Danny ChaiAll right, fine. Tagging some people who didn’t tag me also.
Rules: Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you.
1. My high school had no P.E. so I didn’t run a mile from the time I was 14 to my mid-twenties.
2. I was extremely skinny and weak growing up. The first time I lifted was with Peter Ju7g and Phil Sh1n in the summer of 1994, and I could initially only bench the 45-lb bar. I have accidentally (and still can) fit into skinny women’s pants. That weak. That skinny.
3. Because I was so self-conscious of my skinniness, I didn’t swim between the ages of maybe 10 and 21 because I didn’t want to take my shirt off.
4. Now I’m happy that I have a skinny body type. Given the American diet, we all fill out as we get older. Being naturally slim is an advantage now. All my normal-bodied peers are slowly getting fat.
5. I have an attached tongue. I think it affects my kissing technique. I also tend to salivate when I talk loudly in public. I’m not sure if that’s related.
6. When I was younger, I never used to cry. I used to only semi-jokingly say that I had no tear ducts. There were times when I wanted to cry, like at emotionally manipulative youth retreats, but simply couldn’t. The (3) times when I did cry were so infrequent that I remember each occasion. Now, I cry all the time. The floodgates opened after I started dating Jieun, and not for why you might suspect – I started crying when we fought. Since that started happening, I cry frequently. I’m not like Tina or Jieun, who cry at movie trailers / commercials, but my threshold is really low. Oddly, one of those few things that made me cry as a youth (the end of the Muppet Movie) doesn’t anymore.
7. I clip coupons from the Sunday paper every week, without fail.
8. I love fast food. Love. At previous jobs where lunch was not free, I would get it multiple times a week. Thing is, I’m also extremely cheap, so I almost always order 2 items from the $1 value menu. There are very few non-value items I’ll get on a regular basis: McDonald’s Sausage McMuffin with Egg, Carl’s Jr’s Jalapeno 5 Dollar Burger, Jack In The Box’s Sourdough Jack. But I almost always get 2 $1 items.
9. I have not slept in my own room since I was 18. My (literal) roommates since then: Ryan M3dders (freshman year), Eli Ts0u (sophomore), Charlie Ch@ng (junior), Eddie Ah7 (summer ’97), Irwin Ch1u (senior), David Ch0i (grad school), John Y0on (99 – 00?), Eric M@o (00? – 02), Jieun.
10. People think I’m good at trivia, and I’m better than most, but I’m not as good as people think. While in college, I stopped by the Jeopardy booth one day when they were on campus and tried out. I didn’t do well enough on the initial test to even get a callback. Also in college, I did this trivia team challenge some group put on (on a team with, of all people, Paul B@rr), and we got completely destroyed. Pui-M@n and his team in particular kicked our collective arses. That gave me a honest sense of how good I am at trivia.
11. I resent the fact that I have to do things I don’t want to. Like shower, brush my teeth, floss, and shave. That I have to do those things everyday grates on me. Especially shaving. I have too little facial hair to look masculine, but too much to ignore it. It exists purely as a hassle. All these things take time away from my vital work of endlessly browsing the web.
12. I regularly daydream of what I want to do with my life. Some of the things I consider: sports-radio talk show host, rock band member (not frontman), constitutional lawyer, newspaper columnist, municipal politician. The problem is, I’m interested in a lot of things but not singularly passionate about anything. In the end, I firmly believe success is predicated more on passion and commitment than raw talent. I have no single consuming passion, so I’m destined for middling success in my career.
13. My goal when I was younger was to become proficient in instruments of every family. I’m a good pianist, decent guitarist, passable bassist, and can keep a beat on drums. I recently refound my clarinet – I was all section in junior high (playing in the CMEA Bay Section concert band in ’94 is one of my fondest music memories) and am kind of sad I didn’t keep up with it. I kind of want to pick it up again, that and the trumpet (to conquer brass), but no time. It’s still a goal of mine to record an album playing all the parts myself, a la Lenny Kravitz on “Let Love Rule” and Dave Grohl on the Foo Fighters’ debut album.
14. I’m allergic to plum skins. Had to go to the hospital as a kid. I used to eat plums all the time, then suddenly I get hives and find out I’m newly allergic to them. Same thing with milk. Drank it all the time, then I start getting regular diarrhea and the doctor says, you might be lactose intolerant.
15. I’ve never broken a bone. I’ve never shoplifted.
16. I can maintain a hula hoop longer than anyone else I know, male or female.
17. I get the cream-puff (e.g. Beard Papa, Satura Cakes) thing. I get the boba and Korean-style frozen yogurt thing. I don’t get the cupcake thing.
18. I’m not a big fan of normal Korean food. I spent the summer of ’95 at KAIST, and couldn’t take the normal student cafeteria food, so my friends and I would go to this ghetto Chinese restaurant on campus. I had jjajjangmyun almost every meal. I think I got scurvy. At one point during the summer, my gums started bleeding a lot.
19. I never thought I’d marry an L.A. Korean girl. But you don’t marry a stereotype, you marry an individual.
20. I get artsy music. I don’t get artsy movies. Age of Innocence, No Country For Old Men, The Sweet Hereafter, Magnolia, Million Dollar Baby, Lost In Translation, and American Beauty are among the well-regarded films to which I reacted “what?” and didn’t understand. I didn’t get Napolean Dynamite either. I used to be bothered by it because I thought “getting” movies was a sign of sophistication and/or intelligence. Now I don’t care. My movie tastes are mainstream all the way.
21. I spoke only Korean until I entered preschool. My first English words were “I’m hungry.”
22. I thought girls were gross for the longest time, longer than most, I think. Partly because I went to an all-male high school and was attracted to none of the girls I knew, who were primarily at church. One time, my sister borrowed (without asking) my b.u.m. equipment T-shirt. I never wore it again. I remember seeing some teeny-bopper magazine she had with some article saying how the only thing brothers are good for is borrowing clothes. I was pissed off at that magazine.
23. I honestly believe I have as much soul as a black man. Not in how I move. But in how I play music.
24. One of my favorite feelings in life is a clean poop session. You know what I’m talking about. Or maybe you don’t.
25. I actually love cats. But I stopped playing with them after Jieun got pregnant for the first time and I found out that pregnant women can get toxoplasmosis from cats. Since then I’ve been vaguely scared of them.