All about me

Kylie and Michelle tagged me for this one, and I'm pretty sure I owe AmandaJ a meme as well.

I resent these things because I end up in a very negative place doing them. TSS suggested I do seven things that I love or which make me happy which may turn out to be weird anyway. She's brilliant. Also, I prefer not to single others out for treatment - if you wish to participate, that's fine, but I'm not tagging. I refuse to perpetuate chain mail.

It has taken me the best part of a week to compile this list.

SEVEN THINGS THAT MAKE ME HAPPY or THINGS THAT I LOVE

1. Early mornings. Yup, I'm an early bird. Slug-a-beds think that early birds think that they, the early birds, are superior. I do not agree. I love slug-a-beds. If you are in my house, have the decency to stay in bed for at least an hour after I get up or the consequences will be ugly.

2. Silence. Quite possibly related to no. 1, or indeed, the cause of it. The older I get the more I need refuge from noise.

3. Connecting with my clients. Really, it's a complete buzz to work out what it is they want and then help them find it. Rarely does someone come in knowing how to ask for what they want and quite often they haven't been into a library for most of their lifetime. It's also a privilege to be there for the "eureka moment" in their research.

4. Green and Black organic, fair trade chocolate. The Maya Gold orange and spice infused is wonderful. So far only been able to find the Maya Gold, Milk and the 70% at Woollies. LMK if you see any of the others or the hot chocolate.

5. All things citrus. Lemons, limes, ruby grapefruit, blood oranges, mandarines, cumquats - love 'em all. My 40th birthday was all citrus.

6. Autumn!

7. Going to a good team sporting match. Most sports, I'm not that fussy, but I have a preference for hockey and football of any code. I will watch matches on TV but it isn't the same and I do not derive as much pleasure from them. Just love being at the ground. One of the things I miss about my life in Sydney is wandering down to Henson Park on a Saturday afternoon and barracking for the Newtown Jets Rugby League team. - Go the Blue Bags in their centenary year!

8. The unaccompanied human voice in song. The Song Company and the Tallis Scholars are absolute faves followed by just about any Welsh male voice choir. At one of my places of work, we often had Australian Opera singers rehearse in our hall and once I had the Sydney Male Choir all to myself for an hour - toe curlingling blissful! OK, it wasn't only the toes affected - you asked for weird things, now you have them.

On the job

So Margie included the results of a career quiz in her blog. It's from Career Cruising , (username: nycareers, password: landmark) .


I guess it's good the the three things I'm trained in are in the top ten, as are several other jobs I've done. Not listed here, though, are full-time stash wrangler or professional bargain hunter. Disappointing. ;)

1. Professor
2. Anthropologist
3. ESL Teacher
4. Foreign Language Instructor
5. Archivist
6. Economic Development Officer
7. Historian
8. Librarian
9. Editor
10. Dental Assistant
11. Computer Trainer
12. Medical Secretary
13. Foreign Service Officer
14. Funeral Director
15. Curator
16. Industrial-Organizational Psychologist
17. Nail Technician
18. Communications Specialist
19. Corporate Trainer
20. Tour Guide
21. Library Technician
22. Customer Service Representative
23. Print Journalist
24. Writer
25. Picture Framer
26. Market Research Analyst
27. Furniture Finisher
28. Sport Psychology Consultant
29. Human Resources Specialist
30. Health Records Professional
31. Critic
32. Dispatcher
33. Economist
34. Translator
35. Plumber
36. Technical Writer
37. Public Relations Specialist
38. Political Aide
39. Activist
40. Public Policy Analyst

Meme

Kate tagged me. I'm not passing it on. Here's a bonus thing about me - I never pass on chain letters of any description.

1. One of my favourite lines from a movie is Kevin Costner’s speech as Crash Davies in Bull Durham
   "Well, I believe in the soul, the cock, the pussy, the small of a woman's back, the hanging curve ball, high fiber, good scotch, that the novels of Susan Sontag are self-indulgent, overrated crap. I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. I believe there ought to be a constitutional amendment outlawing Astroturf and the designated hitter. I believe in the sweet spot, soft-core pornography, opening your presents Christmas morning rather than Christmas Eve and I believe in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days.”
   
2. I once gave up coffee, chocolate, wine and spicy foods for 2 years. 2 years is a long time. It was a long time for me and a longer time for those who love me.
   
3. I have no tolerance for social elites.
   
4. Despite possessing a pretty large vocabulary (the Readers’ Digest "Increase your word power" section never held terrors) I use a lot of swear words.
   
5. A career advisor once suggested I become a nun. I’m not Catholic but I did attend a Catholic secondary school and was Diocesan Youth Coordinator for the 1987 Papal Visit so it was an easy mistake to make. I suggested as a teacher he might have done his homework better. This was the first time I answered back to an authority figure.
   
6. I have a tendency to self-sabotage rooted in self-esteem issues. I’m working on it.
   
7. I like quality ….. AND quantity.

Tag Team

Grumble, grumble, moan, moan, mutter mutter, I hate memes and I've been tagged twice in a week!

I'm wondering if I can combine Bells' 6 weird things, with Twitchy Fingers' , 5 things I haven't told you about myself on my blog in the last 12 months, but don't know if that will work.

A. 6 WEIRD THINGS
Last year it was only 5 weird things so you can have all of last year's weird things, Bells, plus

6. My personal library is divided in fiction and non-fiction. They live in different parts of the house. Within that, fiction is filed alphabetically by author and non-fiction roughly into subjects. I guess it's an occupational hazard, but I actually know someone who is not a librarian who used to borrow my Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC 19 it was then) to classify his personal library. And you though I was weird.

