Ursula's Not So Secret History

Craig Ferguson is my new hero.

Below is a list of 100 things most of you won't know about me.  It's started off as a list of 25 things in response to the meme that swept across Facebook earlier this year. As I couldn't bring myself to edit the list down, I never posted on Facebook.  Now here it is in it's entirely. 

      1.       I almost died as a baby.  In fact, it was pretty touch and go for a while.

      2.       Once I recovered, I had a pretty happy childhood. 

3.       My parents never married. 

4.       I am the middle of three girls.  Well at least on my mother's side anyway.

5.       We didn't have much, but we lived comfortable. 

6.       I spent a lot of time at the beach even though I never really learnt how to swim properly.

7.       I also never learnt to ride a bike. 

8.       I remember helping my Great Aunt Dorothy "Nenen" pick cotton. 

9.       I consider Nenen who still lives in Montserrat to be my favourite person in the world.  She turned 89 years old in January.

10.   I tell her things now that I was never able to tell my mother. 

11.   I remember spending quite a few summer vacation with my father.  Mostly because he had lots of girlfriends parading in and out of the house. 

12.   Surprisingly thought, I was a late bloomer when it came to the birds and the bees.  In fact, I was the last of my High School friends to go all the way and I didn't really discover self love until after University.

13.   They say you never forget your first and I often wonder whatever happened to SJ.

14.   I love discussing American politics.

15.   The first US Presidential election I really paid attention to was the 1984 Reagan v Mondale race.

16.   I remember talking about President Reagan's Star Wars program and my school friends making fun of me. 

17.   This was but one of the many "un-cool" things I did during High School. 

18.   Mr Bower, my Algebra & Trigonometry Teacher helped me become a social butterfly.

19.   He taught me the game of football one afternoon because he needed a statistician for the team. 

20.   For all four years, I participated in The Urban Scholars Program at the University of Massachusetts @ Boston.

21.   That program really open my eyes to the word of possibilities.

22.   I was almost inconsolable when I got rejected from a well known university on the East Coast.

23.   I turned down a four year scholarship to another well known university on the East Coast to go to the University of Michigan even thought it wasn't one of the schools I had visited. 

24.   I did so because the year I graduate from high school, U S News & World Report ranked Michigan the number 8^th best school in the country.

25.   Surprisingly, my mother didn't talk me out of my decision.  I am forever grateful.

26.   I was so homesick during sophomore year that I seriously thought about leaving but I stuck it out and graduated with an honours degree.

27.   I had a love/hate relationship regarding the amount of attention Michigan's athletic programs get - especially Football & Basketball. 

28.   I met my BestGuyFriend after NavalAcademyGuy broke up with me. This was during the fall of 1991 - first semester senior year. 

29.   I was a hot mess as I really thought I was going to get married to NavalAcademyGuy!

30.   I took a year off after graduation and "worked" because I thought I no longer wanted to go to law school.  However, I hadn't really thought of a viable Plan B.

31.   During this lost year, I became a ferocious reader.  I basically got a list of the top 100 books and tried to read them all.  I was making up for lost time. 

32.   One of my favourite authors is: Paul Theroux.  He is best known for: The Mosquito Coast.  But I really love reading his other books: O-Zone,  My Secret History, Jungle Lovers,  My Other Life, Chicago Loop, etc.

33.   Favourite books include: A Prayer for Owen Meany, The Great Gatsby, Catch 22, A Time to Kill, Confederacy of Dunces, etc.

34.    When I told my mother about my decision not to go to law school, she didn't say much.  She like most was confused as from a young age, I had told everyone I wanted to be a lawyer.

35.   Sensing my mother's disappointment, I decided to be the "good daughter" and apply.  I got accepted at a few placed and in the end, decided to go to the school that offered me an academic scholarship.  It wasn't the most prestigious of those I got accepted to, but I really didn't want to add to my undergraduate loan burden.

