January 15, 2006
I've been tagged
...And I don't usually get tagged, so I think I should fulfill my "having been tagged" duties and do as the tag tells me to do before it gets all mad and becomes a raging alcoholic because that's what happens when tags get mad. Or something.
SO, from Nerissa comes the task of "writing ten random and interesting facts about yourself and they need not be food-related". Hm. Um. This is going to be boring, but here are some things I may or may not have mentioned in this blog but are part of my life history...or present. Or. Future...wait, scratch the "future" bit. I guess it makes most sense to not talk about food because you always hear me talk about it and, jeez, aren't you tired of it yet?
- Both of my parents are Chinese (by way of Taiwan) but neither my brother or I picked up any Mandarin. I still know almost nothing, except "da pi gu" (just laugh if you know what it means; my parents said it to me a lot). To make matters worse, we all lived in Taiwan from 1996-1998. My brother and I went to TAS where I took French and he took Spanish. My French is really bad/nonexistent. Although I've taken French, Russian, and Japanese (and of course, Mandarin, which never stuck), I'm totally unilingual. Another word for "unilingual" is "moron".
- When I was in elementary school, I wanted to become an animator despite no visible evidence of drawing talent or the ability to draw a straight line. It seemed cool at the time. At least I didn't say "gynecologist"; someone in my 5th grade class wrote that and it was put in our yearbooks, and I think the "someone" was a guy.
- I've been playing instruments since I was 4. However, that doesn't mean I'm good at it, so for any parents who think that starting their kids off playing instruments while still in the process of cutting the umbilical cord will result in genius-ness, it might (seemed to work for some of my cousins). Or you'll end up with me. The progression (age in parenthesis): piano (4), clarinet (9), guitar (13), drums (13), saxaphone (13, for about two seconds of my life; it's a lot like a clarinet), trumpet (13, again for about two seconds of my life; not at all like a clarinet), and lately, lap harp and theremin, which I'm not succeeding in at all. I lack harp-playing friends so I have no idea how to play it (but really, you just pluck the strings and it sounds purdy) and the theremin? I doubt I will ever be able to play it even 5% of the way towards competency, but I'll try. 5% of the way.
- Two summers ago, I self-published a volume of Adventures in Poofyville comics. I think I ordered 150 of them, meaning I still have a crapload left. After two years. I can't say I'm trying very hard to sell them; it's easier to give them away. Surprisingly, people I don't know have bought the book, although I still recall one girl at Otakon looking over my Poofy wares and declaring me weird while she was dressed up in a costume of some sort. Uh huh. Right. (By the way, anime conventions are insane. Don't. Go.)
- This is becoming way too long. But you're still reading! My god! Besides food, a major obsession in my life is music. While I did start off listening to pop (COME ON, WE ALL LIKED THE SPICE GIRLS), my first mega teen obsession was with The Wallflowers. Oh god. You didn't want to be around me during my obsession; all I'd talk about was Jakob Dylan. After that, it was Rufus Wainwright, Beck and Radiohead. And a million other things. I still have a Beck fansite, although I don't update it as much as I used to. Sad. I've never met Beck but I was given the opportunity once and...just couldn't do it. Psychologically. I have issues.
- My main music obsession now is Magnet. I can't explain why I like his music so much, but it's just one of those gut feelings. I trust the feeling in my gut; it's squishy and warm. Although I try not to be too judgemental, I think I feel physically pained when people don't like Magnet. Best not to tell me these things. :) As a measurement of my fandom, I have a fansite and because of that site, I also manage the official site. I could use many words besides "weird" to describe the position, but...it's weird. I love doing it, but it's still weird.
- The only club I was in all through high school was the math team. Yes. It was easy, as all I had to do was participate in math contests. We got free cookies, which I happily ate until I went on the raw food diet, at which point the only draw of the math club was taking math tests, not the chance to eat free cookies. Scary.
- I was in marching band during 9th grade and I hated it with all my guts. Or some of my guts. I think marching band is fairly similar no matter where you are; it's a cult and you're either with it or you're not. I wasn't just not with the marching band, but I also quit regular band, an activity I had taken part in from 4th through 10th grade. God, I hated high school.
- I never really wanted to go to college, but I knew I had no other choice. Of course, I felt guilty for not wanting to go to college when there are tons of people out there who would love to go but are unable to or have a really hard time coming up with the $5 million it takes to go to school today, but I can't pretend I never had that feeling. I basically did the minimum to get into a good college, if you can imagine such a thing (not a crapload of extracurriculars, not a lot of challenging classes, only took the SATs once, took the ACT instead of taking three SAT IIs, basically a bunch of things you probably couldn't get away with today and still get into a "good" school). If you're really curious, I got rejected from NYU, Barnard, and Tufts (duh on that one), and got into Rutgers, Skidmore, and Vassar (yup, I just applied to 6 schools, while one of my friends did 15 or so). If I didn't say it already in this blog, I went to Vassar for my freshman year and transferred to NYU. College is fine and my grades are good, but I'm not intellectual and just like every other place I've been in for most of my life, I don't "fit" in.
- Are you actually reading this or skimming? Well. Last point. [scratches head] I'm really introverted and I blog too much.
Time to write my real food entry now.
Posted by roboppy at 1:18 AM
Comments (5)
Don't forget the theremin! And you're not unilingual, you have some profiencency in CSS don't you? :-P
Posted by: Amy at January 15, 2006 11:35 AM [#]
Hey.. at least your parents threated you before the actual act. I'm sure they're hoping that just by threat alone will scare you into behaving. Unfortunly, I needed "convencing". :p
Posted by: Wei at January 15, 2006 5:34 PM [#]
god, you are so much more motivated than i ever was. if this is you not trying, i wonder what kind of wunderkind you'd be if you did? if this is you not trying, me trying is really pathetic.
(i applied to two schools--both because they had late application deadlines and self-addressed self-stamped envelopes.)
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I laughed out loud in silence at "da pi gu". I guess all Chinese parents around the world threaten their children with those three words.
Posted by: mumu at January 15, 2006 3:39 AM [#]