Quoting
Kristin:
"
dietrich has thrown me a
stöckchen - has tagged me to write 8 random facts about myself. heard about blog
memes? this seems to be similar to the "
5 things about me" blog meme."
Now it's my turn. And I agree, random is impossible here. But am I supposed to put stuff that most people wouldn't already know about me? This is hard.
1 - I hate the Sound of Music. I generally dislike most "break into song" musicals. It interrupts the suspension of my disbelief. I make exceptions for some comedies, e.g., Grease, but generally, I prefer musicals if all or nearly all dialogue is sung, e.g. in Evita. But let's be clear. I really hate the Sound of Music, not just because of the breaking into song. Too saccharine is at the top of the long list of things I hate about the SoM. However, now and then I sing two SoM songs to Adam: Do Re Mi and Favourite Things.
2 - I have a birthmark on my lower left thigh. It's about the size and shape of the head of a tablespoon and dark brown. I usually forget about it but now and then someone is really surprised by it, which surprises me.
3 - I like wearing socks and sandals.
4 - For special occasions, I give extra attention to my ears in the shower and I like to wear jewellery with sentimental value, usually my mother's jewellery. Otherwise, I hardly ever wear jewellery (other than my wedding band) or make up.
5 - I now make very LA Story orders at Starbucks, including recently: "for here venti extra hot hot chocolate with whip" and "tall extra hot soy milk red tea latte."
6 - I lose rolls of masking tape but end up with extra erasers all the time.
7 - I'm very prickly about my singing.
8 - I often want car rides to last longer. I'm usually feeling disappointed as I near the destination.
Your turn Gina. I also thought about picking
Kevin (too predictable),
Kern (has Day 3 to write still),
Becky (on vacation),
Pam and Jesse (already very prolific), and
MarkMark (very unprolific).
This entry typifies my difficulty with blogging. It's the diversity of a public audience. I have close friends, acquaintances, relatives, in-laws, co-workers, former students, and maybe even current/future students reading the blog. It's very challenging to select content for that audience. And once selected, it is challenging to write the material, certainly in an interesting manner. There is prior knowledge to consider and things are easily misunderstood, not understood, or even offensive if they are not clearly, and thus, potentially boringly over-explained.
So fellow bloggers, I ask you: How do you handle the lines of clear-vs-concise and safe-vs-interesting? I realise that these adjectives aren't necessarily poles and that the so-called lines aren't really orthogonal either.
print quality at http://picasaweb.google.com/dion.lew
Adam finds our dining room table just the thing for teething pain. In this photo, he's sitting on a Bumbo that was given to us by Anthony, an acquaintance of Dion's. We were chatting with Anthony at his wife's restaurant, where they had one for use as a booster seat. I mentioned that I've been looking for a second-hand Bumbo. He said, "You wanna Bumbo? Here have this one." Hey thanks.