36.   My mother drove me with a van full of "stuff" to law school.

37.   I withdrew after my first semester because she became terminally ill.

38.   I spent many days/nights/weeks/months at the hospital.  I no longer got queasy at the sight of needles, blood, etc. 

39.   For a while there, I knew enough medical terminology that I could have passed at least the first year nursing exams. 

40.   I remember vividly the night before she died.  I heard the death rattle and just picked up the bible and started reading to her.

41.   The next morning she said her final words as I held her hand: "God is good."

42.   It's been 14+ years but I still think of her every day. 

43.   I never knew how much my mother loved me until she was dying.  In fact, I got the greatest insight from my mom's friends who told me after her death, how proud she was of me. 

44.   I moved from Boston to Chicago because I was emotionally exhausted and thought I wanted/needed someone to take care of me. 

45.   Things didn't work out with that person but I stayed anyway because I fell in love with the city.

46.   I spend the middle and later part of my twenties raising my younger sister.  I completely underestimated the task.

47.   I do have some laugh out/crazy stories from those days but not sure my younger sister would appreciate me sharing them.

48.   Those years are a blur of work, individual therapy, work, family therapy, work and even more individual and family therapy.

49.   I did manage to make some wonderful friends.  First through the First United Methodist Church at The Chicago Temple and then later through Fourth Presbyterian Church.

50.   I took this amazing road trip with a group of these friends from Chicago to the Grand Canyon. We hiked and camped  at the: Bryce Canyon National Park, Zion National Park, Arches National Park, Zion and a whole host of other national parks. 

51.   That vacation was a near biblical experience. 

52.   After that trip, I took up fly fishing with the goal of practicing my new hobby on one of the big streams in Montana.  I never quite made it there but I did get take a few practice trips in Wisconsin.

53.   I froze everything I caught but I couldn't bring myself to eat any of the fish. 

54.   I got a cat when my younger sister moved to California to be with her then husband. 

55.   There have been days in the past when he was the only reason I got out of bed.

56.   Most people are surprised when I tell them I don't have a boyfriend/husband or any kids.  Little do they know that I have spent most of my 20s/30s single.

57.   Actually, I have had 3 boyfriends during the last decade; two of them are lawyers. 

58.   I knew 2 months into the relationship with the last one that it wasn't going to work.

59.   I met him at the airport in Montserrat.

60.    It took me another 7 months to build up the courage to end it.  It was the first relationship I ever ended.

61.   He didn't take me seriously when I communicated my decision and so I ended up sending him an email written as a legal brief outlining why we couldn't be together.  Then he finally got it and I haven't spoken to him since. 

62.   I moved to London to escape Chicago.  10 years is a long time to be anywhere. 

63.   Also, the London Managing Director for my former employer offered me a job within 10 minutes of me asking about opportunities in his office.

64.   We were in Florida for the yearly sales meeting and over drinks one night, I blurted out my desire to live abroad.  I was buzzed and feeling a bit cocky as both the President and our largest client had sung my praises to the company at large earlier in the day.

65.   Three months later I was in London.  I didn't really know anyone over here. 

66.   I joined the Junior League of London but quit as it just made me feel homesick.  Plus I got tired of making friends with fellow expats who kept leaving.

67.   I get a buzz from visiting countries where I don't speak the language.

68.   To get over any fear I have of being in such a country, I fly in during the day, take public transportation to my hotel, take one of those tourist bus trips around the city to learn where key landmarks are and then go completely native.

69.    Interestingly enough though, the best vacation I ever had was a 14 days trip in Alaska. 

70.   During that holiday, I experienced all four season as we drove from Prudhoe Bay down the Dalton Highway back to Anchorage.

71.   I remember the trip well as it was in celebration of my 30^th birthday, also it was the first season of Survivor and oh yeah - the most beautiful Alaskan man followed me for three days! Goodness! If only I wasn't such a prude back then.

72.   Since being in London, I've been to: Austria, France (3 times), Spain, The Netherlands,  Czech Republic  and Italy.

