Catching up: 8 random things about me

Huh, what a busy August! After a lovely Greek vacation (I highly recommed Greece for vacation - great food, great people, crystal clear sea!) I had one of the busiest week (and weekend) ever: all the catching up with RSS feeds, mails + intensive work on two different projects... and the result of that is that I still haven't managed to reply to all mails (bad Alja, bad!), and I'm also late for my blogger homework, which was assigned to me by The Four Eyed Technologist 12 days ago (so says Technorati :) ). So, it's now time to stop making excuses and join the "8 Random Things" game that has been spreading around the blogosphere for quite some time now. I admit that I've been reading many random things about many of you in the past weeks with quite some interest, so it's only fair to do my share now :)

First, The rules:

1. Post these rules before you give your facts.
2. List 8 random facts about yourself.
3. At the end of your post, choose (tag) 8 people and list their names, linking to them.
4. Leave a comment on their blog, letting them know they’ve been tagged.

My 8 Random Things:

1. I trained track and field athletics for about 10 years in different disciplines; I started in first grade in long distances, and ended up doing long jump and 60m/100m hurdles. I wasn't too bad at it (even got into the national team once), but I quit because I lost my interest in competitions.
2. At the end of elementary school I wanted to study chemistry, but then lost all interest for it in high school and turned towards computer and social sciences.
   
3. I love animation movies and cartoons in general. On my top list are Pixar movies (this short one is imho enough to explain the brilliance of Pixar) and Japanese sci-fi animes, but I like to watch just any animated thing that pops on screen.
4. I don't like travelling much, especially by car. I keep hoping teleport systems will be invented in my lifetime :)
5. My interested for education highly derives from the fact that I was bored at school 90 % of the time, and I spent most of that time drawing various sketches in my notebooks.
6. I am shortsighted - couldn't get far through the day without glasses or contact lenses! Part of it is inherited, and part of it is the price of being a computer geek and living behind computer screens.
7. I love the sea; now that I don't live by the sea anymore, I really miss the sea air, and the wind you only get on the coast... And thinking of that always reminds me of the song "Gente di mare".
8. I had compulsory Italian classes for 12 years in school as I lived in a bilingual zone (near the Slovenian-Italian border). And now I haven't really spoken it for 5 years! I still understand it very well, but I don't dare to speak or write it anymore - and that's something I'd like to change.

So, I hope you found my 8 random things interesting :) Now, I should tag 8 more people, but I feel like so many of you already played this game or been tagged, and I also don't want to make anyone play this game, sooo I will follow Angela's example (and KJ's ;) ) and invite you readers of this blog, who want to be tagged and share with us 8 random things (I assure you: it is quite fun and painless! :) ) to leave a comment on this post and I'll add you to the list, ok? :)

List of great bloggers that will be happy to share 8 random things:

1. Daniel (not a blogger (yet! ;) ), but he shared some interesting things in his comment)
   
2. Christopher
   
3. position open
4. position open
5. position open
6. position open
7. position open
8. position open