Hello and welcome,
Nice to see you on my little blog! I am some kind ob newbie, concerning this whole internet-thing :D So have patience. I’ve been reading Sherry’s 100 Things About Me posts and, despite my fears that I might not be able to come up with 100 things to say about myself, I’m going to give it a shot. I apologize in advance for my boringness.
Some Things About Me
1. I was born in Ottawa, many years ago, very close to Christmas. The plus of having a near-Christmas birthday is that everyone who can remember when Christmas is can remember the date of your birthday. The big minus is that when you’re a kid and you want to have a birthday party, all your friends have gone away on their Christmas holidays, and you end up being alone and pathetic every year.
2. My mother loves Anne of Green Gables. She gave me the middle name Blythe, after Gilbert Blythe. I also enjoy Anne of Green Gables, so I think that’s a pretty cool person to be named after, really.
3. I am left-handed. The only scissors I own are a few pairs I … liberated from my elementary school.
4. My parents separated when I was about 6 and eventually divorced. My sister and I lived with my mom.
5. I have one full sibling — we’ll call her Mrs. Coco (because my brother-in-law is Coco, obviously) — as well as two half-sisters and a half-brother from my dad’s previous marriage. I’ve never lived in the same house with my half-siblings though, and they’re much older than I am.
6. My maternal grandparents have been very important in my life. They always lived in the same general area as we did when I was growing up and we saw them quite often. We called my grandmother Tutu because that’s Hawaiian for grandmother, and she was in Hawaii when my mom found out she was going to have me. I used to have a t-shirt that said “If mom says no, ask Tutu.”
7. When I was a kid, my family went to Prince Edward Island on vacation (see #2). While walking on a wooden bridge at Cavendish Beach, I got a splinter in the bottom of my right heel. My parents had to take me to the doctor to get it removed, and the doctor we went to basically just dug it out without any kind of anaesthetic or anything. My dad says he could hear me screaming from the waiting room and my mom eventually just carried me out of the place. I had a scar on my heel for many years afterwards, not to mention the mental scars — I wasn’t very old at the time, but I still remember screaming and crying. Trauma!
8. Until I moved to Vancouver last year, I had lived my entire life in the part of Ottawa that is bordered by the Canal on the north, Bank St. on the west, the Rideau River on the south, and Carleton University on the east. I lived in three houses during my youth, but they were all within that very small area. As a child, I spent a lot of time playing in Brewer Park, skating at Brewer Arena and on the speed skating oval in the park, and swimming in Brewer Pool.
9. I love to swim, but when I swim I’m not generally doing laps or any kind of organized fitness training or whatever. I really love being under water, and I pretty much just swim randomly around the pool. I developed this habit when I was a kid and my sister and my best friend and I would go swimming at Brewer on January weeknights. Most nights, we’d be the only people in the pool, so we could do whatever we wanted. Now when I go to adult swimming time I pretty much have to stay in the slow lane so my non-structured swimming won’t interfere with the serious swimmers. I end up chatting with senior citizens a lot.
10. I had a lot of toys when I was little. One of these was a stuffed Smurfette. Apparently, I was so attached to Smurfette that my kindergarten teacher told my mom she was worried about the possibility of me trying to go back inside to retrieve her if ever there was a fire at the school. I also had a large stuffed rabbit named Big Ears. Ironically, Big Ears’ ears eventually fell off. I never played with Barbie dolls; no, my sister and I had a huge Jem doll collection instead. Jem was way cooler than Barbie.
11. My parents put me in French immersion so I had all my classes (except an hour of English per day) in French starting when I was 5. I switched to English when I started high school and it was the first time I’d ever had Math class not in French. I remember I didn’t know the English word for a protractor. These days I can understand French extremely well and speak it at an acceptable level. I can also read okay (though very slowly), but don’t ask me to write anything.
12. I basically sucked at math in high school, until I got to grade 13 (yes, I’m old enough that I had to do grade 13). At that point I ended up doing two math courses at the same time, Finite and Calculus, and I was so afraid that I’d fail and not be able to graduate that I worked my butt off, especially in Calculus. I ended up getting 90 in Calculus and 95 in Finite. On the last day of school, my Finite teacher asked me in front of the teacher I’d had in grades 11 and 12 whether I was considering doing math in university, and my grade 11 and 12 teacher laughed. Despite my math suckiness, I enjoy trying to reduce numbers to their smallest factors in my head. I also really like multiples of 9.
13. When I was in grade 7 and 8, I was in the school band. I played the clarinet. I loved music class, and I tried out a bunch of the other instruments my school had, like the trumpet, flute, baritone, and trombone. I’d sign one of them out for the night and play them at home. I wasn’t good at any, but I figured out the basics of all of them. When I graduated from elementary school, I won the music award because of my enthusiasm. Then when I went to high school I kept on playing the clarinet and also picked up the cello. I tried out all the other stringed instruments too but I was never very good at anything beyond the simplest stuff.
14. I went through a phase as a tween where I was obsessed with Broadway musicals like Les Misérables and The Phantom of the Opera, but especially Les Mis. I saw it three times and I’m pretty sure I still remember the lyrics to most of the songs. When I was in grade 9, I conducted a small orchestra of my classmates playing some of the music from the play for a school project.
