Sunday, March 4, 2007

Lazy Weekend Bonus

Lil' Sister tagged me for the 6 weird things meme... I've been avoiding it for the obvious drama that has taken over my life, but let's take a break from the drama and learn about just how un-weird I actually am despite the, um, unique circumstances of my life now.

1. I'm a bona fide anarchist, in the good old fashioned Emma Goldman meaning of the word. That's right. Stay away from the 3 pernicious influences: god, private property and the state, and live happily ever after. I come mostly from the anarcho-syndicalist camp of anarchism, which if you read the link, you will find out that anarcho-syndicalism is not mutually exclusive of collectivism or some of the other schools of anarchist thought. These days there is a movement amongst anarchists in which they kind of defy these kinds of "old fashioned" definitions, but that is such a long discussion that it is probably better to keep simple here. And oh yeah, in true anarchist style, I have been tear gassed and beaten up by police, but sadly never actually arrested. I'm not sure how I avoided that actually.

2. Despite my "we're all in the same boat, so let's row it together" mentality, I am a bit of a lone wolf. That's right, WW is not a pack animal. Sure I have friends, and back home in America, I have lots and lots of friends, but I've never been the kind of person to go along with the crowd and have always found small ways to make my self different even if I look pretty darn average. I like people, but damn, I love to be alone with a book even more. People make me tired. And sometimes cranky. Especially stupid ones.

3. I am completely lacking in the self-censorship part of the brain. Show me the line and I will leap over it. Diplomacy? I've tried it, but it never worked for me. Rude jokes? Cynicism? Opinions? Yes, I share them freely, often in the company of those who would rather not hear it. And I'm not sorry about it. Not one bit.

Is any of this actually weird? I don't know.

4. I have a green thumb. And I can milk cows. And goats. And make cheese and yogurt. I don't even mind shoveling shit and throwing around hay bails. Yes, I'd love to live the life of an organic (very small scale) farmer by summer, and urban street smart nearly 30 something by winter. Here in Seoul, I am gearing up for my rooftop container garden that will feature flowers, flowers, flowers! tomatoes, peppers and onions. Maybe even a pumpkin or 2 and some cukes. I love to make things grow.

5. Prepositions are my passion. Okay, not really but I am an EFL teacher in Korea. Koreans don't have nearly as many prepositions as we do, so it's hard for them to wrap their brains around all the different ways to make different parts of sentences fit together. I seem to be the only English teacher in the country who has explained this part of English to students. Oh, adverbs too. Don't English speakers know what an adverb is? So what this boils down to is that I love grammar, although I am no longer all that good at. But I'm in Korea, land of the really really stupid English teacher. Stupidity, from my point of view, is relative, so here I am GRAMMAR QUEEN of the peninsula. I am also especially good at explaining vocabulary words, perhaps owing to my fifth grade spelling/vocabulary club called the HYPERPOLYSYLLABICSESQUAPEDALIST which is a long word that means a person who says long words. Or so I was told by my fifth grade reading teacher, Mr. Peters.

6. I don't like cake. Or frosting. Or pie. I guess there are exceptions to that, but they don't exist in Korea. I'd take ice cream over cake or pie any day.

PS I'm not tagging anyone because I'm like the last person on the internet to do this meme. Besides, I don't even have 6 blogging buddies....

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Edited to Add:
So I started thinking about this post and really got the feeling that I wasn't digging deep enough and that I needed to reveal something, at least one thing, that was actually weird about myself. So here I go:

I don't wear deodorant. I stink. And I like the way that it smells. It's kind of musky and soapy at the same time. And the GS likes the smell, too. Maybe we are both weird...

The GS doesn't wear deodorant either. But he doesn't stink. He always smells fresh and clean, even when he is under enormous amounts of stress. Don't ask me how he does it. I sure am jealous.

And I'm a closet Justin Timberlake fan. That's probably not weird, but something I wouldn't admit under normal circumstances.

I have had several "ass injuries". The first was when I was 5 and got attacked by a dog and had to get stitches in my ass. Still got the scar to prove it. The 2nd was in the 4th grade when I bruised my tailbone badly showing off my mad gymnastic skills on the playground and flew off the bar early on a dismount. And the last was, well, I guess I only had two, but for some reason butt trauma takes up a lot of space in my mind.

Last thing: I don't know how to cut my nails so I bite my fingernails, yet somehow, they never look bitten, but neatly trimmed. My teeth have got mad skills, y'all. 'Cept for that one time I chipped a little piece of my front tooth whilst nail biting. That sucked.

Now if there was a meme on strange injuries, I think I could do really well...

4 comments:

Rev Dr Mom said...

I can comment again!

I think you come by the grammar thing naturally....like shoes and bags, it seems to run in the family.

The green thumb though... not so much.

BerryBird said...

#6: Me, too! Well, I can tolerate some kinds of pie, but cake and frosting both repulse me. In elementary school when kids had to bring in cupcakes for the entire class on their birthdays, I always brought rice crispy treats. I had a horrible experience at one job where a dear sweet boss surprised me with a sheet cake on my birthday. I had to choke that nasty cake down in front of all my coworkers because I didn't have the balls to admit I hate cake and ruin M's surprise. I couldn't do the frosting though, even under such circumstances. Since then, I've tried to keep my birthday a secret.

Nicole said...

So I just surfed over here through Berry bird's blog and am thoroughly enjoying the read. Funny that after I did my weird things meme, I also thought I didn't dig deep enough either. I am thinking of starting a new meme about things that you wouldn't admit to those you know in every day, non-virtual life.

Oh, and I love Korea!! Love it. I had the pleasure of visiting for a week once for a science conference and I would love to go back for a vacation. Such a lovely land with lovely people.

Casey said...

I don't wear deoderant either! Not really as a statement, I just never remember to put it on.