Idea stolen from Heather via Donna
20 skills I take for granted but that are actually pretty nifty and not something everyone can do – I can:
1. Switch between English and Norwegian at the drop of a hat, and not always notice that I have done so.
2. Code in C.
3. Swim.
4. Read. (Quickly.)
5. Infer general priciples from one situation (real or fictional) and apply them in other circumstances.
6. Learn things by heart with next to no effort.
7. Refrain from yelling at people who annoy me.
8. Draw.
9. Do reasonably accurate and quick sums in my head – enough to figure out my share of the restaurant bill and to alert me if someone’s overcharging me.
10. Keep more than one line of thought in my head at once (e.g. concurrently read and sing along to music or type and have a conversation).
11. Buy good gifts.
12. Remember people’s birthdays.
13. Sew, with or without a pattern.
14. Take apart a video or music cassette and put it back together again in working order.
15. Say “my friends are your friends and your friends are my friends” in sign language (yeah, very useful).
16. Drum my fingers (this appears to be one of those things you either can or can’t do – I suppose it might be possible to learn, but it seems to come naturally to some people and not to others)
17. Write HTML.
18. Touch my toes (yes, despite being hopelessly out of shape I can still reach my toes with my legs straight).
19. Win the wine lottery at work very often (is this a skill? I dunno – but I won again today and it’s getting ridiculous, I think I’ve won every other week so far).
20. Make a mean chocolate cake.
Online journals must be the curse of people trying to locate actual information on the net. This search string on google, for example: “Beethoven Fact file of his life born died etc.“. You wouldn’t really expect my journal to be very helpful to the person who entered it, would you? Well, I come out fifth. And results 1 and 2 are journals, too.
Someone’s got the radio on at work, and it’s really distracting. I like listening to music while I work, but it has to be of my own chosing, the fact that it’s currently playing Bob Dylan doesn’t actually help (much). Please turn the damn thing off, I can provide all the distraction necessary myself, thank you very much.
Phew, just sorted out my contents insurance. The old one expired a few days ago, and I haven’t paid for a renewal because I wanted to change to a different company (not happy with the service from the previous one). But getting around to getting in touch with an alternative company is a different matter. Suddenly realised I was uninsured and started feeling panicky, but now I just had a confirmation e-mail to the effect that I’m covered again. Phew.
Norwegian lesson of the day:
tenke koffert, v., literally “thinking suitcase”: To see the double entendre even where there is none intended. Probably derived from the popularised version of Freud’s theories, viz. all images are in some way sexual to the subconscious – anything elongated and solid being “male”, anything hollow being “female”.
Voice in my head: Bob Dylan singing It Ain’t Me Babe (yes, the radio’s off. but my head’s still on, so to say)