A Rerun Already? (Meme Edition)

My fellow NJ educator Ann (aka NJTechTeacher) tagged me with a “Seven Random Things” meme. Unaccustomed as I am to sharing the minutiae of my personal life, I’ll respond with a re-post of my participation in a similar meme from this past summer.

When I first posted this, I had only been blogging for four days, and it was my fourth post. Since Statcounter and Feedburner tell me I’ve got more readers now than I did in August, consider this “New to You” content for most of you.

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My 8 Random Things:

1. Though I’ve spent most of my life in New Jersey (and I still work there), I went to first grade in Switzerland at the International School of Basel. Goodnight, Ms. Cozens, wherever you are.

2. I have been an ardent fan of Newcastle United FC for the better part of a decade (at least no one can accuse me of being a front-runner!).

3. I first met my wife in a teacher work room at our high school (and you thought prep periods were for grading!).

4. Yeah, so we took our honeymoon in Disney World, so what? It’s not just for kids anymore manchildren like it too.

5. Geek cred – I’ve only been blogging for a week, but I’ve been online since 1992 – how many of you remember connecting at 1200 baud (and when the 14.4 line at your BBS felt lightning-fast!)?

6. My Twitter name is actually a mild malapropism for an album by The Stone Roses called “Garage Flower”. I picked it because I like the contrasting imagery (and garages).

7. My first instrument? Alto sax in fifth grade; only lasted a year. Picked up bass guitar in eighth grade because it looked cool (and only had 4 strings, therefore easier to learn than guitar, right?). Learned guitar and started singing at 16, and have played out here and there ever since, both alone and with bands.

8. I’ve acted, too. Up until family life and grad school sank their claws into me started occupying more of my time, I acted with Shakespeare ‘70 Repertory Company, based in Mercer County, NJ. Favorite role? Sir Walter Blunt in Henry IV, Part I. Not too many lines to memorize, and I got to go out in a blaze of glory after a broadsword battle with a man so bad he precedes his name with a definite article, The Douglas.

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I wish I could blame a writer’s strike, but what can you do? I feel a big post coming on soon on my shifting professional role and what that means for my contribution to education (wasn’t that part of the original plan?), but I really need to sort out some structure first – it may be my first two-parter.

4 Comments

  • I’m not terribly into personal minutiae sharing myself, but it was my first meme and I thought you might play along. I wonder if I ever saw you on stage. That would be weird, wouldn’t it. We often see Shakespeare at Washington’s Crossing outdoor theater. I think a lot of groups from Mercer County play there…and school in Switzerland – how cool!

  • Wow – that would be wild. I did Macbeth in ’99, Henry IV Pt. I in ’00, The Tempest in ’01, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream in ’02. I had bit parts in all of them except Midsummer, when I played Demetrius (I also did some winter theatre with the group in other venues, as well as one show with the Pennington Players in 2001).

    Living in Switzerland was way cool – my only regret about the experience is that I wasn’t a little older, so I could appreciate it more at the time. Still, I think I got about as much out of it as you could expect a 6-year-old to get.

  • Hello garage flowers
    Enjoy your tweets and decided to visit. I got tagged once in my early days of web 2.0 and did not really know what it meant so never did anything about it. Anyway I enjoyed yreading your 8 things about you. Catch you around!

  • I’m glad I get to see your ‘old’ 8 things – guess you’re cooler than me and have been around longer! New hat/old hat. Someday maybe I’ll be the world-weary blogger too intellectual to play with the little guys………..hope not 🙂 By the way, I’m just dying to hear baby news! No pressure, though.

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