Eight things

[ellarien]

ritaxis tagged me.


Here are the rules:

1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
5. Don't forget to leave them a comment telling them they're tagged, and to read your blog. (I'm not entirely sure this is necessary in the case of mutual LJ-friends; it seems more applicable to the wider blogosphere.)

My 8:


When I was ten, my father brought home an old but still functional chemical balance in a glass case, and a boxed set of weights with only the really tiny ones (< 1 g) missing. It sat on the chest of drawers in my bedroom for years, and if it was intended to influence me into picking the scientific path, it worked.

We didn't have a TV when I was a child, and I didn't have anything like regular access to one until after I finished my PhD. The first set I owned was a 9-inch black and white portable, with one tuning knob and no preset channels, and I still think a 19" set is more than big enough for one person in a middling-sized room.

I haven't had my hair professionally cut, or worn makeup, since my sister's wedding in 1990. (And I wouldn't have done either then, if my sister hadn't insisted, and one of the other bridesmaids had to apply the makeup for me.)

One of my treasured possessions is an olive-wood camel with "Jerusalem" stamped on the base in English and Hebrew. It belonged to my maternal grandfather, but my mother has no idea where it came from -- it certainly wasn't a souvenir of his own travels! After thirty-odd years, it no longer really smells of the woodworm-preventative it was doused in before I was allowed to have it in my room.

Some of the houseplants I had as an undergraduate student are still alive at my mother's house; I couldn't bring them here, of course. She always tell me when the cacti flower. I never got any plants for this apartment, though; it's too hot, and there are no windowsills, and I'm away too much.

I always wear a couple of sterling-silver rings, and feel very odd if I'm out in public without them, but they tend to come off as soon as I get home.

I never learned to touch-type properly, but I can get up to around 50 or 60 words a minute on a computer keyboard using about five fingers and one thumb. (I just spent a minute or two typing 'The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog' in an attempt to figure out which fingers. Near as I can tell, the left third finger is for z and nothing else, the right third finger gets the delete key, and the pinkies don't come into it at all.)

I have no middle name; this is less unusual in the UK than it is in the US, but despite the stories I heard before I moved here, I've never come across anything where 'Middle Initial' was an absolutely required field.



I tag (but diffidently, and not wishing to impose any sense of obligation):

amberdine, athenais, gwyneira,intertext,kip_w,lil_shepherd
marykaykare,zingerella

Comments

[ellarien]

I'd grown mine out for the third and last time a few years earlier, and at some point I realized that I could neaten the ends myself, or have my mother do it, rather than spending half an hour in a funny-smelling salon. For the wedding, my sister wanted me to wear it loose, which I never do, and the hairdresser filled it with gunk to give it 'body'. Never again!

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Lol! For her wedding, my sister knew I would refuse to go to a salon, or put gunk in it, so she arranged to have it French braided. I could live with that.

[ellarien]

That, I wouldn't have minded, but it might not have been compatible with the hat.