73.    Barcelona is my favourite European city.  Perhaps to some degree because it's the first one I visited after moving to London.

74.   It also reminded me a lot of Chicago with is large boulevards, trendy restaurants, museums and city beaches.

75.   I'd like to visit a major city in the Middle East but not sure if I'll ever get there.  At least, I wouldn't travel there alone. 

76.   I am waiting to get married before I have children. 

77.   I'd ideally like to have twins. 

78.   Raising my younger sister makes me think I'd be a much better "mother" this second time around. 

79.   I was perhaps way too strict with her.

80.   I met someone a few months ago that I thought had the potential to be my future husband, but it turns out he had a fiancée.   He didn't clue me in until 3 months after we met. Shady!

81.   I still have dreams about NavalAcademyGuy. He was my Barack Obama. :) 

82.   I am not very good at interpreting the signals men send off.  One once bought me a dozen yellow roses.  I thought he was just trying to be nice as I'd had a really rotten week.  I found out years later that he really liked me.  This was during the blurry Chicago years.

83.   I am also not very good at expressing my feelings or asking for help.

84.   I do try and tell people (mostly family members) that are really important in my life that I love them. 

85.   Friends tell me I make a good coach.  I listen to their problems and always give constructive advise.

86.   However, sometimes I just want to scream and ask:  What about me?  Don't you care how I'm doing? 

87.   A boyfriend  -- RacquetballGuy - once told me that I have an acid tongue as I can be a bit too direct at times.

88.   For a long time, I was really hurt by his statement - but then I came to realise that he was just deflecting because I called him out on his "bull-shit."

89.   There is no room in life for mediocrity.

90.   I am really hard on myself. 

91.   I've only now really started to appreciate/acknowledge my accomplishments over the years. 

92.   I am extremely loyal - sometimes to my own detriment.

93.   Not sure how long I'll stay in London; but won't move for awhile as I purchased a property just before the market went south.  I know, lucky me!

94.   I would love to live in Paris for awhile but unfortunately I don't speak French well enough. 

95.   I take a lot of calculated risk that to outsiders might seem like spur of the moment decisions.   However, I am quite thorough in my research when it comes to making any life changing decision. 

96.   I quit my last corporate job - with incidentally a large global law firm - in 2008.  I got tired of the long hours, the endless meetings, the blackberry with 300+ new emails a day and just genuinely not being able to control my schedule never mind my destiny. 

97.   At first I was just going to take a sabbatical from work, but in the end after months of research and consulting with various professionals, I decided to set up my own business.

98.   It hasn't been easy but it's the best decision I've made.  I can't imagine going back.

99.   I have a vision board to help me stay focused and on track.

100.   I finally feel like I'm on my way to creating my desired future.

Surprised to hear that people lie so frequently about reading books. There really is no reason as one leaves themselves open to being found out quite easily. So my motto for this sort of thing, just be truthful!

What books have you lied about reading? Here's a top ten.

Sarah Ebner, 5 March 2009, London Times

It happened to me recently. I was telling someone how much I had enjoyed reading Barack Obama's Dreams From My Father and how it had changed my views of the current US President. The person I was talking to agreed with me that it was, in his words, "a brilliantly written book". However, he then proceeded to talk about Mr Obama in a way which suggested he had no idea of his background at all. I sensed that I was talking to a book liar....

And it seems that my acquaintance is not the only one. Apparently two thirds of people have lied about reading a book which they haven't. In The World Book Day's Guilty Secrets Survey, Dreams From My Father is at number 9. The survey lists ten books, and various authors, which people have lied about reading, and as I'm not one to lie too often (I'd hate to be caught out), I'll admit here and now that I haven't read the entire top ten. But I am pleased to say that, unlike 42 percent of survey entrants, I have read the book at number one, George Orwell's 1984. I think it's absolutely brilliant.

Here's the rest of top ten.

