I’ve avoided doing this meme thing, but am clueless tonight for anything to write about. The most interesting tidbit I’ve come up with so far is to tell you about the student I had to speak with after class last night because his behavior was so inappropriate. Anyone care to guess what this 18 year old young man’s excuse was? Turns out that the 20 year old sitting next to him was tickling him. Since when are young men still tickling one another in college? I left elementary-level teaching because I’m ill-equiped to do deal with this type of silliness. 10 year olds don’t understand my sarcasm, but you can bet this young man did.
So I’m supposed to come up with a list of things you don’t know about me. The challenge here is to make it entertaining.
- When I was 15 or 16 years old I decided that I wanted to join the Peace Corps and travel to exotic places and help poor people, so I sent away for the information packet and application, but when it arrived it scared the crap out of my dad and I got a talking to. I also dated a guy from Costa Rica for a few years and my dad was afraid I’d run off and be living on a coffee farm.
- I love green olives. Now that’s entertaining!
- I’ll listen to a song I like over and over and over until I get sick of hearing it. I do the same with food. There was a time when I ate tuna on wheat with american cheese for lunch every day until it didn’t taste good anymore.
- I have hyper-sensitive hearing for oddball sounds. Mostly annoying ones that drive me to distraction. Like the sound the ceiling fan is making all of a sudden, or the rattle-and-hum of my car. My husband, Mr. Fix-It, never hears this stuff.
- I am useless with diagrams – especially in instruction manuals – I need a verbal list, preferably in number order, to understand how to do things. My husband has this intuitive sense of how things work that baffles me. I routinely have to ask students to help me set up the overhead projector so that they don’t have to look at things backwards and upside down. Plus, this semester my classroom is *technologically enhanced* – but I still need a student to help me get my laptop hooked up so that I can use PowerPoint to teach.
So that’s five things you didn’t need to know about me. Hopefully, I’ll be a bit more inspired tomorrow.
Laura, this was fun to read! Your sense of humor is subtle but so out there…
I’m a verbal learner, too. Can’t read diagrams at all. Tell me in “words” what to do… 1. 2. 3. On paper, because I won’t remember the sequence too well.
I worry about wearing out a track on a CD…my favorite gets played song over and over and over again.
Your descripton of overheads and laptops is so funny and familiar. “What is wrong with this power point??!”
You cracked me up tonight!
I am entertained!
It is fun to get to know more about you – and to be entertained while absorbing more information 🙂
How very fun! Thanks for sharing yourself with us. I can so relate the the sound thing!
I do that thing with songs and foods, too! I’ll spend weeks, months or even years with a particular obsession, and then I wake up one morning totally over it.
I love the pic!
I need a list too. But it has to written and itemized. I’m more visual than audio.
I do with movies what you do with music. To each her own. LOL
I just sent you an email to the address you left me.
If you don’t receive it, go to my old site and leave a comment. Even tho I can’t access it. it still is active. Go figure.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Now see, I think those things are very interesting Laura! And I love that you, like me, need clear sets of instructions. You are not alone, though you can have all my olives!
Veeerrrrrry interesting! I dislike olives, and the fourth one is true for me as well- even the barely audible sound of the TIVO recording something drives me nuts. I actually came by for a bunny fix and to get caught up. The fix was good- I get high on your bunnies, past and present, Laura. One of the pair of Flemish hares died at the zoo last week (old age) and half the docents were weeping over lunch when the vet came in to tell us. Me, too. We loved her.
You have pink lilies in your pond! That’s something to look forward to this summer. I just had white and yellow at Wit’s End and they were great but I always wanted pink…
I love the photo of you – it’s so cute! Do you know where you were?
18-20 boys tickling each other? Something not right with that, huh?
I love learning more about you – you’re a really interesting person! Olives on my salad go to whoever is with me – so you can have all of my olives in Cape May!
I’ll listen to songs to death, too.
I’ll try figure something out before picking up the instruction book! I can’t stand to read someone else’s instructions.
Laura,
People like you keep people like me employed . . . at least when I was employed turning technical manuals into a readable set of instructions!
I still do this for my students. Here is a LIST of how to do long division . . .
It helps some of them but most of my students are low-low-low and it doesn’t occur to them to look back at the list and see what’s next. They prefer the jump around on the list of steps until no one can figure out what you did anyway approach to doing long division which, frankly, doesn’t work all that well. Sigh!
I like black and green olives!
As for your tickley boys — gotta tell ya, most 10 year olds are waaaaaaay too homophobic to be tickling each other in class. Throwing things at each other, pinching each other, kicking each other’s chairs — sure, but tickling. But I hear ya, one of the joys of dealing with adults (or near adults) is being able to use sarcasm. Not much worse than being sarcastic and no one gets it. Sigh.
Olives, yes!!!
The Mr. Bean photo and essay below is very touching.
You can have all of my olives, too.
I listen to songs until I hate them.
I would rather use a diagram than written instructions. Weird, huh? I took a test in HS given by the army and it showed that I would make a good tank mechanic. So I guess my brain is just wired that way.
For me, it’s weird smells that get my attention. Geoff doesn’t have a sense of smell, so it’s up to me to figure out if a diaper needs to be changed or one of the dogs ate too much chili.
I’m sensitive to odors too, love green olives, and am a visual learner. It’s fun getting a peek at your personality!
save an olive for me!
Interesting what you say about diagrams and getting aural instruction because I am the complete opposite. Somehow, if instructions or word are stated to me, they do not register unless I concentrate very hard. Yet if I see or read anything, I can remember it almost like a photograph. Granted, I just found out what I have is a learning disability, but if I knew then what I knew now… (Shrug)
=:8
Great photo of you! I like all kinds of olives regardless of colour. I usually don’t need instructions to put things together, or to figure out how to do things like setting a digital watch or using my camera. My mom has always described me as being “mechanical like your dad.”
I’m hyper sensitive to sounds, especially anything repetitious, and anything weird, low in pitch and barely audible. A few years ago, I kept hearing this weird sound that made me feel stressed out. I finally drove down the road and found out that it was a corn dryer on a farm about 2 km. away. I could hear it even when in the house with all of the windows and doors closed. It’s not so good having this kind of hearing sensitivity.
Mary: The worst are directions that have no words at all – just pictures with lots of arrows. Indecipherable!
Endment, Laurie, Bunnygirl: Thanks.
z: i sent you an email, but haven’t heard from you. Will try again.
Jayne: Thanks! I love ’em.
Vicki: You’d be able to grow all sorts of wonderful tropical lilies, even some night-bloomers!
Naturewoman: Not sure where the pic was taken; there’s a pirate ship in some of the others. Maybe Busch Gardens?
Liza: Yes, lists are my friend.
They were probably doing the other things you mentioned, but only admitted to the tickling. Boys!
FC: Thanks.
Susan: Yep, I’m missing that mechanical inclination that you’re lucky to have. Certain smells bother me too.
Lynne: I should have mentioned pickles too. I could eat a whole jar.
Somebunny: Interesting… I had a student like that once – his hearing was fine, but words just sort of got lost in his head and he was slow to process verbal instructions.
Bev: Interesting that it’s especially low sounds that bother you. Don’t guess you were able to *do* anything about the corn dryer, but I bet just knowing what the sound was made it less bothersome?
I hate it when I hear noises in the night – always just the house creaking but freaks me out:) Love your blog.
late comment I know but with the drawings, diagrams, I had read that spacial relation ability can be linked with testoterone. Thus men can usually parallel park and understand directions better. At least that is the excuse I am using.