10 things…

October 15th, 2008 | life

Okay, I’m always up for a bit of fun. Like Brandon, who tagged me, I rarely do this, but here goes…

Ten things you might not know about me:

1. To continue a theme set by Brandon, I am very lucky to be here. I was born with meningitis and spent the first few months of my life in intensive care. Meningitis causes fluid to build up around the brain. If the build-up doesn’t stop, you’re in trouble. Back then, if the build-up didn’t stop, they would insert a shunt in the neck to drain the fluid. The only problem: it causes brain damage. On the day scheduled for the operation, the fluid started to drain by itself.

2. I live next door to a very famous Indonesian celebrity. We share a three-house walled compound. I have no idea who lives in House #3. I have never seen them, and am convinced they are vampires. But back to the point. I always knew my neighbour had her own TV show, but I had no idea just how famous she is until Awan’s birthday party this year. People practically fell over each other to prostate themselves before her in adoration. She was a good sport and played celebrity for her fans all night.

3. I won $20,000 once. I was living in Auckland at the time. One morning at work, I received a phone call from the local radio station to tell me I had won $20,000 in a promotion that the city was running. I had to spend the money within the Auckland CBD in one day.

4. Deep water terrifies me. I grew up at the beach. As kids, my brother and I were either in the water swimming or on it sailing. I wasn’t a fan of racing, but used to love heading out on my little yacht. Being out on open water never bothered me. I’m a good swimmer. My confidence was shattered when I was 13 years old. I was sailing by myself straight across the Rangitoto channel in no particular direction. It was a bumpy ride and my rudder was giving me problems. I stopped so I could take off the rudder to check whether anything was caught. As I hung over the stern, a hammerhead shark swam up and grabbed the rudder in its mouth, almost pulling me in. I’m not sure who got the bigger fright, me or the shark when he discovered me attached to the other end. To this day, I have not felt comfortable swimming in the open sea.

5. I am a lousy thief. When I was about 14, one of my school friends dared me to steal a porn video from the local video rental store. The plan was we would rent the movie, remove the label and put it on a blank VHS tape, which we would return to the store. It didn’t work. The store owner rang Mum, and we returned the video. I have never been tempted to steal again.

6. The smell of pot makes me nauseous. I have never really been all that interested in recreational drugs. The first time I tried marijuana put me off forever. My flatmate used to make these chocolate hash brownies and keep them in the fridge. I was home alone one night and, feeling a bit peckish, thought I might try one or two. My flatmate came home a couple of hours later to find me extremely stoned watching the Discovery Channel. “How many did you have?” he asked. “I don’t know, three or four”, I told him. He pissed himself laughing and told me he only eats half a brownie at a time because they were so strong. Not surprisingly, the next morning I woke up still very stoned. I had to take two days “sick leave” to recover. To this day, the smell of marijuana makes me feel really ill.

7. It’s not quite what we expected. By the time I was born, doctors had stopped circumcising baby boys. This presented Mum with a dilemma. She wanted me and my brother to be “the same” as Dad. At first the doctor refused to circumcise me, but Mum was adamant and the doctor caved in. It wasn’t until years later that I started noticing a distinct difference between my tackle and your average slice-job. It seems that the doctor, not happy with having to mutilate another baby boy, cut off just enough to convince my mother that he had done the deed. He wouldn’t have had any problem fooling Mum. But what about Dad? He swears he doesn’t remember, but I’m not so sure…

8. I am handy in a shearing shed. I went to university in New Zealand’s deep south - Otago. Most of my friends were from farms, so it made sense that during long weekends and holidays I would hang-out with them, rather than make the trip home to the North Island. Any kid raised on a farm will tell you holidays mean work, especially during shearing. As a result, I can drench sheep, skirt a fleece and know how to immobilise a ewe for shearing.

9. My love-life reads like the list of signatories to the UN Charter. My first girlfriend was a Kiwi, as was my first boyfriend. Since then, I have been in (steady) relationships with a Canadian, a Croatian, two Australians, two Americans, one Chinese and (currently) one Javanese Indonesian. Javanese is definitely the best, so I have no plans to change!

10. I’ve not always been a lawyer. Actually, it’s debatable whether I am still a lawyer, since I don’t actually practice law anymore. But that’s beside the point. In 2004, a friend and I set up a business as the Australian distributor of an automotive product. It didn’t work out and I am still trying to get back the $90,000 I invested.

So there you go! The whole reason for doing this was to continue a viral-blog-post-thing. So, to those people named below: “Tag, you’re it!”. If you take up the challenge, please link-back to this post.