1) 1984 by George Orwell (42 percent)

2) War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (31 percent)

3) Ulysses by James Joyce (25 percent)

4) The Bible (it doesn't say which testament! 24 percent)

5) Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (16 percent)

6) A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking (15 percent)

7) Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie (14 percent)

8) In Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust (9 percent)

9) Dreams from my Father by Barack Obama (6 percent)

10) The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins (6 percent)

Asked why they lied, the most common reason was to "impress" someone they were speaking to. This could be tricky if the conversation became more in-depth!

The World Book Day survey also has some other interesting information in it. It reveals that many people lie about having read Jane Austen (I recall a friend who studied Emma for A level, but never actually read it), the Bronte sisters, Charles Dickens, Fyodor Dostoevsky (I haven't read him, but haven't lied about it either) and Herman Melville.

But when asked which authors they actually enjoy, respondents named J K Rowling, John Grisham, Sophie Kinsella, Jilly Cooper, Dick Francis, Marian Keyes and Stephen King (ah, the big sellers, in other words). Forty one percent of people asked admitted they turned to the back of the book to read the end before finishing the story (I'll come clean: I do this and am astonished that 58 percent said they had never done so).

I had a good chuckle reading article below and I have already taken several things on board. The first being, to pair down the checklist. However, I can't bring myself to throw it out completely, as there are some things are still absolutely essential -- ie. honesty and integrity. And oh yeah, being in serious like/love with me!!!

The Sunday Times, January 11, 2009
How to meet a man at 40: It doesn't get any easier the older you get. So just how do you win the dating game
Shane Watson

Before we get started, you need to know that the man you fall in love with will bear absolutely no resemblance to the man you were planning to fall in love with. He will live an hour away from where you live, minimum. He will be wearing a shiny suit and, possibly, a brown shirt. And he'll have the sort of baggage that requires its own baggage handler. This much you can guarantee.

Because one of the reasons you are single (and this is the only one that is strictly your fault) is that you have written off every kind of man who might conceivably cross your path. You have built a fortress out of your preconditions and you are glowering down from the battlements. Men do approach from time to time, but then they see the vats of boiling oil teetering on the ramparts and think better of it.

As far as you are concerned, this fortress is a normal precaution for vetting prospective men, and so it was, initially. Then time passed, you settled into a routine and now you are mistress of the You Won't Get Past Me checklist.

As it happens, I was set up with the One at a lunch three years before the party at which we officially met. The reason the lunch doesn't count as the first meeting is because we barely spoke, and the reason we didn't speak is because I ran his details through the List database and, in 0.2 seconds, it came up with a You Cannot Be Serious rating. Of course it did! The One was very recently divorced (not for me, thanks). He had three children in tow (uh-oh). I think he'd had a savage £5 haircut, and I'm almost certain he was wearing the brown shirt. So, at that first meeting, I summoned the List and the List gave me permission to do nothing.

This List, let's be clear, is not made up of sensible broad guidelines such as must not be married or should live on same continent; it is extremely specific. Here are some edited highlights from my List, and I'm not making a word of it up:

- Must have hair. Hair is good, but what if top of his List was "must have large breasts"? That puts a rather different complexion on it, doesn't it?

- Must not have ex-wife or children. Like the pool isn't small enough as it is.

- Must not wear fleeces. The bulky navy ones. I'm not going to budge on this one. Fleeces say you're the kind of man who takes his wife to the pub for your anniversary dinner.

- Must not wear short-sleeved shirts. See fleeces. Add golf/ cricket/rugby club to anniversary venue.

- Must not wear jewellery. Although you can tell a lot from jewellery. Any man wearing a leather-thong necklace is certainly a narcissist who still imagines he could have been in the Rolling Stones. Pierced earrings past the age of 40 equal midlife-crisis man. Gold chains on a mahogany chest are the equivalent of the long little fingernail (just plain sleazy).

- Must have a good job, but not one that requires him to get up at 5.30am and take a laptop on holiday.

- Must not wear hoodies or V-neck sweaters with nothing underneath. Hoodies are for boys. And "nothing underneath" is another I Love Myself sign, only this time there's also the suggestion of And I Am Hot in Bed.

