zoecorkhill

I keep getting tagged on facebook to do this, but as I’m considering stripping my profile down to the bare minimum, I’d thought I’d post it here instead.

So, you’re supposed to list 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. about yourself. Let’s hope I can make this interesting - I will do my best to make it things that not everybody knows - and I’ll even attempt to make each thing last more than 10 words, though I can’t promise everything!

1. Counting Crows have been my favourite band for about 8 years. I’ve only seen them live twice in that time, mainly due to the fact they don’t really tour in this country often. They are amazing live, a million times better than anyone else I’ve ever seen, and ten times better than their albums. I’m going to see them in May - and I’m so excited! Other than that musicwise, I don’t really know who is who & my taste is very eclectic.

2. Wherever I work, I always end up being the unofficial IT support. Step 1 seems to be ask Zoe instead of ring the IT dept/helpdesk. I can see why though - it has been my experience if you ring any IT dept they automatically assume you’re completely idiotic, which no doubt 80% of their callers are, when it comes to computers. I loved the tone of surprise I got once, when I ran ‘ipconfig’ in command prompt to find my ‘computer number’ and it was still on the screen when he VNCed in. I am the office excel expert, trained to be able to write kick ass macros and use pivot tables & matrices, but in reality asked for help when their spreadsheets are printing over two pages or they can’t get the cells formatting right. I’m the person who changes the keyboard language because “my @ key isn’t working right”, who installs the printers and has the the company ms exchange settings jotted down in her notebook for when people swap computers.

3. People tend to assume because I am female & an administrator that I have no brain - this was especially true when I was temping. This is despite the fact I have a 2:1 BSc degree in Renewable Energy, and good grades before that. My parents think that I should switch careers to RE but I don’t want to. It was an interesting degree but I didn’t love it - I’m not saying I love what I do now but it pays the bills! I’d like to get into web design - but that’s a bit of a pipe dream I think. My dream job right now would be admin for a web design/development company, so I could learn on the job to design/develop websites. Anybody want to offer me a job? I’m a good admin, good at accounts, fast at typing, etc..

4. I have had a personal website, under different names & in different formats, for about 10 years. I wish I’d kept a better record of my old blog posts and designs - some of them are hilarious. My life had some real drama when I was a teenager! I’m sure there was an incredibly dramatic post concerning the saga of the boy who was scared because all his friends told him he was gay if he didn’t kiss me by the end of our second date - consequently during the actual ‘date’ he was a bundle of nerves and jumped a mile if I even tried to hold his hand.

5. I carry 5 different variants/strengths of painkillers with me at all times, ibuprofen 400mg, paracetemol 500mg, cocodamol 8/500mg & 30/500mg, and zomig nasal spray. Trust me - if I haven’t got my bag with me I have them secreted about my person somewhere! I never go out without pain relief, especially without zomig. I would say I spend almost £200 on pain relief each year, including prescription costs. Ouch!

6. Although my dad has been known to say that I “make friends wherever I go”, I’m not sure if this is true. Ok, so I first met James in my local supermarket - but it wasn’t until I was nagged consistently by his mate Victor & in a strange mood that I agreed to go to the pub with them. In reality I am quite shy & so it is often difficult for me to introduce myself to people. I’m ok, as long as I don’t have to start the conversation!

7. James & I got together in June 2007, got engaged in August 2007, and married in December 2008 - our ‘whirlwind romance’. I feel like I’ve known him for much longer than I have in reality though - he has changed my life incredibly - the last two years have been an absolute roller coaster! Before James & I met I was living in a tiny room in a ’student house’ and at a job I hated, for a miserable amount of money. James invited me to move in with him (I was practically living there anyway - and we were furniture shopping!), he gave me the confidence to quit my job and find something I enjoyed more, and he gives me love & support. We can be silly together but we can be serious together, too - we have a great time

