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

Taking another week off

As some of you already know, I'm taking another week off next week. This time I'm going to sunny Greece, and I won't be taking my laptop or have internet access, so it'll be a real offline holiday. I'll be back on Monday, the 13th, and until then I won't be answering my mails or other messages (Facebook, Second Life etc). But I'm planning on having a little experiment with Twitter on my cell phone. I'll post some updates from my phone during the next week (I'm just telling my mom how she can receive notifications :) ), and I've also turned on mobile notifications for some of my favorite contacts. I'm really curious about how this will work out :)

So, I'll be posting again after I return, and hopefully I'll have some nice photos to upload to Flickr :) (I'm such a Web 2.0 addict!)

Taking the week off

Just a short notice: I'm taking this week off for a short vacation at the sea. I'll have internet access, but I'll try to avoid it if possible (my wrists really need some rest), thought I'll probably post little updates on Jaiku. I already have some great books packed, and I really can't wait to relax on the beach and enjoy the sea air. I'll be back in the digital world next week, so stay tuned! :)

Back from an offline week

Hello world! Today I finally returned online after an offline week in Egypt (how was it? Well, let me just say that the words "hot weather" now have an entirely new meaning for me :) ). And I already spent most of the morning answering e-mails, sending out Joost invites (if you need one for yourself or your friends you can still mail me - ialja(at)mac(dot)com), updating Second Life, and getting through messages from various Web 2.0 sites. While I was gone my Sloodle presentation even became featured on Slideshare! I guess it shows that the Web 2.0 never sleeps :)

For me the past week has been quite odd. Time passed slowly, and differently. I spent an entire week without using a computer, and even with limited use of my cell phone. It was strange, but in a way it was good to take a short break. The only problem is that I've got so much to catch up on :( This week will be also very busy for me, so I don't think I'll manage to post to my blog in the next days. I know I still have some blog homework to do, but I'm afraid it will have to wait for at least another week... Until then you can take a look at some photos from my vacation on Flickr.

Yeah, I know, I am quite hopeless: one of the first things I did upon my return was to upload some photos to Flickr. Yup, it's good to be back! :) So... stay tuned ;)