Paula tagged me...

Paula has tagged me with a meme. I am behind on my memes. I have another one I'm working on, too, which is harder. (Thank you Berlin Bear.)

What I was doing ten years ago:

Let me see... 1995... I was on the way to recovery from a head injury I'd got a couple of years earlier, and had started working again and we were digging our way out of debt (to family and friends - the banks would never lend money to deadbeats like us, don't be silly) when the earthquake did me out of a job. So I went back in NZ for a few months to study, instead. I had no money but landed dramatically on my feet, winding up living in the lap of luxury in an architecturally designed house on the hill just down from the university, with spectacular views of Wellington harbour. It was odd to live in such surroundings and have to pinch pennies.

Mid-year The Man came to visit, and came down with food poisoning the moment he stepped off the plane. We had been apart for four months, and it was supposed to be a romantic reunion. (Let me remind you here that it is rude to laugh at the misfortunes of others.) The Man lay on the big double bed near the picture window, which looked out on a view very much like this, and moaned, with frequent trips to my lovely en suite bathroom. I, however, spent a lot of time sitting on a chair beside the window and gazing at the view.

5 years ago:

I was doing pretty much what I'm doing now - teaching my last few classes of semester and wondering how come years get shorter as I get older but semesters get longer.

1 year ago:

See above, except the weather was worse. This year the heat hasn't been all that bad yet.

Yesterday:

See yesterday's blog entry.

5 snacks I enjoy:

A spoonful (or two) of Manuka honey, the only honey I like. I'm addicted to it.
Aside from that I don't really snack. I drink tea instead. Black tea with sugar and milk, or green tea with neither. In summer, sometimes I switch to cold genmai tea.

5 songs I know all the words to:

I don't know all the words to any songs. I know half the words to a lot of songs, but not all the words. Not only that, I switch songs halfway through when I run out of words. This annoys The Man when he starts humming innocently, I join in, and then suddenly we're singing something entirely different, something that HE DOESN'T EVEN LIKE. Quite often it's something I don't like either.

5 Things I would do with $100 million:

*Buy a decent house for Okaasan (my mother-in-law), which she would refuse to move into, saying that the inadequate prefab box she lives in that passes for a house in Japan is JUST FINE. (It isn't.)

*Buy a house for ourselves not too far from her but not too close either.

*Invest enough to live comfortably off the interest, and give the rest away, probably. I don't really know what to do with money, but I'm sure I'd think of something.

5 locations I would like to run away to:

I don't really want to run away, but as long as it's a temporary running away...

*A particular coffee shop in Kuantan (Malaysia) that I've forgotten the name of but which made me happy. It was such a beautiful and comfortable space that I wanted to move in.
*United Coffee House in Connaught Place (New Delhi), which also made me happy but for different reasons.
(Hmm. I sense a theme emerging...)
*The Himalayas. Just to see them, not to climb them. (I'm not that energetic.) Is there a good coffee shop somewhere I can see them from?
*A coffee shop on a beach somewhere.
*A coffee shop somewhere in Europe.

5 bad habits I have:

*I procrastinate going to bed, which is silly when I have to get up early.
*I write long letters and forget to post them, find them months or years later, add more, and forget to send them again. I have sent letters that are five years out of date.
*I am extremely untidy.
*I read while eating, quite frequently WITH MY ELBOWS ON THE TABLE. (My father is rolling in his grave.)
*I promise myself I will mark homework the moment I get home, but when I get home I never do it. I end up marking homework all weekend. I also forget to give it back, and by the time I do the students have forgotten writing it. (I have been carrying a hundred students' homework to and from one place once a week for a month now, and it is breaking my back. I keep forgetting I've brought it with me. I am stupid.)

5 things I like doing:

*Blogging
*Reading
*Sitting in coffee shops in foreign countries. Actually any country will do, as long as the coffee shop is not a franchise. It must be local.
*Waking up naturally (i.e. not needing the alarm clock; i.e. university vacations!)
*Handing in grades early.

5 things I would never wear:
*Anything frilly. I hate frilly.
*A bikini
*Shoes that hurt my feet
*Pale yellow or grey (both colours make me look at death's door)
*A miniskirt

5 TV shows I like:
I don't watch TV

5 Biggest joys of the moment:
Summer vacation! Summer vacation! Summer vacation! Summer vacation! Summer vacation!
(Starting from the week after next, but the joy has started already.)

5 Favorite toys:
Computer
Electronic dictionary
Digital camera
Mini iPod

I don't seem to have more than four, unless you count bath toys. (A wind-up fish and a wind-up swimmer. I can reenact Jaws in the bath.)

I tag...

TorryGirl
Cheryl
Doris
Lippy
Pimme


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