Meme’d: 8 True Things

Deb and Kenneth tagged me with a meme, and I must first post the rules:

1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
5. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

Here goes!

1. My mother was an opera singer. She was trained at The Juilliard School in Manhattan, which she attended on a full scholarship, then went on to sing at The Metropolitan Opera and Avery Fisher Hall. She stopped singing, as what she really wanted to do was have children and raise them. WTF? She went to college while my sister and I were in school, earned a Masters Degree, and became a therapist who specialized in multiple personality disorder and survivors of childhood sexual abuse.
2. My father was a seminarian and was going to be a Roman Catholic Priest. He settled for a doctorate from Columbia (he met my mother, 10 years her junior, and fell in love, which put the kibosh on the priest thing).
3. My sister is a radio and television journalist in the NY metropolitan area. She is an anchor person, reporter, sound engineer (who’s dying to help me improve the sound on The Animal Person Minute).
4. I was so shy as a child that it was painful for me to sing and dance. They were my gifts. I have perfect pitch, and if trained, I could have been a professional singer (maybe opera) and dancer (not ballet though, as I don’t have the right shape and I’m way, way too short). But, alas, it was only after it was too late to get proper training that I came out of my shell. In the non-gift category is anything spatial-related. I scored "subnormal" when I was tested, again and again, regarding anything that had to do with spatial skills. My teachers were concerned and suggested I must have some kind of neurological defect and wanted to test me (again), but my mother refused and said, "So my kid’ll never be an architect. Big deal. She’ll gravitate toward things she’s good at and she’ll never know her brain’s messed up."
5. I’m an atheist. I sometimes say I’m a quasi-Buddhist because the philosophy of Buddhism is closest to my belief system.
6. My favorite music is chanting. Any kind. My father played only one thing on Sundays in our house when I was growing up: The Monks of Salem (on a reel-to-reel player!). I hated all the kyries and alleluiahs. Now that’s my favorite CD. I prefer no music in my chanting.
7. I went to Vermont Law School to study environmental law for exactly one semester. It was the only time in my entire life I cut classes and the first time I paid no attention to my teachers. Before the end of the semester, I decided I would leave. Every cell in my body despised law school (I really gave it a chance, didn’t I) and I decided to pursue a doctorate in applied linguistics at New York University. I loved every minute of it.
8. I’ve never liked the taste of raw tomato. I’ve never had more than a single bite of one. When I was a kid, I called them "the food of the devil." I still do.

I’m tagging, in no special order: Judy, Jonathan, Dana, Joanna, Colleen, Joyatri, Eryll, and Oliver.