100 Things About Me

(in progress)

1. I have a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a master’s degree in computer science.
2. I went back to school in 2000 and earned an associate degree in studio art from Georgia Perimeter College in 2002. It was great fun!
3. I have a 30 year old son, who was a student of mine at GPC for four semesters.
4. I love chocolate, especially dark chocolate.
5. I am allergic to cantaloupe.
6. My favorite TV shows are CSI (Miami and Vegas but not New York for some reason), Mike & Molly, and Dancing With the Stars.
7. I met my husband online through Match.com.
8. I like my steak medium-rare.
9. I was always one of the last kids picked for sports teams as a child.
10. Chemistry and physics were my worst subjects in school, but my least favorite subject was usually history.
11. I did volunteer work for Good Mews, a no-cage, no-kill cat shelter, for a number of years.
12. My favorite thing to do on vacation is take a class at the John C. Campbell Folk School or at Penland School of Crafts.
13. My second favorite thing to do on vacation is go on a cruise.
14. My first marriage lasted 23 years.
15. I have been reading since I was three years old.
16. I will read just about anything, including the backs of cereal boxes.
17. I even enjoy reading trashy romance novels.
18. My favorite color is purple, with blue and green close behind.
19. I look awful wearing orange, so I don’t ever wear it.
20. I am the only member of my immediate family who wasn’t born in Atlanta.
21. I make the best pound cake in the world.
22. My grandmother started teaching me needlework when I was seven years old.
23. I was a weaver and spinner for over fifteen years before discovering lampworking.
24. I belonged briefly to an small artists’ coop based in Clarkesville, where we did one or two shows/sales each year.
25. I have kept a journal off and on since college.
26. I love old cemeteries — the older the better.
27. I used to ride my bicycle around the old Civil War battlefields near Petersburg, VA as a child.
28. I worked in software development for six years before I started teaching.
29. It took me six and a half years to finish graduate school.
30. The only two things I’m really afraid of are heights and cockroaches.
31. I am a total shoe slut — shoes are the only item of clothing I am willing to spend serious money on.
32. I will never own a pair of Manolos or Jimmy Choos because I refuse to wear shoes that aren’t totally comfortable.
33. My favorite color of Moretti glass is Dark Ivory (276) because it is so funky and reactive.
34. I was named for my father (he’s Julian, I’m Julia).
35. I never wanted to be a rock star myself; instead I wanted to be one of Tina Turner’s backup dancers.
36. I first learned how to program computers back in the Dark Ages of punch cards.
37. I got my first real computer in 1980 — an Apple II+ that cost $5000.
38. Politically I’m probably best classified as a Libertarian, though I’m particularly hard to categorize here.
39. I have delusions of being a gardener, specifically growing herbs.
40. I have a strange love of modern-day Celtic rock music.
41. I think Sean Connery was the best of the James Bonds, but Pierce Brosnan may have been the sexiest.
42. Sometimes I would like to be a stand-up comic, but I really don’t have the nerve.
43. I have two sisters, plus a half-brother and a half-sister.
44. My first cousins are all male.
45. I think it’s silly how some women, such as my sister, lie about their age.
46. Some days I feel like a complete fraud.
47. I have a bad tendency to procrastinate, but I’m going to do something about it…someday.
48. One of my biggest pet peeves is people who take a hundred words to say something that could be said easily in ten.
49. I’d rather vacuum than mop.
50. Glasswise I am a “boro ho.” The dark side of glass is seductive!
51. I prefer green olives to black olives.
52. I wasn’t totally happy with any of the existing lampworking forums online, so I created The Glass Haven. It lived for two years, but when everyone left because it was drama-free, I shut it down. So much for people wanting a drama-free environment.
53. I use Linux Mint (because Unity sucks) as my home desktop operating system, and Peppermint (also Linux-based) on my laptop. Both are surprisingly easy to install and start using!
54. I only use Windows on someone else’s computer. Enough said.
55. I take the NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) Challenge, to post every day for the month, every November. I usually don’t make it.
56. My Myers-Briggs personality type is ISTJ.
57. On the Enneagram, I am a Investigator/Thinker (Type 5).
58. As of 1/27/2008, I had 130 RSS feeds coming into my Google Reader.? They were split about evenly between art and technology!
59. I cried when Google shut down Google Reader.
60. I refused to get into SMS text messaging until 2010. Then Andrea and I found out just how useful it was for communicating with each other…
61. My favorite jump ring supplier is the incomparable Curt Dunaway of C & T Designs.
62. Apparently I am a magnet for some of the more, ah, unusual students at GPC — they are often found hanging out in my office or classroom.
63. Ravenclaw, of course.
64. My Patronus? A Cat. Naturally.
65. I took up bellydance at age 52.
66. My age doesn’t stop me from dancing in public on occasion.
67. I don’t suffer from Resting Bitch Face; I rather embrace it.
68. I’ve been in a mosh pit exactly once. It was hell.
69. When I buy clothes, I have to wash them before I can wear them, even if they are new, just in case.