Four meme

Post is late because our ISP had a meltdown and we had no connection from around 8:30pm last night to around 9am this morning! It was very disconcerting to be offline. I couldn’t wrench myself from my computer despite the fact that it felt like only half a computer, so I sat and read at my desk, while listening to music on iTunes. I couldn’t even write, because all my drafts were online! So sad.

You know I have no shame when it comes to memes, I love to tag myself. This from Cozalcoatl, who visited here recently.

Four jobs you’ve had in your life:
Research assistant for a professor of Chinese politics. I did lots of painful translation of Chinese Communist Party official accounts of the Long March. Also searching for information, pre-Internet. Lots of paper cuts, filthy fingers, and sitting deep in dusty university library book stacks. Those were the days… (This job has had lasting impacts on my current job as a librarian. I am most unsympathetic when dealing with young students who don’t know life pre-Internet. They always blanch when I tell them the information they are looking for is in books and they are going to have to go to the library.)
Sales assistant, for M’s dad, at his fruit and veg business. My favourite job. This is where M and I first got to know each other. Love over the Pink Ladies… awww…
Language tutor, in Indonesian and Mandarin. Private tutoring for beginners. Conversation a speciality. What’s the hourly going rate these days?
Apprentice chef. Wanna see my scars?

Four movies you could watch over and over:
The Castle (see also IMDB’s info)
LOTR
Kung Fu Hustle
Serenity

Four places you’ve lived:
Petaling Jaya, Selangor state, Malaysia
Osborne Park, Western Australia
Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, China
Northbridge, Western Australia.

Four TV shows you love to watch:
Tough. I’m not a tv fan as a rule, and we tend to get entire series and watch them in a stretch, which is not really watching tv, is it?
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Star Trek (any, except maybe Voyager)
Little Britain
Sherlock Holmes (I loved the Granada version; I haven’t seen a good version on tv for years.)

Four places you’ve been on holiday:
Cameron Highlands, Malaysia. This was the venue for our annual family holiday.
Lijiang, China.
Three Springs, Western Australia.
Langkawi, Malaysia.

Four websites you visit daily:
Bloglines
SMH
Curtin University Library and Information Service
Utusan Malaysia
(actually I visit, or at least glance at, lots of news sites, daily)

Four of your favourite foods:
Hainanese chicken rice.
Char kway teow. (Mum’s version.)
Caesar salad.
Barbecue. (This probably doesn’t count because it’s actually like the smell of the sausages, chops and seafood cooking that I like. The social aspect of sitting around outdoors and eating together also appeals.)

Four places you’d rather be:In a bath. A large, claw footed one, with lots of hot water, a good book, and a cup of tea. No bath salts or oils because Baubles the Cat will come and drink the water and doesn’t like additives. (The only thing I don’t like about our house is the fact that we don’t have a bath.)
Sweden. Specifically Ystad. See the Kurt Wallender books by Henning Mankell.
Mongolia. The wide rolling plains appeal. And I’d love to find out what living in a yurt feels like.
Library of Congress. Who wouldn’t want to visit the largest library in the world?

Four Play (tag):
Israd
Anna
Food Pornographer
Kris
Israd and Food Pornographer, don’t worry if you’re too busy. (Both working on their PhDs!)

Four things about the number four:
Forget thirteen, four is the unluckiest number in Chinese. The reason? Four in Chinese, si (in Mandarin, although this association extends to the number in other dialects also), sounds like the word for ‘death’.
I can say four in four languages! English, Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese), Malay/Indonesian (empat) and German (vier).
Umm.. I have four siblings. Okay, I’m pushing it a bit here.
I have had my left ear pierced four times. Definitely pushing it!
(Note that these last four are my own observations and not part of the ‘official’ meme at all. I added them because I wanted to make the point about the unluckiness of four in Chinese culture.)

Categories: meme