…probably not, but have been tagged by Steve Wheeler and decided to answer the challenge. I am supposed  to reveal l 7 things about me and pass on the challenge to other seven people.

So as the rules say, you will need to:

* Link your original tagger(s), and list these rules on your blog.

* Share seven facts about yourself in the post – some random, some weird.

* Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.

Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs and/or Twitter.

  1. The first thing that comes to mind and which amazes people big time is that I don’t drink alcohol. There is no ideological or religious reason  for it. It is just that I do not like the taste of it and therefore I don’t force myself to ingest something I don’t like. However, I have got nothing against who enjoys a drink. So do not be surprised if you find me in a pub drinking tea while having a great chat with some of my friends.
  2. When I was 12 years old I was run over by a car just outside my parents’ house. It was the last day of the Easter break and I decided to quickly visit the supermarket to buy chocolate donuts, but never make it to the supermarket. I didn’t look before crossing the road and apparently I was the one who ran the car over. The result was 3 more weeks at home, a broken collarbone, a fractured knee and a head injury. I am still bad at crossing the road… and I have never felt like eating chocolate donuts again!
  3. I never thought I would go into education.Actually that was the last thing on my mind and at the end of the 4th year of university when we had to decide which post-graduation specialty we had to do, I opted for translation while most of my colleagues went for the educational area. After completing one year of translation studies in Heidelberg, during which I had great fun learning the language in the pubs of the city and feeling rather bored in the classroom, I decided I needed something more active. I applied to join the Navy just for fun. When I got a letter to go the navy headquarters and take tests my mom almost fainted. I thought I would never get in. Still, I decided to go just to see how it works inside a military organization. It would probably be the first and last time I would get a chance to visit one. It turned out I spent the next 5 years there… teaching! I thought I would be doing translations for NATO, they decided to put me in the School of naval Technologies instead,  and I had to ‘desenrascar-me’ (=Portuguese state of mind – try to find a way to carry out the tasks you have been commissioned to the best possible way, despite the lack of resources…. The resources in this case were the educational background which I didn’t have. I started looking for resources online, reading stuff, asking people online and f2f for help…you must have guessed by now where this adventure has taken me! )
  4. As a kid and a teenager I was the quietest and the shiest person on earth. I could enter and leave a room unnoticed. During that phase I learned how to observe people, analyze some of their expressions, gestures, etc in a rather silent way….Today I am a bit different … when I start talking it’s hard to keep me quiet… :-)
  5. At the age of five, while at a birthday party, my brother’s godmother started asking all the kids what they wanted to be when they grew up. She got the expected answers (fireman, doctor, vet, policeman, teacher, etc)  until I was up to provide mine. I told her I wanted to be rich!! It caused a good laugh and this is always mentioned during our annual summer gatherings. Today I think differently. I am not attached to money in any way (I only need enough to pay my bills and help some people  care about), I don’t care about any material stuff, as I will explain next.
  6. There were several different reasons why I decided to leave the Navy….my contract would expire in a year time…meanwhile some events happened which I considered unjust and when I am not pleased with something I need to move on. And that is what I did. Hence, I decided to start looking for a new job… I wanted to go into academia. I thought it could be fun. In Portugal the possibilities were scarce, so I started looking for jobs outside…  I never really gave much thought about what I would do if I ever got a job abroad.The truth, however, is that shortly after I started sending my application I got two interviews. I went to the first one, but didn’t get it. I wasn’t even told what the reason had been, but I decided to carry on with my purpose. After that I got another interview which took me to Manchester for a couple of hours. I arrived in time for my interview and rushed off to the airport after being interviewed. I didn’t even know what to expect, because all I could think of was that I could not miss that plane! The next day I got a call from my current line manager telling me he would like to offer me the job, but he would understand if I needed some time to think it over. I immediately said I would take it! :-) And so I did. I left my recently bought apartment in the outskirts of Lisbon, gave my mom my car, permanently lent my new desktop to one of my friends, distributed part of my CDs and books amongst friends and cousins, and off I went.  Some people were stun by my attitude. But I really needed to move on. The only thing I miss in Portugal is some people I physically left  behind, but whom I still keep in close touch with. I have also learned who my true friends are.
  7. I have no sense of direction whatsoever, and if you trust me with a map it is most likely we are not going to find the right place at the first attempt. It can be a real adventure! The good thing is that I don’t mind asking people for directions and/or help.

For this meme I am tagging Graham Attwell, Nergiz Kern, Carla Arena, Nellie Deutsch, Maria Perif , Alev Elci and Anne Fox.

Can’t wait for your posts guys! :-)