Following the Facebook meme (aka chain-letter), here’s 25 random things about me:
- It wasn’t until my sophomore year of high school that I finally got the months of the year in the correct order – “March, April, May”, NOT “April, March, May”.
- I still don’t know which months have 30 or 31 days.
- I was legally deaf until age 4.
- As a result of not being able to hear, my speech development was delayed and I rode the short bus to a special-ed pre-school with all the other retarded kids.
- I still stutter when I get excited.
- I had 9 surgeries over 9 years to correct my hearing, culminating in a muscle graft to rebuild my right ear drum which involved almost fully detaching my right ear during the operation.
- The scented knock-out gas used for surgery smells exactly like the artificial scent from my sister’s “Strawberry Shortcake” dolls. It also resulted in some of my weirdest dreams.
- I never dated until college.
- I picked Spanish as a foreign language in school because it’s easy to learn. After 6 years of study I still sucked at it.
- I was “the short, fat kid” when I walked onto the UW Rowing team. Of the 120ppl who tried out I made the final cut of 26ppl and ultimately was the 6th strongest rower on the team.
- I once tried playing Underwater Hockey.
- I aced my high school calculus class and AP exam without a graphing calculator.
- I’ve lived in winter temps of -60F (Fairbanks, AK) and summer temps of 120F (Phoenix, AZ).
- I’ve climbed Mt. Rainier but have never hiked Mt. Si.
- During a high school field trip I was one of the student drivers and raced the other student driver while on I-5, hitting speeds of 105MPH in my minivan before the teachers caught us. (I won, btw)
- I won a school district art award for a watercolor painting in 2nd grade.
- Most everything I know about computers I’ve learned by breaking them first and then frantically trying to fix them before anyone noticed.
- I didn’t “discover” music until college. During high school I only owned two cassettes – The Beatles and Two Live Jews.
- I played the violin in school, grades 6-8, I was not very good. If I was musically talented then I would play the fiddle, banjo, guitar, piano, and bagpipes.
- My greatest fear is being blind.
- I can’t detect the smell of (the additive in) natural gas nor marijuana smoke.
- I’ve never done drugs. (marijuana, acid, mushrooms, ecstasy, etc)
- BMI charts don’t fit me – they all say my max weight should be 180lbs. I was 180lbs when I was 14.
- I can’t remember the last time I had a bath. (Yes, I still shower every day!)
- I have above-average night vision.