We’ve Been Tagged
Anyone know what a meme is? Some of you do and some of you don’t care, but here’s a definition anyway for those in between: “In Blogspeak, a meme is an idea that is shared and passed from blog to blog, like a question posted in one blog and answered in many other blogs.”
So normally I avoid these, and even now I don’t like doing it, but Itsara was called on specifically to answer this (”tagged” was the word used). I will justify this lapse of humility with the rationalization that I’m doing this for a friend (okay, so technically in order to have a lapse of humility, I’d have to have been humble in the first place - oh well). If you don’t care, don’t click here:
Ten Years Ago:
I was graduating highschool, starting college (with great fear and trembling), meeting some of the people who would be my best friends to this day, and deciding, once and for all, if God was real and if this Christianity thing was for me or was just something I did because I grew up that way.
Five Years Ago:
I quit a job that I loved (making computer games), because it required too much time from me in terms of both work and commute. Time which I was loathe to give up because I was also getting married at this time.
One Year Ago:
Itsara was brand new. We were making lists of all the things we needed to do before we could move to Thailand. I believe we were also trying to determine when we would move. At the same time, I was working part-time for the Man SAIC, and part-time as the worship leader of Coast. That was a pretty sweet arrangement.
One Day Ago:
Running around Chiang Mai trying to get all sorts of things done so that I will have all the documentation I need to prove to Immigration that it’s cool to let me stay here for another year. We were also having our last lesson in Conversational Thai (for which we have a test today, then it’s reading and writing for a few months).
One Hour Ago:
Praying with the staff for upcoming tests (many of us are in school, and I think we all have tests coming up within the next two weeks), for the children, for our love and joy for working with the children, and especially for the American couple that coordinates the volunteers, as the wife awaits the result of some very important, and scary, medical tests.
Five Favorite Snacks:
Rotee (It’s like a crepe with sweetened condensed milk and sugar and whatever else you want. You don’t have it in America. You wish you did.)
Deep-Fried Banana (It’s better than it sounds.)
Satay (Grilled chicken on a stick with the best peanut sauce in the world.)
Creme Brulee
Carne Asada Burritos (Oh, it counts as a snack. Trust me.)
Five Songs I Know the Words to:
I know the words to a lot, though almost entirely worship songs. I can’t think of an interesting answer to this question. I want to mention Thai songs and jingles that get stuck in my head all the time, but I still don’t know the words :-)
What I would do with 5 Millon Dollars:
Give most of it away, maybe all of it. Part of me would want to figure out a way to be financially independent with it, but a larger part of me knows that sort of security is an illusion anyway and would rather get rid of it before I became dependent on it. A third part of me (or maybe the first part again) would want to be financially independent so that we could tell all of you to send your support somewhere else. The real question is: why is God giving me all this money? I guess I would pray long and hard for what He wants me to do with all that money.
5 Places I would escape to for a while:
Anyplace with Cindy
The Roof
Kauai
My grandparent’s old house (although I don’t think it’d be much fun escaping there now that someone else is living there)
Phuket (it’s like Kauai, but cheaper!)
5 Things I would not wear:
This question is too easy if I go with what I don’t like. Let’s go with what I wouldn’t wear in Thailand:
A Scarf
A Sweater
Anything made of wool
Socks
Shoes (okay, so I do wear socks and shoes when we play soccer or go bowling, but I still don’t like it)
5 Favorite TV Programs:
Well, I haven’t really watched TV in months, and even back in the States I didn’t have a lot of favorites. Actually, I really don’t like TV in general, but here’s what I do like:
Cindy and I have been watching Naruto (an addiction for which we have Mike to thank).
The Simpsons
The History Channel
Iron Chef
Homestar Runner (that counts as a TV show, right?)
5 Greatest Joys:
Cindy
Any of the 50+ kids, when they’re not hurting each other or destroying things
Writing
Making Music
Drawing
(Runners-up: Reading good sci-fi/fantasy, watching movies, being able to read Thai)
5 Favorite Toys:
Laptop
Scooter
Sketchbook
Drums
The Internet
5 People I will tag to play:
Okay, I’m only doing this cuz the meme made me. And I’m only tagging these people because theirs are the answers I’m most likely to read, but if you guys don’t do it it won’t bother me at all: Cindy, Sean, Ray, James, Payshe.
Maybe tomorrow if not definitely Monday.
pay
Thank you for not tagging me….=^)
I’m hurt, I would’ve played….but now, I won’t, because you really don’t want me to, you’d just be being polite…..
But I love you anyway.
A meme is an idea passed on from one person to another. Like a virus. I learned that in one of my expensive online classes.
Yeah, Mrs. H’s (hi, Mrs. H!) definition is closer to the original definition of a meme: it’s a concept. Frequently associated with the term is a non-anthropocentric viewpoint: humans are merely vectors for memes, instead of the originators of them. I guess we’re seeing some semantic drifting in the term now. I wonder where it will go from here.
How are you doing on the drums, Adam? I saw Maceo Parker the other night, and I was once again inspired/crushed in spirit by the musical talent that some people have. His rhythm section is so tight. Anyway, the point is, I need to put together a funk band now. I bet Andrew would be down….
-M
Well, you’re a good sport. Stuff like this is a real pain, no?
And, ooh, yes, that rotee is gooood!
I’m sorry, Mommy. I didn’t tag you because (to my knowledge) you don’t have a blog. Oh wait, do you have something on MySpace? Now I can’t remember. Tell you what, if you do have a blog, tell me where it is and consider yourself tagged :-)
The definition of meme that I gave above was strictly limited to how it is used in terms of blogging. But you’re all right. A true meme is: “a cultural unit (an idea or value or pattern of behavior) that is passed from one generation to another by nongenetic means (as by imitation); ‘memes are the cultural counterpart of genes’”.
check my blog I played.
p
haha, it’s spreading like a disease. It’s already gone at least two steps beyond me.
Ahh Rotee - I’d forgotten how good that stuff is. Yes, America, you do wish you had it there.
It seems I’m about four days late to this post, which in blogland is almost forever so I’m not going to pick this one up (sorry) but it’s always fascinating to me to look back over random periods of our life and see how important they really were. Kaoru has this free calendar that she got from Bank of America and she faithfully writes down in each space what we did that day, like “Went to Im Jai House”. It’s really fun to look back over the last seven months and see how much we have really seen and done this year. I usually pick it up and play the “What were we doing a month, two-months, three-months, etc. ago game” with her. She doesn’t like having to guess at things like that, so now she has turned the tables and makes me guess but I love it.
Thanks for sharing this Adam! The craziest one for me was from a year ago because that was when we were watching you guys get ready to move to Thailand and we were getting ready to travel and I remember how much was still up in the air for all of us, and also what a great small group that was.