Play time

Sarah tagged me for my first meme.


7 Things You (Probably) Don't Know About Me


1. I have a large birthmark on my arm and hand. One of my most embarrassing professional moments was when I was young and laughed without watching how people felt about what they said, and my patient's daughter told me an old wives tale that was really weird about how it was acquired. I laughed; she was serious. Another time I was working at an ice cream place and a customer grabbed my hand through the window and chanted over it. Not prayer, and she didn't explain what she was doing, she just chanted.


2. I was a long distance runner when I was a teenager. I was really determined and was expected to become a top athlete. I tripped and tore up my knee during my sophomore year. I was in incredible shape a year later after surgery when something else tore. I had more extensive surgery and worked hard to run part of my senior year, hitting 3rd from last once (my best). After that it was just too painful. Someday I'll need a knee replacement but for now it's actually in great shape considering I've not had cartilage for 15 years and I do a lot of kneeling.
(Jinxed myself; wrote this Tuesday and had it in draft. Friday I hyperextended my knee and it's sore).

3. The best award I ever won was an award that each high school in my state gives to one girl and one boy for outstanding sportsmanship. Traditionally at my school it went to the best male and female athlete. I was never that even if my knee had not fallen apart, but I was given it in recognition of how hard I tried to recover from the original injury, then both surgeries, and from my attempts to keep going when the surgery succeeded in letting me walk without limping, but not in letting me have my full athlete's body. I was given many things at my senior awards ceremony but that certificate made me cry.

4. I nearly failed my first semester of college. My high school was not academically competitive. It was in an area famed for poverty and there just wasn't money to compete with what schools in wealthier areas provided. I learned when I was so young I can't remember that equal distribution of funds to schools across a state has distinct benefits. I went to college as a biology major and during my first lab learned not only that I didn't know how to operate high tech microscopes (knew that going in) but that everyone else did. In contrast, my roommate had a planetarium at school. We did one lab a year and the 5 microscopes the school owned had mirrors. Both biology and chemistry 101 assumed base knowledge I didn't have. I had taken calculus in high school, but the level it had been taught at in my "easier" high school didn't compete with what kids in competitive schools had learned. My college has a high proportion of students in science and engineering, so the assumed knowledge base is far above what I knew. After I failed a round of tests I started freaking myself out and panicking so that I failed worse the next time. Tutors, tears and counseling helped. Ultimately I developed a ritual that I followed all the way through my board exam to be an OT, presumably my last academic test ever.

5. I am allergic to most facial tissues. They make me break out in a rash that gets more and more chapped every time I blow my nose. I am most allergic to the brand names and the ones containing lotions. I think the sensitivity has been greatly increased by lots of exposure from crying excessively thanks to bipolar.


6. I love fish. Unfortunately I don't know much about cooking it or what I like. I live in a very landlocked place. We never ate fish growing up because my parents didn't like it. Where I live is so rural that we don't have a lot of grocery access to "good" fish (like non-frozen). When I was in Florida this winter I ate fish at every opportunity and didn't find anything I didn't love. I just finished trying mahi mahi and I HATED it. But I never know if that means that my recipe wasn't good, if my preparation was lacking, if the fish I bought wasn't very good because it's been flown in from a million miles away and has been frozen for 3 years, or if I just plain don't like mahi mahi. This is disturbing as my latest craving has been fish and my daily dose mainly went down the disposal.

7. I think there is a difference in taste between caffeinated and uncaffeinated beverages. I actually prefer decaf tea and pop (which is good since that's what I have to drink), but I don't like decaf coffee much. I know caffeine is supposedly tasteless, but I can always tell a difference.

That was hard! Because most people reading here tend to feel pretty terrible rather unpredictably, I won't name names, but I'd love to have you answer either on your own blog or in the comments. I'd love to know you!