www.nataliedee.com
Rules: Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it’s because I want to know more about you. (To do this, go to “notes” under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish.)
=============================================
Tragic, true story: I decided to jump on the 25 random things bandwagon on Facebook this past Wednesday. As I had just finished random factoid #15, I hit something on my computer and everything just disappeared. If I loose this version too, I am just not going to do it at all.
1. I’ve raised a lot pets. Right now, I have two cats (Dimmy and Dolby) and a dog (Wolfy, who lives with my mom and dad now). Before them, I had two ducks (Donald and Dorothy Jane), four rabbits (Swifty, Ruby, Blackie and Chuby) and a countless number of goldfish.
2. I joined my high school’s diving team because it was the only sport that didn’t require me to run or try out. There, on the 1-meter springboard, I learned my true tolerance for pain – thanks to the many flops it took to learn my prerequisite six dives for competition. The greatest divers in the world are Chinese, but I most certainly am not one of them.
3. My focus of study in college was rather unique to UC Berkeley. I graduated with a degree in Development Studies (i.e. the study of developing countries and why they are the way they are) and Environmental Economics and Policy (i.e. how to calculate the best time to cut down a tree that will maximize the ROI for its wood).
4. There is a two-day (or three-day, if you consider the 16 hour time difference between China and the U.S.) age difference between me and my boyfriend. What can I say, older men creep me out and younger guys make me think of my little brother.
5. All through college, I practiced and performed Chinese dance. Contrary to popular belief, there is more to it than ribbons and handkerchiefs. China has 56 ethnic groups, with the majority being the Han and the minority including Miao, Uighur, Mongolian and Dai.
6. My Chinese dance teacher was a former instructor at the Beijing Dance Academy where he taught Zhang Ziyi (the girl from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) before she pursued film. As his student, she won 1st place in a national competition.
7. Rather than selling cookies with the girl scouts, I decided to be a 4H-er where I learned how to be a farmer. However, I showed ducks and rabbits at the county fair, because you don’t have to sell them for meat afterwards like you do with pigs, lambs or cows.
8. I once defeated my gamer brother at Street Fighter on the Super Nintendo three times in a row as Chung Li. It was a sweet victory that I will never let him live down, especially when you consider the fact that I was just button mashing.
9. I taught my brother how to play chess when he was maybe 5 or 6 years old. After defeating him during the tutorial game, I was never able to win another game against him again until last year. Clearly, I have no talent in the art of war.
10. One day, I would like to travel across China and ride on the train from Beijing to Tibet.
11. I was once cast in a local production of Flower Drum Song. As part of the ensemble, I played one of six school children. There is no doubt in my mind that I was made to play this part because of my height and youthful looks. The other five school children were ages 8-11 while I was 16 at the time.
12. I have a pen pal who lives in China. We have been writing to each other since 1998 beginning with letters, then email and now IM. I met and spoke with him in person for the first time this past January.
13. My favorite type of salad dressing is honey mustard. In my personal opinion, I think that MacDonald makes the best honey mustard and that it is most delicious when eaten with Chicken McNuggets and/or french fries!
14. I love to learn new languages. I just don’t have any talent for becoming fluent. So far, I have been most successful with Mandarin as opposed to French, Korean and Japanese, but even then I still really suck at it. One day, I hope to be able to understand Shanghainese.
15. I love the flying trapeze! If I could choose an alternative career, I would like to try my hand at the circus.
16. Whenever I am forced to watch horror movies, I prefer to watch them in the dark and without my glasses. If I can’t make myself fall asleep, the curiosity in me will ask a million questions about what just happened since I can see too clearly.
17. I inherited the no-tolerance-for-alcohol gene from the Kong-side of the family. Case in point: One new year’s eve, a single shot of liquor completely shut downed my body where I became blind, unable to walk, vomited and could barely stand up. Five years later, I am proud to say that I can drink one bottle of beer by myself over several hours.
18. The only downside of having a name like “Daisy” is the fact that it is a popular name for pets such as dogs, cats and cows. My high school friend’s dog was named Daisy and apparently my cousin’s cat is named Daisy.
19. In a former life (when I had unlimited free time), I was a crafter. I could sew, crochet and work a glue gun like no body’s business. Sometimes, in my darkest moments of work related stress, I reminisce about using the left side of my brain to make something cool.
20. My daycare center growing up was a zoo. As one of the kids that loved animals, I got the “privilege” of cleaning cages and feeding the mice, rats, hamster, rabbit, chinchilla, chickens, ducks, pot-belly pig, parakeets, guinea pig and goldfish.
21. As a fundraiser, my elementary school made me sell the “world’s finest chocolates” to my family, friends and neighbors. At the age of 11, I quickly realized that I was no longer cute enough to be an effective salesperson. Being a clever kid, I sent my brother, who was 8 at the time, to work. Within an hour, all the chocolates were sold.
22. Having attended a Catholic elementary, middle and high school where uniforms were required (that would be 13 years of my life), I sometimes miss wearing a uniform. Getting ready in the morning was so much simpler.
23. I am actually very knowledgeable about the video game industry despite the fact that I am not much of a gamer. For example, I actually get some of the jokes on Penny Arcade and know what a RROD is. This is thanks to the company that I keep.
24. For my 13th birthday, my dad bought me a 10-speed bike (i.e. an adult bike). It was a little too tall for me at the time (i.e. I couldn’t put my feet down when I sat on the bike. I was only able to scrap the floor with the tips of my toes). My dad figured that I would grow into it. Little did we both know, I stopped growing that year.
25. At one point, I was a closet Twilighter, though most fan girls would stone me for heresy. I read everything about Twilight on Wikipedia first, then watched the movie, then read book one and then re-read the plot summaries for the rest of the books.
[
