mememe

Well, it is my blog. Jeanne at Four Chickens has been kind enough to tag me and give me the opportunity to share a bit about myself. There are rules but I'll let you click on over to Jeanne's post to check them out (and to learn more about her, too).

1. What was I doing 10 years ago?

Ten years ago - 1998 - I was 23 years old. By mid-July I think I had moved to Amsterdam to study for the second time (either that or I was still working in a dreadful customer service role for Australia's largest telco; let's just talk about Amsterdam, yes?). I went there to study art history for a year. Technically, according to my enrolment, I was there to study general literature but as I was just there for the experience I took whichever classes took my fancy, namely art history. I have a vivid memory of a gorgeous summer day, cycling down the street through the dappled sunlight. I was wearing a red v-neck t-shirt and I remember that I had a particularly nasty blemish on my poor delicate decolletage, so nasty that it warranted a bandaid. It left a little purple scar which I still have to this day. Lovely.

2. What are 5 things on my to-do list today- not in any particular order?

Oh dear, it's bedtime so my list for the next 24 hours is: go to bed; go to the Microsoft picnic; get some knitting done; take some photographs of a finished project and even try and get it in the mail; and the perpetual supermarket shopping.

3. Snacks I enjoy.

Corn chips. Olives. Carrot sticks.

4. Places I’ve lived

Armadale, North Caulfield, East St Kilda, Prahran and Balaclava - all suburbs of Melbourne. Nagoya and Tokyo. Amsterdam. Annandale in Sydney. Kirkland on Seattle's eastside.

5. Things I would do if I were a billionaire

I think that I would probably pass out from the shock of it and then develop crippling anxiety about what to do and whom to help first and end up a blathering mess. It does strike me often though that I would love to have the money (and nothing better to do with it than) to do up old rundown houses that everyone else would consign to demolition. The kind of renovations/refurbishments that are completely uneconomical and wouldn't be done by anyone in their right mind. But as I've said, becoming a billionaire could well send you that way.

I would save this old house in Redmond from the condo developers.

6. What are some jobs you’ve had

Hmm, retail, retail (sales assistant in a bookshop - not as pleasant as one might think, I got held up); all-singing all-dancing hostess at Tokyo Dome's Baseball Cafe; more retail; and then an illustrious career as a public servant, most recently as senior advisor in the strategic policy unit unit of Metro Health at Department of Human Services. I am currently a completely financially dependent not-working-outside-the-home stay-at-home mother and am studying to be a health economist. One day I will have a job with the World Health Organisation and get transferred to a country where my husband cannot operate a bank account. But forgive me, I gripe.

Another reason that I didn't include the rules is because I don't intend to play by them. I'm not going to tag other people but should you read this blog and haven't yet received this meme, I would love to know more about you. Please do leave a comment to let me know if you choose to.

ps - Apologies for the sardonic tone of this post. It's strange how the writing sometimes takes on a life of its own - I had no idea that this was the mood I was in tonight.