All About Me Meme

Ahh... I'm slowly starting to catch up on life. End of the school year tests are written and recorded, I've caught up with all my marking, I think I've updated all my links on my blog, I'm slowly tackling my email inbox.... Still lots to do, but I'm getting there.

A little while ago Azumarisan tagged me, so here I go....

What I was doing;
10 years ago
Living in Brisbane, running my own business as a professional photographer, about to get the most horrendous tax bill that would make me rethink my life and that would motivate me to come to Japan for the first time.

5 years ago
Living back in Brisvegas after my first three years in Japan, suffering from reverse culture shock, doing a post-grad in Linguistics and trying to decide what to do next with my life.

1 year ago
Sitting in the cold teachers' room getting exciting about an upcoming trip back to Australia in spring holidays.

Yesterday
Sitting in this cold teacher's room, getting exciting about my upcoming trip to Australia in spring holidays.

5 snacks I enjoy
1. Chocolate
2. Licorice
3. Chocolate-coated licorice
4. Gingerbread
5. Did I mention chocolate?

5 books I like
1. Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World - Haruki Murakami
2. Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand
3. Memiors of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
4. Any Art/Photography/Design book
5. Freakonomics - Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt

5 things I'd do with $100 million
1. Buy a beautiful house in the Sunshine Coast Hinterlands (beautiful mountain area not too far from the beach), with a fantastic, large, well-lit studio space and plenty of training space for hubby.
2. Help out friends and family with things that would make their life easier and happier.
3. Start up a charity for education of children in Northern Vietnam.
4. Open up a concept cafe/ resource centre that I have written up business plans for but don't want to reveal too much about now in the hopes that I can get finance for it in the next few years
5. Travel, travel, travel and then some more travel.

5 places I'd love to run away to (what, only 5? That doesn't really fit into my travel, travel, travel plans...)
1. The same little house on the edge of a cliff in Yamba (small beach town in the North of New South Wales) that I ran away to years ago by myself to write for a week - it was one of the best weeks of my life. I then met hubby a few days later (well technically had met him before that, but he says he fell for me when I got back from that trip, I was full of life and energy)
2. Another secluded place in the rainforest, but this time I'd take my husband
3. Italy
4. South America
5. Spain

5 bad habits and pet peeves I have
1. PP - People that throw rubbish on the ground, especially anyone that opens up a car door to drop out their takeaway food wrappings
2. BH - I talk way too much, I even tell myself to shut up in my head and times, but still don't stop. I sometimes give people far more information than is maybe socially acceptable or they really want to know. Just ask the people I work with!
3. PP - Teachers yelling at my students during my class while I'm teaching, especially when I work hard at creating an friendly environment so that students feel comfortable speaking English and the teacher is yelling at them about the top button on their uniform or that both feet aren't under their desk.
4. BH - I get lost in my own little world for weeks at a time, can become a hermit and am terrible at replying to emails and keeping in contact with people during those times.
5. BH - I can justify to myself the need to eat chocolate and reasons for not going to the gym at any time and do so way to often.

5 things I like doing
1. Making things, nowadays mostly things with Japanese paper or textile
2. Taking photos
3. Catching up with friends in a nice little coffee shop that has a good selection of teas and cakes
4. Reading
5. Shopping

5 things I would never wear
1. Anything with leopard print.
2. Anything high waisted (they just don't fit)
3. In public - any shirt that I can't wear a bra underneath (you may want to see the too much information bit on my bad habits for this one)
4. Yellow. I hate the colour. Not, I don't like the colour - I hate the colour. It induces rage in me.
5. White pants (not as in nickers, but as in trousers), I could never keep them clean. After about 10 minutes, there would surely be chocolate on them.

5 TV shows I like (all stuff I can get here - I really miss the selection of British shows I can get back home)
1. Grey's Anatomy
2. Dr Who
3. Torchwood
4. Lost
5. Desperate Housewives

5 movies I like
1. Like Water For Chocolate
2. Run Lola Run
3. Amelia
4. Love Actually
5. Pretty much anything by John Waters or anything with Johnny Depp in it

5 famous people I'd like to meet
1.Johnny Depp
2. Bono
3. Michael Luenig - actually I've already met him twice
4. Dali Lama - I've been to one of his talks once and he was so inspiring
5. Haruki Murakami - as long as I had a translator

5 favourite toys
1. My laptop - couldn't live without it
2. My ipod
3. My Nikon D200
4. My sewing machine
5. My Japanese vibrating hairbrush, while it doesn't give me the frizz-free look it promised, but I like the feel on my scalp and the noise makes me giggle.

5 people I'd like to see complete this
1. Badaunt - I just love her blog!
2. Jason - gotta do something to get this boy to write a new post on that blog.
3. Contamination - would love to know more about this fellow Aussie ex-pat.
4. La Fuji Mama - am totally in awe of her, she's the only gaijin woman with a gaijin husband that I know that has gone down the baby having and raising path here, something I've decided I'm not brave enough to do.
5. Geisha Interrupted - I'm quite fascinated about her and can't wait to read her book.