8. When I was younger I was bitten by my cousin’s dog, Whiskey - after that I was pretty nervous around dogs. I have always been a cat person, with no doubt about it - my parents have always have cats, I’ve always stopped and stroked cats in the street - even at university and afterwards when I lived in Selly Oak I welcomed in the neighbouring cats and made friends with them. But marrying into the Corkhill family - this had to change. James’s parents are both vets, and his mother breeds & shows Norwich Terriers. They’re basically small furry teddy bears that call themselves dogs. Since September 2007, James & I have had one of our own - the infamous Homily. She’s stupid, adorable, friendly.. and very very loyal - to me! She just ignores James if I’m there.. unless he has food. Food is the holy grail for Homily, especially if it’s forbidden food. She will watch you put food down and then when you forget about it she will go back and steal it! No doubt about it - I’m converted, a proper dog person! Of course, I’ve also kept hamsters & chickens in the past, so who knows what will be next!

9. Another type of convert that I am is a mac-convert. Before James & I got together I used Windows (but didn’t love it) and tinkered with linux. Neither OS is that inspiring to me - windows I hacked about with but it’s always been clunky and has it’s random moments of suddenly deciding “I’m not going to play with you today for no apparent reason”. Linux was (when I first tried it) a touch too difficult to use, and ugly - I’m so vain! James introduced me to macs, which I hadn’t had much contact with before. Within a few months I had a MacBook - I love it! We now have that & our iMac, along with an iPhone each

10. From the age of 10 to 18 I was a GVC Air Cadet. During my time with the cadets, I travelled to Canada to represent the Country in the IACE programme (I was at Niagara Falls for my 18th birthday!), as well as many trips around the UK. I’ve canoed, abseiled, rock-climbed, parascended, marched, danced, and a whole host of other things. It was a very big part of my life for a number of years, and I loved every second!

11. I love cheese. Cheesy music, cheesy films, cheesy tv shows. All of it. Fancy dress parties, silly party games, anything that is in any way embarrassing to admit to - I’m pretty much guaranteed to love it! This includes terrible things such as The Ultimate Cheese Party Album and even the dreaded High School Musical series. I just can’t help myself. I even went to see High School Musical on Ice - I know, I know - a shameful thing to admit!

12. I get on with men a 100 times better than girls, generally. I’ve always had great relationships with a few girls, but never a large group - I’m not sure why. I suppose it might be because I was burned a little when I was younger. I was a bit of a loner in the last few years of primary school/first few years of high school - the different kids always are! I did go through some bullying and most of it was from girls, just being bitchy and stuff. So I always had more guy friends than girl friends - but I was still always closer to the girls that the lads!

13. I love reading. I will read everything I can get my hands on. I read chick lit for pure escapism, and pretty much anything else I see that looks interesting! My favourite authors are Robert Heinlein, Katie Fforde, Sophie Kinsella, Jill Mansell, Kathy Reichs, and many many more! James & I both own the full Harry Potter collection, and both of use refuse to give them up so we have an entire shelf on one of my bookcases taken up with the young wizard. Mine were birthday presents, sentimental value there! Since we moved, I’ve filled two small & one large bookcase with my books, and I’m only half unpacked (we moved 6 months ago, oops!). There is nothing better than curling up with a good book, a hot drink, and a bar of chocolate. Mmmmm.

14. I’m quite a silly person at times. For a start, my dog has a website. And a twitter account. I’m not admitting to anything else silly, you might laugh at me. Put it this way, I have a history.

15. At my wedding, my Dad told the entire room full of people, that I once went to camp (see #10) without any underwear. He’s a cruel man. He also presented us with a fire extinguisher, a bonsai tree, and a set of eden candles from green glass (my two previous employers). I think it can safely be said I get a lot of my personality traits from my father.

16. I like maths. I’m sorry, I know it’s uncool to admit it, but I do. I enjoy teaching maths (I will start tutoring it soon - did some in uni & want to start again), and I enjoy solving problems. I actually liked my maths lectures at uni. James has just informed me that they say ‘maths is cool’ on the telly, so maybe I am cool after all!

