Ruminations

I’ve been watching the Five Things You Don’t Know About Me meme for a couple of weeks now, and kind of hoping I would get tagged to do it, and kind of hoping I wouldn’t. Hoping I would get tagged because I seldom get tagged (usually I seem to tag myself), and hoping I wouldn’t, because I think it’s a bit of a tough one, this meme. Tough because things you don’t know about me are maybe things you wouldn’t care to know about me - and maybe I wouldn’t care to have you know them either I’ve actually been pondering what I would write ever since I saw it, so thanks, Kathryn, for finally tagging me and giving me the impetus to write:

1. I once sang solo at a school concert, aged 12. There were three solo parts, and I got chosen to sing one. As far as I recall, the words of the verse I had to sing went something like this:
Acara kemuncak seluruh negeri
Temasya sukan berlari-lari
Kanak-kanak cacat turut menyeri
Meraikan hari yang mulia ini

A very rough translation:
The state’s main event
Sports festival, running races
Disabled children join in too
Celebrating the great day

I remember that I just happened to glance at the school’s sole disabled student (she had an artificial leg) precisely at the moment I sang the line about kanak-kanak cacat “disabled children”, and I nearly stumbled over my lines. (I had a split second of feeling bad for seeming to single her out, or something.)

2. I dislike the sound of the harpsichord quite intensely. I don’t know why. I quite like piano music, but harpsichord sounds make me shudder. This dislike interferes with my enjoyment of music from the Baroque period, which irks me a bit.

3. I have a couple of certificates in commercial cooking, and am just a few months short of having completed a chef’s apprenticeship. (Okay, many of you who know me in person also know this, but I don’t think many blogger friends do.) After completing my undergraduate degree I had no idea what I was going to do with myself and decided to do something completely different, so I signed up to learn how to cook. I really enjoyed my time in commercial kitchens, mostly in different sections of a large five-star hotel in this town, where I learned how to make sauces, cook roasts for 600, write on cakes, and what not to do when you’ve dropped sixty litres of cooked pasta on the ground*. I finally gave it up due to chronic tendonitis in my right wrist. (Then I went back to uni, to library school.)

4. I hate (yes, hate) the smell of cigarette smoke and will go to great lengths to avoid being around it. M can tell you how finicky I get about it. I do make exceptions for one or two people but I don’t enjoy events or locations where there are smokers. I’m glad that 90% of my family are non-smokers.

5. I spent a year in China, way back in 1992, as part of my undergrad degree. The country’s changed hugely since then, and I’d love to go back to have a look.

It’s been interesting reading the sorts of revelations people choose to share: Walt Crawford’s, Danah Boyd’s (from whose list we learn that she dislikes libraries!!), Iris’s, TB-)’s, Rick Roche’s, and the twist from Quædam cuiusdam.

Tagging: Isaak, Angel, Rob, Belongum, and Simone. (Hard to pick just five, so feel free, if you feel like it, of course!)

* What not to do: panic.