A fun way to end my summer blogging today(I am back to work in the physical sense tomorrow!) —

I was tagged by two folks for the 8 random things “meme” or game, including one high school blogger, Ethan Bodnar, and also by Clay Burrell.  Here are the rules:

THE RULES
1. Post these rules before you give your facts.
2. List 8 random facts about yourself.
3. At the end of your post, choose (tag) 8 people and list their names, linking to them.
4. Leave a comment on their blog, letting them know they’ve been tagged.

Out of idle curiosity, I looked up the “8 random things” meme on Google, and found that there were 183,000 websites referencing this game of tag.   I browsed down some of the list, trying to find the earliest mention of it I could, running across all sorts of blogs on the way, including several librarian blogs, a blog about living in Africa, some religious blogs, a blog by a cancer survivor, blogs by midwives, mom blogs, book lovers blogs, knitting blogs, blogs about marketing, etc.

After I answer this, in a few days, when you search “8 random things” and “blogs” I imagine my post will come up somewhere.  (I saw Christian Long’s on think:lab as I was browsing through the Google Hits–and coincidentally, Christian tagged Ethan, and Ethan tagged me.)

The earliest response to this game I could find was in May, around May 16, though I’m sure if I’d had hours to spend, I could have found one from well before that.  It interested me that as I was digging deep into the Google results, there weren’t very many education bloggers represented in the earliest versions of the game, though there were some librarians, and quite a few just ‘regular’ bloggers.  

So I wonder if it took awhile to get around to the educational bloggers getting “tagged” and just why that might be.  Just curious about that–why would midwives and stitchery afficianados get tagged before technology educators?  I wonder if it’s the same with every meme or does it depend where it begins? (probably).   Or are we not as “in the loop” as we might think we are?

Ok, enough of the random musings….here are my 8 random things:

1.  I’m catching a cold, the day before I have to return to work, bad timing.  While this is a temporal “random thing,” it is the one most on my mind.  I’m quite annoyed about it.

2.  I was raised dreaming of travel.  My family’s idea of a fun night out would be going to the airport to stand on the rooftop deck(in those days you could) and watch the planes take off.  I like planning travel, thinking about travel, and finding interesting places to go.  Unfortunately, I don’t really enjoy actually flying.  Kind of a conundrum, there.  But I do fly 😉

3.  I have an unexplained and strange obsession with the Iditarod, which I mentioned in the last game of tag.  

4.  I worked in an ice cream parlor in high school.  My dinner each night would consist of a pint of lime sherbet.  I’m not a huge fan of ice cream anymore.

5.  I’m fascinated by art museums.  I just like being in the space, not just entirely for the art but for the ambiance as well.  My favorite nearby one is the McNay Art Institute in San Antonio, where my grandmother used to take me when I was growing up.  I still go there several times a year–it’s a beautiful setting with a really nice Impressionist exhibit.

6.  I wish I had an iPhone.  (coveting one, actually)

7.  The Monterey Aquarium is one of my favorite places.  I love visiting aquariums, but it is by far my favorite.  I love that it is in an old cannery and that you can go out on the back decks and see the sea otters.  I also love sea otters.

8.  I could eat Mexican food every day.  (often, I do.)  I’m finishing this right at dinner time and pondering where I could have Mexican food tonight.

This is about as random as it gets–blame it on the cold 😉 But if the point is to get to know other people whose blogs you read slightly better, perhaps those random facts helped?

Now I need to tap 8 people.   I’m going to tap Joel, Margie, Vicky, Karl, PjHiggins, Diane Cordell, Dennis Draper and Konrad Glogowski.

 I was going to tag Jennifer Wagner who I met at NECC(one of the WomenoftheWeb) but someone beat me to it!

I’m also wondering–what our students would say if we asked them to write down 8 random things about themselves?