17. I like to tinker with things, often for the sake of it. For example, I just managed to get my laptop triple-booting OS X, Windows 7 & Ubuntu. Just because I wanted to see if I could. We’ve hacked our wii, jailbroken our iphones, and currently have an open computer sitting in the middle of our living room floor. In the past I’ve been known to take things apart to try and find out how they work - even as a young child Dad would give me old computer keyboards to take apart. For some reason, I also like cutting up paper. Randomly.

18. Ever since I can remember, I have had an irrational fear of moths. No idea why, they just terrify me. I’m not stupid - I know perfectly well that a moth cannot hurt me. I just can’t see one without getting terrified.

19. I love good food - but not really fancy restuarant food. I prefer going out for a great pub dinner than for a posh meal where I don’t understand the menu. Chinese food also rates highly on the yum scale. My favourite place to eat in Birmingham is Lychee Gardens, who do a buffet menu for a set price, but with waitress service. Yum yum and you get to be lazy and not get up to go get food, like most all you can eat places! I like to cook too, but am often short on spoons in the evenings so don’t have the energy to do complicated recipes. I tend to do quick & easy meals in the evenings.

20. One of my favourite things to do to relax is to watch tv or films. We have a lovefilm subscription so have a constant supply of new things to watch, as well as being addicted to several tv shows! My favourites are Bones, Heroes, Lost, Grey’s Anatomy (and it’s spinoff Private Practise), Being Human, Skins, and Top Gear. My indulgences are Project Runway and America’s Next Top Model. Film wise, I’ll pretty much watch anything as long as it’s not scary. If it’s scary, I’ll need a lot of persuasion to watch it.. or it can have someone sexy in it. My favourite film is actually technically a BBC Mini Series, Pride & Prejudice. James is nit picking and saying this isn’t a film then.. so I guess my favourite FILM film is Love Actually - I just love that it looks at all the different forms and complexities of love. And it’s got sexy men. And then pretty much anything with Julia Roberts/Sandra Bullock/Hugh Grant/etc in. I love Disney films too - my favourite is Beauty & the Beast. My favourite film of 2008 was Wall-E.

21. I like crackers. As in the pull it & it makes a bang crackers. The ones with the crappy toys and the rubbish jokes. Oh, and the hats - we mustn’t forget the hats. As a child, I would get very excited whenever an occasion merited having crackers on the table at dinner. Christmas & New Year’s was great, TWO cracker dinners so close together!! I liked them so much that Mum Father Christmas started giving me a box every year with my stocking, at which point I would spend the entirety of Christmas day randomly demanding to pull crackers with people - and because they were MY crackers I got to KEEP EVERYTHING INSIDE THEM. We even had crackers at our wedding!

22. Since I was a child, my favourite animal has been the Hedgehog. I used to have over 60 soft toy hedgehogs, as well as a variety of hedgehog related things - including stationary, slippers, pretty much anything you can think of. The soft toys are stashed in a bag at my parents house - I haven’t the heart to give them away! One year at Christmas I actually got hedgehog crackers!!!!!!

23. I have the Bronze Duke of Edinburgh award. Oooooh. I know, how impressive! The interesting part of this is that I did a course in sign language as part of it, and I loved it. Unfortunately I don’t remember much anymore, just the alphabet and a few phrases.. but I did use it once to help a deaf woman who was shopping in Focus (I worked there at the time).

24. My hair won’t take any kind of hair dye. Permanent, semi-permanent, nothing. I won’t bleach it because it is way too long to grow out. I’ve tried several times and it just won’t work - it’s too thick and too dark. It’s a shame, cos there are some lovely colours I’d like to try temporarily!

25. I don’t have a favourite colour. I like lots of colours, but I can’t ever pick a favourite. Is that weird?

Originally published at Zoe's Blog. You can comment here or there.