We take pride in our staff, and now we get to know them with their “last ten.”

editor’s note: We spent time with Ms. Varriano two weeks ago. Here’s what we learned about her.

What was the last restaurant that you visited? “Panera. Oh- St. Louis Bread Co.! I’m from Kansas so I say Panera.”

• Do you go there often? “I like it, yeah.”
• What’s your favorite thing to get there? “Potato soup, but in St. Louis they don’t serve it every day, and it’s killing me!”
• Did you go there a lot in Kansas? “Yeah.”
• What part of Kansas are you from? “Kansas City but the suburbs, so south of the city. But I was on the Kansas side.”

What was the last TV show or movie you watched? “‘Big Bang Theory.’ Just watched it last night.”

• Is that one of your favorites? “Oh, yeah.”
• When did you start watching it? “Oh, since it started! Since the show was on.”
• What do you like about it? “It reminds me of my family. My sister is a mixture of Sheldon and Raj for sure. She’s really intelligent, my dad is extremely intelligent, and then my mom and I are kind of more like Penny, except we’re still smart but we’re not like scary smart. I know a lot of people that are that intelligent, and it’s pretty spot on how they act! So I watch it and I’m like ‘Oh, this is kind of my life!'”

What was the last thing that you ate? “Vegetables. I had those for dinner.”

• Are you a vegetarian? “Nope, I just really like vegetables, and I really like food.”
• What’s your favorite food or meal? “Steak and mashed potatoes and corn, any day of the week.”

What was the last thing that you did at your former job? “I worked at summer camps, I guess that was my former job before teaching.”

• Did you work as a camp counselor? “Yeah, camp counselors for multiple different camps throughout college.”
• Where were they at? “One was in Kirksville, Missouri where I went to college and it was just the YMCA, and then the other was was a camp out in south Kansas.”

Who was the last person that you shared a phone call with? “My boyfriend.”

• What did you talk about? “Just our day. We don’t really get to see each other during the week because he works and I work.”
• How long have you been dating? “Our two year anniversary was last Saturday! I’m actually on the Catpound so we went to the football game! It was fun though.”

Who was the last person you hugged? “My sister. I saw her last night.”

• How old is your sister? “She’s 25.”
• Does she live in St. Louis? “Yeah.”
• Did you both grow up in Kansas? “Yeah we’re from Kansas. My sister went to college here at Wash U, and she just got an engineering job here. I moved to St. Louis because of my friends and my sister.”
• So are you and your sister close? “Yeah, we’re close!”

What’s the last store that you went to? “Does QuikTrip count? QuikTrip!”

• What did you get there? “I got a drink.”
• What kind of drink did you get? “Cherry Coke. I think.”
• Is that what you usually get? “Yeah, it just depends.”

What was the last soda you drank? “Cherry Coke from Quick Trip.”

• Is Cherry Coke your favorite soda? “I don’t drink pop too much, but when I do I like Cherry Coke.”

What was the last out of state place that you visited? “I actually went to Iceland in July.”

• Who did you go to Iceland with? “My mom, my sister and my aunt.”
• For vacation? “Yep.”
• What did you like about it? “Oh my gosh, everything. I actually have this bulletin board over here, “The Geology of Iceland” because I teach Geo Science so I’m kind of weirdly obsessed with that stuff.”
• Did you take all of the pictures on your “Geology of Iceland” bulletin board? “Yep, other than the ones I’m in, I took all of those pictures.”
• What was your favorite part? “Probably going inside of the volcano. That was probably the coolest part. I think that’s the only place you can do that right now, so that was pretty cool.”
• Why did you go to Iceland? “My family let me pick the place, they were kind of in awe. They were like ‘Out of everywhere in the world you picked Iceland?!’ And we had an amazing time. It was awesome.”
• Why did you pick Iceland? “I like to call it the geologic wonder of the world. It has every geologic feature, and I knew I was teaching Geo Science and it’s just so pretty! My geology teacher in college told me about it, and I looked into it, and I’m  like, ‘Holy cow, she was so right. This is amazing!’ so ever since then that’s what I’ve been thinking.”
• Does your family usually go on big vacations? “Not usually. This was kind of a half present of me graduating with my masters, the other half I paid for.”

Who is the last person you communicated with over social media? “I made an event on facebook for a camp out.”

• Who were you going to camp out with? “Some of my friends were going to go camp out in October.”
• Do you and your friends go camping often? “No, just I thought it would be fun.”
• Just a fun thing to try? “Yeah, just a fun thing on the weekend. I have a tent at home and my boyfriend has a tent so a big group of people can all go camping.”