B. FIVE THINGS YOU DON'T ALREADY KNOW ABOUT ME FROM MY BLOG

1. See (A.6) above

2. I don't go much for personal reflection - tends to degenerate fairly quickly into "I'm not good enough in any possible way" to be truly useful.

3. When I was 14 or 15 I overheard one of my teachers tell another teacher that I was a nice girl but had such a bad inferiority complex. I had to look up what an inferiority complex was, then I was mortified. I'm still working on that one - see (B.2) above.

4. My favourite toy as a child was Mum's button jar. I used to spend hours sorting and classifying them. Colour, number of holes, shanks, shapes, material etc. My brother used to count the money in our money boxes. This may go part of the way to explaining my choice of profession, and his. He's an accounts clerk, by the way, and has a considerable real estate portfolio.

5. Last year I used a 2mm metal dpn to let down a tyre on the van of a group of young men who said VERY rude things to me about my weight. I left a note on the windscreen that said "Fat, not deaf". I would do it again, only this time, I wouldn't just let down one tyre, it would be at least two.

Seven Things Part 6 (the end)

Apparently I overestimated the size of my own feet. Tried the green opal sock on last night and it was an inch past my big toe. I get to unravel again. O joy.


SEVEN THINGS I CANNOT DO

1. Lie convincingly
2. Walk past an open op-shop (but you already knew that)
3. Play a musical instrument (8 years of piano lessons completely wasted)
4. Do mental arithmetic with any degree of accuracy
5. Understand the current craze for making crappy soft toys (I realise I may be exiled from the Blogdom for this one)
6. Separate my coloureds from my whites
7. Conceive and carry a child to term

Seven Things Parts 4 & 5

More green opal sock knitted. My SIL saw it and asked me if I was knitting something for one of the dogs. Bloody hell. I know my feet are big, but they aren't that big!

SEVEN BOOKS WHICH HAVE HAD AN EFFECT ON ME

1. The Three Billy Goats Gruff, Little Golden Book version (the first book I remember learning off by heart)
2. The Monster that Ate Canberra by Michael Salmon (the first time I saw my home town reflected in literature and I know, now, that it was allegorical)
3. Canberra Tales by Margaret Barbalet et al (the first time I saw the non-National Capital aspects of my home town reflected in literature)
4. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
5. The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy by Lawrence Sterne
6. Little Women by Louisa May Allcott (if you didn't want to be Jo you can't be my friend)
7. The Bible (great stories, culturally significant and the King James Version is a beautiful version of the English language)

SEVEN THINGS THAT ATTRACT ME TO MY PARTNER
(Er, does the dog count? No? Ok, I'll do the list that makes sexy for me)

1. Caring
2. Principled
3. Smart
4. Funny
5. Politically aware
6. Knows that chocolate is an essential food group and when to administer it
7. Loves animals

Seven Things Parts 2 & 3

Yes, I did knit the green opal sock monogamously today thank you very much and I am at the black hole stage. Apparently my foot is static. I'm thinking amputation is an option here.

SEVEN THINGS I SAY

1. Bugger it!
2. Two minutes, I'll be there in two minutes.
3. While you're up...
4. Just one more row
5. How's it going?
6. Drink o'clock (I know, cringe-making!)
7. Were you good today? (Peggy's almost always good, but I like to ask)

SEVEN THINGS TO DO BEFORE I DIE (and the act depicted to the left is not one of them)

1. 1. Finish a knitted sock
2. 2. Complete
3. 3. one
4. 4. of
5. 5. these
6. 6. bloody
7. 7. lists

Because I couldn't find a suitable image for this post, I stole this one from The Deli.

Tagged: Seven Things Part I

Gillian tagged me with a meme ages ago. I hate these things, but in the interests of a more regular blog update that isn't devoted entirely to "I knitted two rounds of the sock..." which is about all I'm doing at the moment, I give you Part I of Seven Things.

SEVEN MOVIES I'VE LOVED
in no particular order

• Truly, Madly, Deeply Alan Rickman and a cello score - nuff said
• The Tall Guy - funniest sex scene
• Georgy Girl - in which the fat chick wins. Ditto Hairspray.
• Easy Rider - violent and all, but excellent and the performances of Henry Fonda and Dennis Hopper!
• How to Steal a Million - Audrey Hepburn and Peter O'Toole *swoon*
• The Quiet Man - the best and longest fight scene
• Desk Set - Katherine Hepburn (as a feisty librarian) and Spencer Tracy.

On a side note - if anyone sees DVDs of any of these, please let me know.

Crap, I've been tagged

Is this the blog equivalent of a chain letter/endless joke emails?

Anyway, as Spidey tagged me I will do it just this once, but as she's tagged most of my readers as well, won't tag anyone else (unless you want to, in which case consider yourself tagged).

***Ground Rules: The first player of this "game" starts with the topic "5 weird habits of yours" and people who get tagged need to write a blog entry about their 5 quirky habits as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose the next 5 people to be tagged and list their names.***

1. At home I can only eat icecream with a particular epns parfait spoon.

2. I'm allergic to casein, the milk protein (only when ingested, I can knit with it) so shouldn't be eating icecream anyway.

3. At home I brush my teeth in the shower.

4. I always butter (which I shouldn't have - see 2, above) bread really thinly but right to the edges of the crusts.

5. My coming home ritual is: as soon as I walk in the door I remove my watch and rings, then my shoes and socks or stockings and then my bra.

You know, there really IS such a thing as too much information.