Het Koffiemoment

I was tagged by AB over at My Neck of the Woods to spill six random things about myself...I've got a little salmon cooking for dinner and a bit of quiet time to think, so I'll take up her challenge. It's also a great opportunity to link to six other blogs that I enjoy (and that you should look in on too).

1. I don't understand 'fishing' as a leisure activity. I have many friends who are passionate about it: up with the dawn, sloshing off with a fly rod, one with nature for hours on end. I cast, I wait, nothing happens, I get impatient. I am deaf to "A River Runs Through It". I end up smuggling a book along in the tackle box, and make good use of the solitude rather than the river, sorry.

2. My best memory in recent years was when I graduated Cambridge and my dad, 80 years old, called to ask if he could come to my graduation. "Dad, it's in England...", I reminded him. "If you're graduating college and I didn't have to pay for it, I'll be there" he declared, and so he did. He spent three full days doing it all: we went punting, formal hall where he could talk with the Fellows, a room in the dorm and Guinness in the Clubroom, the traditional Pomp of a Senate House ceremony. I think it's something he always wanted to see and we had a great time. He's been asking ever since when I'm going back for a PhD so he can come again.

3. My favorite college activity was being a disk jockey for the campus radio station, WRVU. Every afternoon, I filled Nashville's drive-time airwaves with top-40 music, public service interviews, and banter with the newsgirls under the guise of "Dashing Dave Roberts". It was a wonderful social group, about 30 students hosting shows, producing spots, playing with the equipment, and fielding ever-more outrageous out-of-studio events to try to lure groupies. We never found one.

4. I had a huge crush on Olivia Newton-John when I was young. I saw her signing "I honestly love you" on a Christmas show one year and swooned. The eyes, the voice, the hair, the accent, the eyes...I had her picture on my bulletin board for years (when everyone else had Farrah Fawcett in a swimsuit). Eventually I got to one of her concerts live, although we weren't able to book her for an interview at the radio station. I lost track of her over the years except for the occasional news story: it seems like she had a hard life after the first years of success.

5. I have Charcot-Marie-Tooth, an inherited disorder where the nerves fail to grow a myelin coating. As a result, the conduct at about a third the velocity of normal, something that I discovered when I was building a device to measure nerve conduction velocity for my first job. No matter what I did, i couldn't get the device to give a 'normal' answer on me, even though it stubbornly did on everyone else. Fortunately, a neurologist friend resolved the mystery. No worries, the defect is not fatal, it just gives me a limp, especially when I'm tired.

6. I always thought I'd marry an artist or a dancer. I dated several, smitten by their immersive creativity, always doodling a scene or bouncing a step. Their art gave them a way to express their feelings and to interpret the world that had no parallel in my life. It seemed to flow from them joyfully and effortlessly; I still have a few of their drawings and paintings framed on my walls. I always thought it would be a great life, discovering the world together, sharing balanced and complementary insights and having a full house of bohemian friends to laugh with.

I follow about a couple of dozen blogs written by expatriate folks living in the Netherlands, and always enjoy both the perspective and the familiarity of their experiences. My thanks to all of them for posting their thoughts and stories. Picking out six tags from this group isn't easy, but, (in no particular order):

NotABlogger at Reasons Not to Blog, TH at The Ex-Pat Files, Nick at Nickhereandnow, Eric at Amsterdam Asp, Huzaifa from Justifying Insanity, and Nan at Gone Dutch.

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Here are the rules: Link to the person who tagged you. Post the rules on your blog. Write six random things about yourself. Tag six people at the end of your post linking to their blog. Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.