Shelly tagged me. I tend to be fairly forthcoming in my blog, so I didn’t know if there were eight things about me others didn’t know already, and if there were if they’d be eight things I’d be willing to share publically as well. But Shelly’s were clever and interesting (and I only knew one of them before), so I gave it some thought, and found I do have eight things you probably don’t know about me, and still interesting enought to post:
1. I’m a Doctor Zhivago fanatic. I saw the David Lean movie rebroadcast on TV at a tender age, and I haven’t stopped loving the story since. I watched the David Lean movie in revival on the big screen, I owned the video, and now the DVD (with commentaries). I’ve read the book (which is significantly different than the David Lean movie) multiple times, even though my Russian professors sneered at it for its heavy-handed symbolism, and I have copies of the book in English, German, and Russian. I watched the 10-hour Russian mini-series version of the book, which was well done, even though it obviously owed as much to the David Lean movie as it did to the original book. I’m even watching the BBC version of Doctor Zhivago, even though I have to suffer through Keira Knightly’s trademark stupid look a lot.
2. My comfort food is liverwurst (or Braunschweiger) with butter on white bread. I blame this squarely on my German childhood. You’re not alone in thinking this is weird. Once, a woman spotted me, looking thoroughly stressed, with 2 rolls of liverwurst in the check out line, and asked me if the liverwurst was for my cat. Yeah, my inner, bitter, German cat self…hisss.
3. I can do the macarena. I think it was 1995 or 1996 and I always seemed to be at an event where people were doing the macarena. At the New Year’s Party at the end of the year, someone put on the macarena, and I danced it fluently. After that, the dance fad died out, but whenever it rears itself, like at a school party, I can still do it.
4. I was on my high school swim team. I like to brag about this because it makes me sound athletic. I was just JV, and if I wasn’t the slowest, I was the second slowest. I definitely got more out of being on the team than the coach got out of me. I regret opting for drama instead of being on the swim team again during my senior year, and swimming continues to be my favorite sport.
5. I can sing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” in Latin: an even less useful party skill than #3.
6. I’ve been on stage with Penn and Teller in San Francisco. Peter took me to see the magicians perform at the Warfield, and made the mistake of leaving me alone temporarily in the lobby during intermission. Penn found me and asked me to go on stage for the next “mentalist” trick, and I was the star, sending “psychic” message to the entire audience. Peter was just surprised to see his wife disappear from the lobby and reappear on stage.
7. I’ve been to more than 18 countries, including Mexico, Iceland, and Armenia, but I’ve never set foot in Canada. I hear it’s nice.
8. UCLA accepted me to their Arabic language program. I opted to go to Mount Holyoke and study Russian instead. Sometimes I wonder what my life would be if I’d decided on the UCLA path instead.
Most of my friends have businessy blogs, if they have blogs at all. So, who do I know with a blog whom I can tag? OK, I choose Shiaw-Ling, Peter, Joel and Loretta.
Curses! Memed again.