5 Things you probably didn’t know about me
Mark Crofton from SAP tagged me; I traced the tags all the way back from Craig Cmehil and Thomas Otter and Frank Koehntopp and Matthew Langham and Gianugo Rabellino and Yoav Shapira and Jim Jagielski and Sam Ruby and Jim Winstead and Dave Bullock and Siel and Ivan Storck and Tara Hunt and Stowe Boyd and Irwin Lazar and Dameon Welch-Abernathy and Peter Csathy and Andy Abramson to Jeff Pulver. I can't believe it only took 11 days!
And now it's my turn; here are 5 things you might not have known about me:
1. I went to 1st and 2nd grade in Bloomington, Indiana, where I became a HUGE McDonald's fan. We moved back to Taipei when I was 7. I was mad at my mom for weeks for not letting me bring my sizable collection of Big Mac boxes along.
2. During middle school, my friends and I used to climb out of classroom windows and head for not quite legal underground discos that operated during school hours. By disco, the venue owners meant Madonna, Wham! and a German band called Modern Talking.
3. I came to the US for good when I was 15. The principal at the high school I went to had only met one other Asian kid, who got into Harvard. So he put me in the advance placement track, even though I spoke no more English than the average second grader.
4. I might have gotten into MIT by mistake. The alumni volunteer who interviewed me seemed surprised that I was accepted, possibly for good reason. MIT freshmen have no GPA; they only get graded on a pass/fail basis. During my first semester, I failed 3 out of 4 classes, including intro to C programming. I did manage to graduate - with a degree in political science - while working as a lab assistant specializing in purifying Tetramethylammonium Chloride.
5. The one accomplishment I'm most proud of is teaching myself to read in Hindi. The grammatical structure is remarkably similar to German. I next tried to learn Urdu (similar spoken language to Hindi, but with Arabic-based writing), but wasn't able to pick it up.
I am tagging Chris Yeh, Jon Price, Rich Miller, Jack Brandt, and Scott Yang. Happy holidays!
Modern Talking you say? Special cheese filled treat for you then!
http://download.yousendit.com/7E831AA321BB67FE
Posted by: Misha Govshteyn | December 22, 2006 at 06:50 PM
You neglected to mention your pivotal blue-hair era somewhere in or between 2. and 3. Well, maybe everyone already knows about that. I think it's time for you to consider a revisit to that lifestyle. Punky school girl!
Posted by: Col. Steve Austin | December 24, 2006 at 09:38 AM
Isabel: Oh gosh, I was such a huge ModernTalking fan too!! My first download on Napster was "Brother Louie". Classic! :-)
Posted by: Philbert Shih | December 24, 2006 at 05:13 PM
Misha - cheese-filled treat instead!! Thank you sooo much; made me feel like I'm 13 again :)
Steve - I did have blue highlights during my disco-going days. But I'd hate to revisit middle school. I'm in no position to pass pop quizzes on Chinese geography!
Phil - no way! I so rarely meet anyone who's even heard of Modern Talking. Incidentally, my Russian friends say that disco for them meant Boney M, which I hadn't heard of either. So I guess pop culture is much more localized than I thought.
Posted by: Isabel Wang | December 24, 2006 at 10:48 PM
I've never come across anyone who knows who Modern Talking is. I keep some on my iPod just to torture people with it.
Modern Talking was huge in Moscow in late 80's. Even bigger than Michael Jackson. I even made my own Modern Talking buttons from magazine picture cutouts. There was no merchandizing in Russia in those days, so it was strictly DYI.
Posted by: Misha Govshteyn | December 25, 2006 at 12:55 PM
Okay here are my five things... You got me: http://jackbrandt.com/blog/2006/12/26/ive-been-tagged-5-things-you-probably-didnt-know-about-me/
Posted by: Jack Brandt | December 28, 2006 at 05:21 PM
Humm, interesting
I better not get tagged, if I tell 5 secrets about me I might loose 50% of my clients
Or grow by 200%
Posted by: NullMind | December 29, 2006 at 05:36 PM
They certainly are 5 very interesting things i didn't know about you. Going from not being able to speak much English to teaching yourself to read Hindi is pretty impressive although i suppose there was a good 10years in the middle there though? Also are you still a huge Mcdonalds fan? I am :)
Posted by: Jason | January 14, 2007 at 05:32 PM
Hello!I like the story about you(I'm Modern Talking fan!).GREAT!!!
Posted by: EDY | March 22, 2007 at 04:07 AM