1. Click on this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first title on the page is the name of your band.

2. Click on this link: http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four words of the very last quote is the title of your album.

3. Finally, click on this link: http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/
The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

You then take the pic and add your band name and the album title to it, then post your picture.

My Hitherto Unknown Rock Star History:

My first outing in the cutthroat recording world was as part of an all girl wannabe-rebel band Born Rich. To quote the recent Rolling Stones article on Bands You Blinked and Missed:

“Born Rich, with its debut title “is the best revenge” imploded during the promotional tour from the weight of all the over-privileged, entitled and fragile egos of the children of former rock-stars and miscellaneous celebrities that made up the band. None of them have continued to murder music, but the lead former wailer currently makes a substantial living from the tabloid payments for her staged antics and borrowed fame.

I managed to move away from the stigma attached to that disaster, and participated in a much more healing experience as part of the nature-communing Fraternity of Peoples. While it was indeed a transcendental journey recording the album “Mind With Canned Chatter” our soothing bell ringing, and melodiously expressed, but wordless rage against the information age was misunderstood by many. Well, misunderstood by many and ignored by pretty much everyone else.

I tried for a last ditch solo attempt, but Alsou was already a star in Russia, and making money by the sounds of it…

And so I came to the world of blogging. Which doesn’t make a living, or get me headlines, but it’s something. I invite anyone who has time they want to kill, and a sense of humour waiting to be let out, to go relive their glory days and discover their rock band past. Maybe VH1 will be calling you up for a Behind the Music special, ro some such thing.

4 JOBS I HAVE HAD IN MY LIFE:

Ah. I haven’t had 4 jobs. Unless the same job, or profession, in 4 different places counts? That’s not because I always knew what I wanted to do, though. I was fortunate to need to work while in school, and then any jobs I had during University were related to my studies and eventual profession. So I don’t think they count as different jobs. It’s just always been law.

4 PLACES I HAVE LIVED:

This one I can answer. I have probably “lived” in 5 different places (paying rent and utilities, receiving mail and shopping for groceries), but for the sake of this meme I’ll limit it to those places I have lived in for at least a year:

1. Trinidad, Trinidad & Tobago (place of birth, decades of life – where my navel string bury)

2. Barbados (as a student for 2 years and 10 years later 5 months for work)

3. Edinburgh, Scotland (1 year as a student)

4. Guyana (current official place of residence).

4 PLACES I HAVE BEEN ON HOLIDAY:

1. Tobago (it’s not the same as Trinidad, trust me. And it’s a place the parents would take us for quick getaways, one memorable time actually breaking biche for a stolen long weekend)

2. Isle of Mull, Inner Hebrides, Scotland (post-exam and pre-dissertation short-break, where I rode on trains and ferries, visited little islands, saw seals, got sunburnt while cold and just relaxed)

3. Dublin, Ireland (Lilandra came to visit me while I was in Edinburgh and we figured we’d take a joint vacation somewhere we’d never been. And didn’t require us to get a visa.)

4. Barbados (Sister-the-elder and I on a short trip visiting my aunt. My first vacation and travel without the parents. I was 11, sister 13 – she thinks without me she may have been able to travel without the “MINOR” tag…)

4 OF MY FAVOURITE FOODS:

1. Pizza (yes, I love pizza. It’s got great bread elements, cheese, sauce and toppings, with endless variations on the theme – what more can one want in a food?)

2. Doubles

3. Pelau (chicken)

4. Dark Chocolate Minty things.

4 PLACES I WOULD RATHER BE RIGHT NOW:

1. Home (as in la casa familial in Trinidad, which is currently housing the parents, all the siblings and the sister-in-law, the niece, the cat and the soon-to-be new nieces/nephews, while I am at work. In Guyana)

2. In a University somewhere doing a PhD leading up to life as an eccentric academic with blogs for all my interests

3. Asleep during a long thunderstorm (the thunder and lightning have been here since last night, but the sleep may reflect badly on my professionalism in the office)

4. On a hammock on a quiet beach (in the shade, of course) rereading old favourites.

1. I cannot ride a bike. Yes, it’s true. My learning to ride a bike around age 5 got cut short when we moved just after I got training wheels. For a year or so we were in my grandparents’ house, and my parents, who would otherwise oversee all of our bike-riding activities, were a little overtaken by the baby (one-and-only-brother) and trying to renovate what was to be our new and permanent home. Later on, after we’d made the final move, the younger siblings learned to ride, but somehow I didn’t. It hasn’t seriously affected my life though. I don’t think.

2. I can, however, ice-skate. Well, I can lace up ice-skates (this is an accomplishment in itself!) and move without holding on and (mostly) without falling down. In a forward direction. I think this is a significant achievement for someone who has spent almost all her life in the tropics where there are no ice rinks. We all learned during a few summers spent at Penn State University, State College, where there was a rink and summer coupons!!

3. Every 3 years, Dad would take study leave for a summer and take the whole family to some University in the US where we’d be on holiday and he’d research. The choice of university was dictated by Dad’s mathematical field of study and was very often in a very quiet, small and non-tourist town. Well, there was that summer in Vermont, which is usually touristy, but not – definitely not – in summer. So my experiences with the US as a visitor were not typical of many of my friends at the time who visited relatives in the bustling cosmopolitan metropolises. We scoped out libraries and parks. Lived in those libraries and reveled in long summer days where we could stay outside forever in those parks. The parents made sure to plan trips on the weekends. Long drives, visits to historical sites and nature-touristing. We attended gatherings of graduate students and faculty from all over the world, where the food was always new and interesting (darn, I said no food!!). We pretended to do homework. And always, in those small towns, there would be – “Trinidad? is that in Jamaica?” “Wow, you speak English so well”… But the parts of the country we got to see, in Virginia, Pennsylvania and Vermont, the trips through upstate New York and going up to Montreal (I know this is in Canada), Massachusetts, were beautiful. The perfect relaxing vacation for me can now just consist of a long drive through beautiful country.

