The Fool

10 things you didn’t know (and didn’t care) about me:

1. I was born on Friday 13th July, and I honestly believe that that is the single most awesome fact about me. My most recent Friday 13th birthday was last year, when I was in Portugal. I will turn 28 on the next Friday 13 July. Here are two random things about Friday 13:

a] In numerology, the number twelve is considered the number of completeness, as reflected in the twelve months of the year, twelve signs of the zodiac, the twelve tribes of Israel, the twelve Apostles of Jesus, etc., whereas the number thirteen was considered irregular transgressing this completeness.

b] The fear of Friday the 13th is called paraskavedekatriaphobia,^[1], a word derived from the concatenation of the Greek words Paraskeví (Παρασκευή) (meaning Friday), and dekatreís (δεκατρείς) (meaning thirteen), attached to phobía (φοβία) (meaning fear).

2. I hate washing my hair. Hair washing is something I do with great protest and annoyance. Luckily, I have naturally very manageable hair, meaning that I can get away with a once-a-week wash without it looking greasy or smelling funky. I realise this might sound weird. I also do not own a hair brush. I’m a great fan of chunky headbands to cover messy looking hair.
3. My favourite colour is green, and I’m on the eternal hunt for a grass-green eyeshadow. Green is an awesome colour: it’s the colour of nature, it’s the colour of summer, it’s chilled out and relaxed and inspiring.

4. On that note, if I ever win Lotto, the first thing I’m doing is buying the entire MAC eyeshadow range. Shallow, I know.

5. My favourite word is phlegm. It’s excessively cool due to the fact that it not only has a silent ‘g’, but has a “ph” instead of the easier ‘f’ (though I’m aware of the fact that there are probably many reasons for this word being spelt in this way). I love words, and often wonder if I should’ve studied linguistics. Palimpsest is probably my second favourite word. My least favourite words include zealous, concur, and fervour.

6. On that note, I considered enrolling in a Bachelor of Letters once I’d finished my Bachelor of Arts – partly because I was scared to enter the real world, and partly because I wasn’t sure I’d made the right choices the first time around. I ended up doing Honours in English instead, but had I done the Letters (which, for those who don’t know, is basically involves doing taking two more majors in an Arts degree), I would’ve majored in French and either History or Linguistics. I didn’t really have a minor in anything in my Arts – my degree was chock full of English and Political Science units (and a brief, semester-long flirtation with History and Anthropology).

For the record, I also considered changing my degree to Law, Fine Arts, or Social Work, at varying points along the way.

7. Breakfast is my favourite meal of the day, but I’m generally happy to eat at any time. My favourite food is sushi. In an ideal world, I’d eat long, lazy breakfasts, and feast on endless freshly prepared sushi every night. In the real world, you’re more likely to find me eating a sandwich of some sort (or sushi).

8. One of my many dreams in life is to own a bookshop.

9. I intend to visit every single country on Earth at some point during my life. So far, I’m up to 18, the most unusual of which is Bosnia. I have some work to do. The first thing I’m doing after submitting my PhD thesis is taking off on a round-the-world trip for at least one year – probably longer.

10. As a kid, I used to be able to swim 100m underwater (4 laps of a 25m pool) without taking a breath. I had what can only be described as a freakish lung capacity, thanks to many years of swimming training. A lifetime of asthma medication, a lack of exercise, and too many cigarettes for a few years there, have all contributed to me having a fairly shit lung capacity these days.