One of my two favorite sisters, Andrea, tagged me on some blog meme of sharing eight random things about myself. Such that nothing horrible befalls my loved ones, I suppose I’ll need to play along. To make things easy, I’m going to borrow her format in places.

1. I am exceedingly difficult to make angry.

2. Here are the places I have lived:
* Willingboro, NJ until I was through second grade
* Medford Lakes, NJ until I finished high school
* Allentown, PA for most of my undergraduate time in college
* Minneapolis, MN for the summer of my sophomore year, doing a research program at U of MN
* Coventry, UK for my junior year abroad that the University of Warwick
* State College, PA for grad school at Penn State
* Cupertino, CA for the summers of grad school spent at Apple
* San Francisco, CA, where I live now while I continue my career at Apple

3. If I hear something a few times, and my vocal range allows for it, I can reproduce it. As a result of this, I can do a number of cartoon voices, impressions, and sounds.

4. I have poor depth perception due to an eye condition called strabismic amblyopia wherein I am essentially ignoring the input from one eye. I will never be able to see the image embedded in a “Magic Eye” poster. Yet, I have very good eyesight, 20/15. I can close my right eye and see fine out of the left, but if I reopen my right eye I’ll switch back over to it quickly, or else I’ll get a headache.

5. I apparently stopped eating mushrooms one day when I was young. If I can’t recognize them (e.g., veggie burgers), I eat them with no problem. I’m gradually warming up to the idea of eating them whole again, because I don’t have a good reason other than visual aversion and smurf nightmares.

6. My biggest pet peeve is when people complain. Life is much too short to be doing something you don’t want to do. (Not that I am complaining about their complaining, mind you…)

7. Several people have questioned me as to whether or not I actually sleep, because even when they’ve seen me apparently sleeping, I am so easily awoken (by sound or light) and so alert when I am awoken that they swear I was never asleep to begin with.

8. I collect etiquette books as a hobby.