Tuesday, July 12, 2016

Ten Facts About Me

This week's Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by the Broke and the Bookish) asks bloggers to list ten facts about themselves, so here are ten facts about me, my blog, and some of my eccentricities!


1. I started blogging here at A Myriad of Books when I was fifteen (that's six years ago including a long hiatus or two!)  When I reached high school, my fellow book geeks in "real life" seemed to become fewer and fewer.  (I think most of them transformed into band geeks.)  So, I started blogging so that I could share my opinions about books with other people who appreciate books.  

2. I am a first-year doctoral student in the field of women's and gender history.  Historical writing involves lots of agonizing and footnotes, but I love the historiography and research aspects of it. To me, reading through people's old diaries is extraordinarily cool.  When one writes about forgotten people in particular, it is as though one conjures them up from the dead and convince readers to pay attention to them, perhaps for the first time in centuries.  I think that is a kind of magic.   


3. I'm a very picky eater.  My absolute favorite food is peanut butter, and that is also my sister's favorite.  We have about ten jars of peanut butter in our pantry right now.

4. I loove watching "ghost hunter" television shows where paranormal investigators spend the night locked up in a spooky basement or wandering around dark rooms with flashlights, saying, "Ohmygod, did you hear that?"
I have never seen a ghost, and I don't particularly believe in ghosts.  I just like the idea of ghosts and the jump scares--especially the jump scares! My favorite show from this genre is called Paranormal Witness.  

5. I worked for three years as a grocery store cashier.  

6. I am fluent in French as well as English (obviously), so bilingual.  Supposedly Charlemagne said, "Avoir une autre langue, c'est posséder une deuxième âme."  Speaking another language is like possessing a second soul.  

7. I have lived my entire life in the southern United States.  I like fried chicken and sweet tea, and I do have an inescapably strong Southern accent.  I'm terrified of the very idea of driving in the snow and I wave at strangers.  It is pretty humid here in the South right now!    

8. I recently student-taught high school English.  The texts I taught were Oedipus Rex, Julius Caesar, Night, and All Quiet on the Western Front.  I probably would have chosen different books if the choices had been up to me, but I do like All Quiet on the Western Front.    

9. Bookish fact... So far this year, I have read 147 books and 42, 992 pages.  Last year I only read 164 books and 51,123 pages.  

10. Another bookish fact...I really like Penguin classics, the ones with the black spines.  I cannot resist buying a Penguin edition, even if I have already the book.  It's a problem... it's just that they look so darn nice on my bookshelf and I love the images that Penguin chooses for their covers.        

Thanks so much for stopping by my Top Ten Tuesday.  Please leave me a link to your post when you comment and I will return each and every visit!

9 comments:

Kate @ Fictional Thoughts said...

I love collecting those black versions of the Penguin Classics. They just look so classy on my shelves. I pay a little extra so my classics have those covers rather than ones which won't match. Which sounds ridiculous but for some reason it really matters to me.

And I also love peanut butter! But I'm odd and only really like one specific brand and it HAS to be crunchy!

Great list. Thanks for sharing it!

Anonymous said...

You're doing so well with your reading this year! :-) I'm a fan of peanut butter too although I do like the smooth stuff!

Anonymous said...

I have been trying to re learn French for a while now, but everything flies out of my head because I have German as my second language... Or I end up mixing the two around!!

Jade said...

In the hotel I work in we get tour groups from the US very often and I met a lovely southern lady who gave me some sweet tea powder from walmart that she brought with her (we don't have walmart in the UK) and it was so good!

Oh, I can't believe we've both been blogging for six years (I have two long hiatuses too) and I never followed you - I'm following now!

Here's my top ten :)
And here is my blogoversary giveaway as well! Help me celebrate six years!

Kat said...

@Kate-- I know, aren't the Penguin classics so classy-looking?! I also love their deluxe editions, especially the Jane Eyre one that is so gorgeous.

@chrissireads--I like crunchy and smooth peanut butter, though I do have a favorite brand. My reading this year has benefited a lot from my not working this summer. :)

Kat said...

@pageturner20-- I have tried to learn German, but found the grammar to be somewhat difficult--good for you for having mastered it! I am re-learning Spanish right now and often accidentally substitute French vocabulary when I can't think of the Spanish word. Oops!

@Jade Walker-- Sounds like a sweet lady! Of course, we Southerners are also known for being very friendly. Thanks for following; I will definitely follow you back!

Anonymous said...

Wow! That's a lot of books that you've read in a year! Where do you find the time haha. I can't watch paranormal stuff. I get freaked out too much. I couldn't even watch Paranormal Activity. I had to sleep with music and headphones on. That's awesome that you taught English! I want to teach someday!

Rudejasper said...

All Quiet on the Western Front was one of my favorites that I read in high school - it would be interesting to teach! Also the Ghost Shows? Crack me up! After a work colleague and I giggle while watching one on a work drop we developed the idea to create a reality show about our workplace (State wildlife agency) where we could run around doing our wildlife surveys which can be SUPER boring where you see nothing and just acting very dramatic while pointing things out which never get caught on film. It is probably not funny to anyone but us but it brought us a lot of joy:). All thanks to ghost investigation shows.

Kat said...

@Stephanie Shepherd-- Haha, I would totally watch your show Real Biologists of State Wildlife Agency--Gone Wild! I watch ghosthunter shows all the time and every few minutes, I exclaim to the nearest person, "How is this not my job??" Seriously, though, wildlife biologist is one of the coolest jobs ever.

It's funny you and your friend would have that in-joke, because at the grocery store where I used to work, a friend and I used to speculate that the grocery store would be a good site for a reality show. Some of the regular customers (and also most of the employees) were so eccentric that they seemed like reality TV gold.

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