8 random things about me.....

I saw Katt do this on her blog and thought I would give it a go, maybe you'll feel you know me a little bit better, who knows....

I grew up on the largest council estate in Europe – also I think referred to as “the projects” in the US, it's called Bransholme, although times were often hard, especially as England was in a recession during this period in my life and the area was rife with crime and trouble of various sorts, this is were I grew up and went to school. Even though it was not the nicest (but not by far the worst) place to live in the UK, I really enjoyed growing up here, I loved school, there wasn’t much to do so we would find an overgrown patch of wasteland and make Dens and tree houses. We used to play on a big roundabout which we called “Island” and made Dens in the bushes, we would have to defend these dens from rival groups of kids who were also looking for a good spot to build a den. I miss those days!

I am scared of going into the sea – ever since I saw Jaws as a kid I will not go into the sea not just from the fear of getting attacked by a large shark but also because I wouldn’t like not knowing what is beneath me! I have been invited by a work colleague to go out into the North Sea on his new speed boat sometime in the future; I really want to go because it’ll frighten the hell out of me!

I hate it when the guy gets the girl at the end of a movie – i.e. Jerry Maguire, American Pie etc. It really gets me annoyed, I just think ‘well that doesn’t happen in real life, or it would have happened to me’ petty really, and I probably won’t think that way when I find a woman, you just get that way when you’ve been single for 4 years. I think I’m a bit of a romantic and miss having that special someone.

My favourite year in my life so far is 1996 - it was a very special year, so many nice things happened, first of all it was that magic summer of Euro 96 when football fever hit England and everyone looked forward to England’s next game in the competition, there was a definite “feel good factor” in the air, after years of growing up with no money, I got my first job which lasted for four months during the summer between years at college, this allowed me to buy things I had always wanted such as my own hi-fi system and CD’s, I also started going out and drinking around town. I was working with another girl from the college course, and this led to a very special, summer romance, this was predicted by others on the course and the romance faded when we arrived back at college mainly due to embarrassment. There were also a couple of other romances that year of which one led to us moving in together a few years later, sadly that didn’t last.

I would love to learn the art of Bush craft and to travel the world – after watching a TV show about Bush craft and survival techniques I have always wanted to learn the art of using nature to survive and in the future I intend to go on a bush craft holiday. I also have a desire to see the world, I have never been abroad, but would love to travel and see the world like Michael Palin writing about my adventures, I have had this desire ever since I read Paulo Coelho’s ‘The Alchemist’ however I have never seen the point in going on vacation abroad for a fortnights holiday in the Costa del sol, or Ibiza for example, it seems like a waste of money!

I want to become a star of a cult TV comedy show – not like Little Britain which is a series of crap character based sketches (same joke, different episode) , but more like Spaced, which was great. I’m really quite shy; I try to combat this by pushing myself into these situations, like acting in my mate’s sketches and playing in bands etc. I nearly fainted when I played my first gig! My friend is writing a sitcom for us, it’s about 3 flatmates one of which has an imaginary friend who is a pineapple.

Body piercing – I have had a pierced tongue, nipple, nose and ear, although only the tongue piercing is still in place, I also have a tattoo of a shark on my arm and an oriental dragon on my chest. It must have been a phase I was going through lol.

I regret not going to University – when I was finishing college I was going to go to Uni and study either Marine Biology or Forensic Science. I had this lecturer who was dealing with our University applications, when I told him what I wanted to do, he simply said “oh no…not another f#cking Jack Cousteau” and promptly tried to discourage me from applying for these courses on the basis that there are hardly any jobs in either of these fields, it true of course, but I listened to him and in the end took a year out to re-think what I wanted to do. This was my first big mistake as I then got a job as a Microbiologist and got used to earning money, later that year I moved in with my childhood sweetheart and took out a loan for furniture and stuff, this was my second big mistake, the relationship ended after nine months and I needed to work, to pay off my bank loan. After working for a number of years now I realize that it doesn’t matter what you do a degree in, as long as you get a degree, so what if I did marine biology, I may not have gotten a job as a marine biologist, but I would have gotten a science based job. I also regret missing out on the University student lifestyle!