Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Listlessness

As regular readers might have noticed, I have been suffering rather from this condition for the past couple of weeks.

And so has the blog (for rather longer)!

So, in an absurd piece of superstitious japery, I will see if I can dispel the listlessness in my life by adding some LISTINESS to dear old Froogville today.

(Admission: This is a recycle of a comment I left on Leah's blog a few months back [I can't remember where]. I am far too listless to come up with an original list for you!)


Four jobs I've had:

1. Barman - at the 'Rose & Crown' pub, Oxford (many years ago, and not for very long!)
2. Waiter (and occasional microwaver of pre-cooked, salmonella-laced fare) at a very dodgy pizza restaurant whose name I now forget (similar era to 1. above)
3. Photographic model (you get some strange opportunities in this country where I now live!!)
4. Film actor (well, not quite: I was once offered a role as an evil, moustache-twirling Victorian colonialist, but turned it down.... the part just wasn't right for me at the time)


Four places I've lived:

1. Oxford
2. Sydney (only for a month, but it counts)
3. Toronto (best hot dogs in the world!)
4. Beijing


Four favourite foods:

1. pistachio ice cream
2. mango kulfi
3. baked beans on toast (English childhood 'comfort food')
4. crusty bread (surely an essential in anyone's list?)


Supplement - four favourite foods in China:

1. nang bao rou
2. jiaozi (or baozi)
3. rou jia mo
4. hu pi jian jiao


Four films I could watch over and over (Actually, these are just four favourites; on reflection, I think they're probably a bit too rich and serious – though all darkly funny - for frequent repeat viewing, but.... this'll do for now):


1. Dark Star
2. Harold & Maude
3. The Hairdresser's Husband
4. Being John Malkovich


Four TV shows I enjoy:

(Hmmm, I just don't watch TV any more. When visiting friends in the States last summer the answers would have been South Park, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, and Vh1's Top 20 Countdown; but now..... only the dire local channel CCTV-9..... sad, sad, sad....)

1. Documentary
2. Culture Express
3. Dialogue
4. BizChina


Four places I've travelled (avoiding the obvious):

1. Jamaica
2. Greece
3. Fiji
4. North Korea


Four places I'd like to visit:

1. Cuba (preferably while Fidel is still around, although – more realistically – this looks like being another 'collect the set of embalmed former dictators' visit [not many people can claim to have ticked Kim-Il Sung!])
2. Qinghai/Tibet
3. South America, and especially Brazil (although Buenos Aires also appeals, for the tango...), and especially a town in the Matto Grosso called Araçatuba (my mother's birthplace)
4. Petra ("the rose-red city, half as old as time")


Four websites I go to daily (almost hourly!):

1. Yahoo Mail
2. Blogger
3. Wikipedia (mostly via proxy)
4. Google (and, when I'm feeling fancy, GoogleScholar)

3 comments:

georg said...

I lived Oxford... for a week.

I studied abroad for a semester in a program through the universities of Bath and Oxford, New College to be exact. So we stayed in their dorms for that week. Unfortunately, I was very ill that week, but I still found it interesting. They only have two outlets in the entire dorm room. I'd go starkers if I had that limit in my dorm room. That's just the computer and the clock- where would I plug in the fridge, the microwave, and my hair dryer, among other things? Spoiled, I was! Having access to the Bodleian, oh my. I wish I hadn't been so ill so I could have taken greater advantage of that!

Froog said...

Yes, well, that's one of the common hassles of modern life. Any dwelling built more than 15 or 20 years ago will have been designed on the basis that you only own 4 or 5 electrical devices, and won't mind rotating them around the 2 or 3 plug sockets provided.

I wonder how my University experience might have been different now - with so many materials available online, so you wouldn't have to go plodding all over town to libraries; and with essays written on a computer (I can type at least 3 times as fast as I can write longhand!). Scary thoughts!

Anonymous said...

You would miss out on the library-as-a-source-of-reading-material -experience.

Now, the library is mainly a center for socializing (more so than ever before).

I grew up in the library era and did my undergrad in it.

Then I went to grad school and law school in the internet era.

In the internet era, the libraries are purely meant for (a) notebook computer support and computer labs; (b) archaic 1L legal writing class "learn to use the library" lessons; (c) checking out all the cute smart witty sexy guys who are (hopefully) checking out you and your friends!

Oh, and (d) gossiping.

Every once in a while I'd get the crazy idea of going to the library to study... but would quickly be reminded that it is the last place to go to study after being approached for lunch plans, weekend plans, meet the visiting sister/brother/mother/father, or after running into N or B.