The meme of 10 weird things
Jan. 23rd, 2008 12:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
steepholmI was tagged for this by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
altariel:
Rules: Each player of this game starts off with 10 weird things/habits/little known facts about yourself. People who get tagged need to write a blog of their own 10 weird habits/things/little known facts as well as state this rule clearly. At the end you need to choose 10 people to be tagged and list their names.
Somehow I haven't the heart to tag anyone else, but do join in if you'd care to!
1. I can wiggle my ears independently and roll my stomach, and a Vulcan salute comes easily to me, but am not asked to do any of these things as often as you’d think, or I’d (secretly) like.
2. Although words are my profession and I love etymology, I am a monoglot. It shames me, and I’ve often tried to learn languages - Welsh, Latin, Esperanto (all the useful ones) – but to no avail. Words, yes; language, no.
3. I share a birthday with my paternal grandfather and Robbie Burns. It’s also the Feast of St Paul’s Conversion on the Road to Damascus – which may mean that, had I been a Catholic, my saint’s name would have been Conversion. But probably not.
4. I am addicted to puns, and one of my long-term projects is to lure children’s authors onto the Clifton Suspension Bridge, photograph them, then put the photos in a Flickr album with a title involving some pun on the word ‘Abridgement’. So far I only have two in my collection, but I think it ought to be fairly easy to nabgerald, as she lives five minutes’ walk away. It’s sheer laziness that I haven’t tried yet, really.
5. I have an MSc in computer science and, having spent a fun four months writing a program for a natural language parser, very nearly went into programming as a profession.
6. Instead I spent 18 months as a technical author, before I fled screaming. My magnum opus was a handbook for a program to help structural engineers with reinforced concrete detailing. (Which was more horrifying – the boredom of the job, or the fear that it might start to seem interesting?)
7. [Edited to subtract: I may add another one later...]
8. To my mind, a garden isn’t complete without fruit trees, running water, and honeysuckle. There’s a haiku in that, somewhere.
9. My second name, Cadman, is the surname of my maternal grandmother. When my mother was a child they were were occasionally visited from the States by her great Uncle Sam Cadman, who was always preceded by a trunkful of ecclesiastical vestments. My mother, understandably, thought that this august figure must be the Uncle Sam, and was very careful to be quiet when he was praying.
10. I have officiated at the funerals of five goldfish, three gerbils, two guinea pigs and a hamster. Whatever next??
altariel:Rules: Each player of this game starts off with 10 weird things/habits/little known facts about yourself. People who get tagged need to write a blog of their own 10 weird habits/things/little known facts as well as state this rule clearly. At the end you need to choose 10 people to be tagged and list their names.
Somehow I haven't the heart to tag anyone else, but do join in if you'd care to!
1. I can wiggle my ears independently and roll my stomach, and a Vulcan salute comes easily to me, but am not asked to do any of these things as often as you’d think, or I’d (secretly) like.
2. Although words are my profession and I love etymology, I am a monoglot. It shames me, and I’ve often tried to learn languages - Welsh, Latin, Esperanto (all the useful ones) – but to no avail. Words, yes; language, no.
3. I share a birthday with my paternal grandfather and Robbie Burns. It’s also the Feast of St Paul’s Conversion on the Road to Damascus – which may mean that, had I been a Catholic, my saint’s name would have been Conversion. But probably not.
4. I am addicted to puns, and one of my long-term projects is to lure children’s authors onto the Clifton Suspension Bridge, photograph them, then put the photos in a Flickr album with a title involving some pun on the word ‘Abridgement’. So far I only have two in my collection, but I think it ought to be fairly easy to nab
gerald, as she lives five minutes’ walk away. It’s sheer laziness that I haven’t tried yet, really.5. I have an MSc in computer science and, having spent a fun four months writing a program for a natural language parser, very nearly went into programming as a profession.
6. Instead I spent 18 months as a technical author, before I fled screaming. My magnum opus was a handbook for a program to help structural engineers with reinforced concrete detailing. (Which was more horrifying – the boredom of the job, or the fear that it might start to seem interesting?)
7. [Edited to subtract: I may add another one later...]
8. To my mind, a garden isn’t complete without fruit trees, running water, and honeysuckle. There’s a haiku in that, somewhere.
9. My second name, Cadman, is the surname of my maternal grandmother. When my mother was a child they were were occasionally visited from the States by her great Uncle Sam Cadman, who was always preceded by a trunkful of ecclesiastical vestments. My mother, understandably, thought that this august figure must be the Uncle Sam, and was very careful to be quiet when he was praying.
10. I have officiated at the funerals of five goldfish, three gerbils, two guinea pigs and a hamster. Whatever next??