15. The first concert I ever remember going to was New Kids on the Block at Lansdowne Park in like 1989. (Shut up.) It rained really hard and we were completely soaked by the end, but it was awesome. (Shut up!) My favourite New Kid was Jordan and you know, I still think he’s pretty hot. (Seriously, shut up.)
16. I had several pets growing up. My parents had a cat named Marilla (see #2) before I was born and she lived until I was maybe 10 or so. After she died we got a new cat named Tibby. My sister and I had a series of hamsters, my favourite of which was named Fudge. We had a Japanese fighting fish named Sir Percy Blakeney, and later I got goldfish who were called Simon and Hecubus. When I was in high school, we got a dog: Daphne, a schnoodle. She was a wonderful dog and I was very attached to her. She died pretty suddenly when she was nine years old and I was absolutely devastated.
17. Like many people (I think), I wanted to be a marine biologist for a while. I loved killer whales and dolphins. My family went to Marineland in Niagara Falls on vacation once, and though I have absolutely no artistic talent whatsoever, killer whales are the one thing I’ve ever been able to draw well.
18. I’m not sure if this is connected to my desire to be a marine biologist, but the only time I’d visited Vancouver before moving there was when I was little, and the only thing I really remember is going to the aquarium in Stanley Park. I have a vivid memory of seeing an octopus in a tank and being completely grossed out by its tentacles.
19. Twice during my childhood I managed to knock out a loose baby tooth and swallow it. Twice.
20. I was the section head for the Arts and Entertainment section of the school newspaper when I was in high school. I then went to Journalism school when I started university, but dropped out after a year.
21. I had never seen the Star Wars trilogy until I was a teenager. People used to give me the weirdest looks when I’d tell them I hadn’t seen it. I had one friend in elementary school who was so shocked by my failure to see the movies that he made me a VHS copy of all three. I’ve now seen all six movies several times, and I still have that copy along with my DVDs.
22. My grandparents used to live in Almonte, near the Mississippi River. A few times, my grandfather took me canoeing out there, and my cousins and my sister and I would wade in the water and climb the rocks by the small waterfall near their building. It was really nice. I also learned to drive on the quiet highway between Almonte and Pakenham. (These are small towns outside Ottawa.)
23. I was not at all athletic when I was a kid or teenager. I was usually picked last or maybe second to last in gym class. Last year, I started playing hockey, and guess what? I’m still not athletic. However, it’s a lot of fun.
24. The first time I ever went to a hockey game, I was in high school (I developed my interest in the game kind of late, I’m afraid). My dad took me to a 67’s game. Before I left I told my mom I would catch a puck and bring it back to her. She said “Yeah, right.” During the warmup, a Belleville Bulls player shot a puck that hit the top of the glass, bounced up high, hit the railing in front of our seats, then deflected off my dad’s wrist and bounced off my head. We looked for the puck but couldn’t find it until I realized it was in my hood. My mom was amazed. My dog tried to eat the puck.
25. When I first discovered hockey, I was all about the 67’s. My feelings about the Sens were mostly resentment that they got so much attention and the 67’s got so little. I knew a lot about the CHL, not much about the NHL. It was really only after Wade Redden was traded to Ottawa that I started paying close attention to the Sens. I do remember the whole Dave Allison saga though. I also remember the Patrick Roy trade very well, because I became *dramatic music* a Montreal fan for a while afterwards, and the first jersey I ever bought was a Jocelyn Thibault Habs jersey. I am deeply shamed.
26. My first favourite Sens player was Radek Bonk. I loved him! For my 18th birthday, I received an autographed Bonk jersey. My dad once took me to a Sens game, possibly sometime near my 18th birthday but I’m not sure, against the Bruins. It happened to be Bonk’s first game back from an injury. We sat in the 100 level and I remember Bonk scored a goal right in front of me. It was great!
27. The first Sens game I ever went to, also with my dad, was an exhibition game against Montreal. I was one of those obnoxious people cheering for the Habs at a Sens homegame because of my Thibault love. Sorry. During the game, Darcy Tucker made a questionable hit on Bonk and I think gave him a bloody nose or at least took him out of the game somehow. I have hated Darcy Tucker ever since that day. I know everyone hates Darcy Tucker, but that is my specific reason. No one can say I don’t hold a grudge. Chris Pronger and Steve Downie, take note: I will likely violently hate both of you forever, too.
28. I actually met Radek Bonk once when I went to the Sens’ Charity Carnival one year. I got my picture taken with him! I’ve also got a great picture of me and my friend with Janne Laukkanen, and I met Alexei Yashin too. I didn’t think he was very nice (surprise, surprise). At the same event, they had Wade Redden in a dunk tank, dressed in a wetsuit. Nice. I met Wade three times during his career in Ottawa. The first time was at the Ex: he was there signing autographs just before he started his first season with the Sens. Now that he’s gone, there’s no one I’ve met on the team except Nick Foligno.
29. I took Latin in high school and one of our assignments was to write our own will in Latin and make three bequests. In my will, I appointed my gladiator, Radecus Boncus, to be my executor, and willed my 67’s season ticket (section 25, row A, seat 4) to one of my friends.
30. Brian Campbell was my favourite 67’s player. I still think he’s one of the most exciting players I’ve ever seen. I once ran into him in the hallway at the Civic Centre and I told him “I love watching you play!” He said, “Thank you.”
Continue reading ‘we′
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