Jane Austen, I have yet to read any of her books. I know many of you have now shut your laptops, vowed never to subscribe (NOT THAT YOU COULD EVEN IF YOU WANTED TO because I can’t for the life of me figure out why my sidebar isn’t working properly as much as I press the right button that supposedly allows me to say YES, I want people to be ABLE to subscribe if they’d be so inclined) and are running in the other direction while screaming in horror. I, indeed, do have a degree in English from an accredited university and have never read any of her six novels. So how can I possibly be a fan? I’ve seen the movie versions of five of the six novels many times. Has Northanger Abbey been made into a movie? I know that movies aren’t the same as the books. The books are ALWAYS better. I do have friends who are loyal true fans, who’ve actually read the majority of her work. That’s something, isn’t it? To my credit (little as I know I now have), I did try reading Pride and Prejudice once online, but I NEED to be able to turn the pages. So to this cause, now that I’ve publicly humiliated myself, I will be forced to read her works to retain some semblance of integrity. I’ve included the whole quiz, including my answers. Unfortunately, you can’t take the quiz here. You’ll just have to create your own facebook account.

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Just answer 5 questions (it’s actually 7 questions, don’t know why they said 5) and find out instantly! It’s SCARILY accurate. (How accurate could it actually be? When I read the description to my husband, he was in shock. It really is SCARILY accurate.) There are 6 Jane Austen novels - Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Persuasion, and Northanger Abbey - which leading lady do you most resemble?

Fanny Price from Mansfield Park. You are smart and shy, a quiet beauty with brains that intimidate everyone around you (Okay, maybe the smart and shy part is the only part that’s true). You often feel out of place, homeless and alone. As an intellectual idealist, you long to be heard and understood, but rarely waste your time trying to defend yourself to those who could not possibly understand (More like rarely waste my time trying to defend myself to those who I know wouldn’t bother listening anyway). Time and experience is making you bolder (Not as much as I wish it was). Despite your clever genius, you long for simplicity (yes!), and the love of your soul mate, who is a socially surprising and unlikely match (Dan and I have completely opposite personalities and often joke that if we’d been a part of eHarmony we would’ve never gotten together).

Mansfield Park was on TCM the other day. Though I didn’t watch the whole thing this time, I didn’t realize that it’s Frances O’Connor who plays Fanny Price. I didn’t recognize her until I watched Cashmere Mafia. Frances O’Connor plays Zoe Burden, “an investment banker with a handsome, loving, work-at-home architect husband, Eric (Julian Ovenden), and two small children, [who] seems (my italicization) to be the prototype for the woman who has it all” (from http://www.abc.go.com). It’s entertaining on a Wednesday night and the clothes are stunning (maybe a little unrealistic for anywhere except New York). I must warn it does compete with Project Runway for its time slot. Thank goodness for Dish’s DVR!

I was also surprised to see Eli Stone in Mansfield Park. Jonny Lee Miller plays Edmund Bertram in Mansfield Park and Eli Stone in the new ABC series, which has been a new fave of mine!