happy chatter

I've been tagged by Sandy. I know what that means, but what does 'chinese freeze tag' mean? I've googled it, and a million bloggers who've been playing the game appeared, but nothing that explained where 'chinese freeze' tag comes from! A cultural thing I'm thinking.

OK, this is the game. I have to tell you 10 interesting facts or habits about myself. Than I tag 10 more people who have to do the same thing. Around the globe, tagging forever.

1. My ideal life would be as a sheep or cow, grazing all the time. I don't do three square meals a day with no food in between, I just graze constantly on healthy food (if it's a good day) or junk (if it's a bad day). I justify this dreadful lack of eating discipline by recalling the "ideopathic hypoglycaemic" diagnosis I was given 8 years ago. I need to eat regularly!

2. My mind is almost never at rest. If I'm not blogging, reading or thinking, I'm probably drawing pictures in my head or practicing touch typing. I always draw the same thing (four houses in a 'circle' that you draw without lifting your pen off the page. If I'm really bored I continue on to a swirl that covers all the houses). I always type the same thing ("We are the reason that he gave his life, we are the reason that he suffered and died, for a world that was lost he gave all he could give, to give us a reason to live"). I'm sure this habit stems from the nightly sermons I endured as a teen at the tea table... I just drifted off into another place.

3. I'm highly distractable and easily bored. I read up to 10 books at once, rarely finish any of them, and can have three or four conversations with the same person at the same time, all running parallel to each other, connected by some obscure fact buried in the first sentence we spoke. A favourite past time is tracing back a conversation to discover how on earth I got from, say, sheep in the backyard to the way so and so did their hair today.

4. I hate being late (stemming from being dropped off right beside the school assembly on multiple occasions. Eventually the teacher asked Dad to be on time or drop us off somewhere else because nobody could hear what was being said at assembly), but I nearly always am. Not because I am really late, but because I am really early so I decide to do a couple of extra things on the way. And then I am late.

5. I hate it when people rev their engine loudly, or are obviously speeding. To teach them a lesson or two, I've developed the rather bad habit of staring them down. As I go to cross the road I carefully check for traffic. If a car is approaching at what I consider to be too fast a speed, I step out anyway and stroll across the road, eyeballing them the whole way. They invariably slow down and I always reach the safety of the other curb. I don't consider this to be playing chicken, rather I am encouraging safe driving on city streets. Of course this only works on relatively quiet streets such as can be found in Tasmania. I would not do this in London or New York or Manila or Istanbul!

6. I rather enjoy studying. I have two bachelor degrees and am working on a graduate certificate, with the goal of a masters one day. Maybe even two masters. I have hit a slight glitch though - I have a 3000 word assignment due today, which I discovered on Saturday when tidying up the papers on my desk. I will be late, and I'm not sure the two week 'grace period' extends to monumental disorganisation. But I'm going to try.

7. When I go grocery shopping I take a list, which I stick to until I hit the dairy section. Then I buy all sorts of enticing cheeses because they seem healthy... or fashionable. I'm talking Ricotta and Cottage cheese and Mascarpone here, not Blue vein or Camembert! The cheeses then sit in my fridge for weeks because I forgot which recipe I thought they might be good for, until they are so far past their use by date that not even I will venture to open the packet and see if they're OK. They are then tossed in the rubbish. All that money wasted. I must stop doing this!

8. I'm a bit of an ostrich. (Explaining why I'm blogging right now instead of feverishly producing 3000 words for my assignment) If I owe someone a letter, I don't immediately grab pen and paper and write. No. I feel so bad for taking so long to reply that I put off replying for even longer! Same with emails. Same with anything I should have done. I just duck my head and hope it will go away. The earth is still spinning on its axis, so I guess that means some things do go away and all remains well with the world.

9. I'm a fairly tidy person, but I need one space for messiness. As I tidy up the rest of the house, everything gets put in the messy space until I tidy the messy space. This could be weeks away and then it takes me several hours to sort through. Right now I'm staring at a whole week of sorting. Ostrich thoughts happening here! Interestingly, Frank likes things clean on the surface, so he goes around after me putting things away. So I can be an ostrich for even longer! Except I have no idea where anything is, so I have to clean up sooner. Frank is that your ploy?!

10. A favourite habit Frank and I have developed is reading together. Different books, different topics, but in the same room. As we find things particularly humerous or interesting we read them out to each other. It's very cosy and companionable. I love it.

There's my ten! Now for the tagging:

Robyn, Tamar, Merry, Leah, Michelle, Luke, Melissa, Jenny, Paige... that's all I can think of. And I understand if you don't want to do it, but I only read a few blogs, so all hands on deck! Enjoy or ignore as you choose.

Labels: biography, life, meme, road traffic, self analysis