4. I learned to ride horses, English-style. Didn’t get to the stage of learning to groom and saddle them up, but I did learn how to hold the reins through the fingers, to trot, with the foxing (that starts off being bumped (hard) by the horse everytime you go down when the horse goes up) and even galloping. I have not, however, done this in a really really long time.

5. I cannot study in silence. I can study very well in the middle of talking, laughing people. Absolute silence and the absence of people makes me feel lonely and unfocused when I am trying to read heavy material. I like talking through things I am studying even if the person listening doesn’t have a clue about the subject matter. I think it comes from being part of a family of 4 children where for many years our study areas were in the same big room, or next door, or we just kept each other company while we did homework or crammed for exams.

6. I am a night person. A serious night person. I can never do homework or study, or write a paper or anything like that, while the sun is up. Unless of course, I started before it rose. I get clarity at night and can resolve things in my head, clean, organise, do laundry, even cook, before I go to bed. Everything takes much longer in the morning. I think my working at night preference is linked to my childhood, where we had a long commute to and from school. So when we got home, we were a bit tired and it would take us some time to cool off, shower, eat, relax etc before we’d start on homework. Homework therefore never got started till it was dark.

Two more, eh? Right…

7. The first city I ever lived in was Toronto. I was there for a semester exchange during my final year undergrad, August to December and I lived practically at the corner of Bloor and Spadina. I loved it. I loved the city feeling. Living in what must surely be the centre of everything. Being in a high-rise building and watching a city wake up in the wee hours of the morning, and start moving before it was even properly light. The hustle and bustle of commuters, businesspeople, students and tourists all using the same big streets and contributing to the chatter and voice of the city. I have since held a deep fascination with living in a big city. In Trinidad, I live in a semi-rural area, but it’s a small island, even our cities aren’t quite the same. While I love the calm and beauty of natural rural surroundings, there’s still that draw – it’s very cliched, but walking through a city, I always feel like it is a distinct living entity, and it’s amazing to be part of it.

8. The first time I saw snow I was in Toronto (see no. 7) and I thought it was the aftermath of a chemical explosion. Seriously. I was standing in one of the UofT offices waiting for someone to print something. I looked out the window and saw these swirls of flakes moving very fast on the wind. I have to admit my first thought was that some factory somewhere had an accident and these floating substances were dangerous chemicals that would blanket the city. (Did I list an overactive imagination? I should have…). I oh-so-casually remarked “what’s that?” and someone looked up and said “oh, snow flurries already?”. Ah. I’d always imagined snow fell straight down. And then you saw it on the ground, all white. This idea that snowflakes could just exist in airborne whirlpools, that never settled anywhere, and didn’t pile up on everything like in the movies…bizarre.

Ok. I made it to 8. Whew. I am supposed to tag people now?? Seriously? Ewe is done. She’s tagged Lilandra. I’ll claim a small social circle. Unless Sarina or Cynthia want to give us 8 Things?

So, without further ado…and with no knowledge of the consequences…here are 6 Weird Food Facts About Me:

1. I can’t stand poultry and cheese. Love chicken, sometimes turkey, and love cheese, but cannot eat them together. I think it’s grounded in a dish Lilandra and I made many many years ago, when we were browsing the cookbook that came with our microwave. It involved turkey and cheese. And while I ate it then, with a fair modicum of enjoyment, the aftermath of the fowly-ness and the cheesiness and the greasiness may have had this immutable consequence of changing my tastes.

2. I have a freakish sensitivity to vanilla essence. And while I have curbed my utter dislike and rejection of it, I can still sniff it out and taste it. This is also from a prior cooking episode gone awry, where I “estimated” the amount of vanilla essence to put into the brownies and was horribly wrong. Horribly. I could taste it all over and smell it. And still can.

3. I love popcorn and icecream, or salty chips and ice cream. I don’t think it’s so weird, but some people may. It’s not something I devised on my own, however. There was an episode of a certain teen melodrama I used to watch (I was still a teenager, so that’s my excuse), where the girls have a slumber party and one of them says she eats popcorn with icecream. I was curious enough to try it. Such is the power of the media.

4. I have to struggle to follow a recipe to the letter. Or even to repeat something exactly the same way. It’s a pet peeve of the brother, since he thinks I experiment with good things and can’t make the perfect brownie, for example each time. But each time I cook I think of new things and I want to see what they’re like. And I can’t wait till NEXT time…why not add cinammon to the stew chicken now? then I’ll know how it comes out and my curiosity will be satisfied!

5. I am picky about how I eat chocolate. Chocolate and cheesecake gives me an instant headache. Could be linked to my sinus allergies, but there it is. Mocha used to do the same. Coffee is mmm. Chocolate is yummmy. But together? Chocolate and fruit – I pass.

6. I eat my food separately, item by item, whenever I can. It doesn’t mean I don’t like mixing or having gravy on top of things, but just that when faced with a plate of multiple items, I like to eat each thing separately. Salad first, then veggies. Rice or potatoes next. Meat/fish last. Although I may alternate the last 2 items. I just appreciate the food better that way, and don’t confuse my tastebuds as to what’s coming next. I am definitely NOT one of those “perfect bite” people (Barbra Streisand in The Mirror has Two Faces) who need tohave a bit of everything on the fork.

And as for tagging…I think it’s time we heard from Hmmm, before the baby comes. Why not include all my waiting-for-a-baby friends? Ewe are Here, you’re up! And since Mani is a closet foodie, he can comment here