If it isn't already obvious, I am on a journey.

As some of you may recall, during the early days of the American-led war with Iraq, I developed a serious crush on Brigadier General Vincent Brooks. He was frequently on televsion as he was the spokesperson for the U.S. Army Central Command. Back then, very little was known about him. Now he has his own Wiki page and can't help steer longingly at his picture. Perhaps its the uniform. He is so distinguished. On a more serious note, there is also a great profile of the General on the HW Wilson Company site.

A recent disappointment had me thinking of going on a long Forest Gump type run. But I realised that really wasn't the best course of action. So instead, I decided I would go walking for an hour each day -- for 21 days. 21 days because that's how long it typically takes to create or change a habit. That was 2 days ago, so only another 19 more before goal is accomplished. For the record, this is not a new year's resolution. It is simply a course of action -- along with regular visits to an acupuncturist -- to improve health and manage stress.

Goodness! Where did the time go?

With my last serious blog post, I was pontificating about my desire to see Senator Barack Obama ascend to the Presidency of the United States. Thankfully, I was not disappointed. Now, almost two months later, it seems like a lifetime away.

Perhaps it has something to do with the New Year! Perhaps also it has something to do with the fact that I'm been super busy with my new work venture. As you may have figured out, I left the safety of the corporate world and started up my own business. The economic news is not great, but considering the nature of the business, I am quite optimistic about the future.

On a personal note, I'm still single. Both Racquetball and Airport Guy made re-appearances late in the year, but the reality is that neither are husband material. Sad really, as both relationships started off with so much promise. More recently, I met someone who I thought had promise. But alas, he turns out to have a fiancée. Further proof, that the good ones are mostly all taken. Even still, I have a really good feeling about 2009. My business is taking off and I'm really hopeful about things on a personal level. I have to be -- I turn 39 this year. Yikes! So I created a lovely vision board with photos representing my desired future.

I know, it's a bit over the top, but this was my motivation for making the changes I've done so far. And let me say that I'm finally starting to believe that everything is possible and every day is better than the last.

Age saw two quiet children
Go loving by at twilight,
He knew not whether homeward,
Or outward from the village,
Or (chimes were ringing) churchward,
He waited (they were strangers)
Till they were out of hearing
To bid them both be happy.
"Be happy, happy, happy,
And seize the day of pleasure."
The age-long theme is Age's.
'Twas Age imposed on poems
Their gather-roses burden
To warn against the danger
That overtaken lovers
From being overflooded
With happiness should have it.
And yet not know they have it.
But bid life seize the present?
It lives less in the present
Than in the future always,
And less in both together
Than in the past. The present
Is too much for the senses,
Too crowding, too confusing--
Too present to imagine.

-- Robert Frost

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

I have a few long posts in my head that I plan to bang out once I tear myself away from work and twitter. Until then, here's hoping that Tuesday night/Wednesday morning brings’ about a massive celebration for Senator Obama.

I vividly remember the intensity and disappointment when former Vice President Gore lost the 2000 election by less than 600 votes in Florida. I am hoping that we don't have to go through that again. Eight years later, with "unwinnable" expensive wars raging in Iraq and Afghanistan, America and the world at large are much more troubled – and the recent financial crisis has demonstrated just how intertwined the world really is. We need each other to not just survive but to thrive whether we are Americans (North or South), Europeans, West Indians, Africans, Asians, etc. Therefore, the isolationist policies of the Bush administration must end. America being the only super power in the world needs to have a strong leader that is respected at home and abroad.

Thus, while Senator McCain is a great man who has served his country well, he is just not right for the Presidency at this moment in time. Senator Obama is a much better choice. We need him to help unite a deeply fractured country and help restore America's standing in the world. And so while he is not perfect, and will most likely not be a perfect President, America -- heck the world at large really needs someone with his intelligence, vision, temperament and ability to inspire to deal constructively with 21st century challenges.