7 Things Meme

Well I have been tagged by Cindy Seibel in the " 7 Things you did not know about me" meme. I started to look back over my blog posts, and any other digital footprints I have left lying around to see what you all may have been able to find out on your own. I was trying to make this a "7 things Google doesn't know about me" list but there are a few things Google knows that are too important to leave out.

1. I am completely enjoying my new PLN that has been built through blogging, webcasting, Twitter and any other number of SN tools, however there are times that I feel like a bit of an intruder in this Ed Tech world. My background is not in anything Tech or Ed related. I am actually a pharmacist in my day job. My interest in Ed Tech is a hobby that started while searching for a way to be authentically engaged in my child's school. Little did I know how this "hobby" was going to take over..

2. I wasn't always going to be a pharmacist. In fact I changed my registration on the first day of classes and transferred from the Recreation Administration program into Pre-Pharmacy. Now those are two worlds that don't often collide.

3. Unlike most people I really enjoy public speaking (one of many great skills learned from years of 4-H). I am much more at ease in front of group of people than I am speaking one on one in an enclosed space.

4. When I left for University I declared that I would never move back to a small town and certainly wouldn't go back to living on a farm. Now I find myself living on a farm in a community that is 1/4 the size of the town I grew up in. Come to think of it I wasn't getting married or having kids either but here I am with a husband and three kids. I have learned to never say never. There is no place else in the world I would rather be.

5. I don't like it when people call me smart. When I was in middle/high school (in a small town) being smart was(is?) a kind of social "kiss of death". You are always the "smart" kid. It wasn't until I went away to summer camp (where no-one knew I was smart) that I learned that I was funny, sarcastic, witty and a pretty good dancer! It is no wonder one of my favourite quotes is this:

“What you’ve done becomes the judge of what you’re going to do - especially in other people’s minds. When you’re traveling, you are what you are right there and then. People don’t have your past to hold against you. No yesterdays on the road.” - William Least Heat Moon

and why I still enjoy traveling in order to see who I am right now through the eyes of others who have no yesterday's to reference.

(does that count as two things you didn't know???)

6. My Eighth grade teacher really wanted me to become a writer. I didn't really have faith in her assessment, after all she was my father's Grade 4 teacher, so I figured that there may be some senile dementia creeping in. I think of her often as I experience the joy of writing again through blogging.

7. My first child was delivered by C-section, the second naturally in hospital with a mid-wife and third a home birth with that same mid-wife. That sequence of events (and the trials and tribulations that went along with them) was one of the most profound learning experiences I have ever had both professionally and personally.

Wow, like Alec, that got a little deeper than I had originally intended. Thanks to Cindy for tagging in me in this and for reminding me of the power of summer camp through her own 7 things meme!! I don't know if I can tag 7 people but here is a start..

Joanne McMahon
L Winebrenner
Keisa Williams
and a few more to be added later....