...Guten tag! Goeiemiddag! Bonjour! The very first thing people get to know about me is that I am multi-lingual. I took three years of French in highschool, tutored during my final year, and have been learning German and Afrikaans on my own. Despite having started Afrikaans in May, it is at the same level as my German, which I have been studying for much longer.

The other thing that anyone who wishes to get to know me better is that I am extremely random and I have a wide collection of interests. If one were to look at my room they would spend ages finding every single interest of mine.

So what am I into?

1. Storytelling... I generally prefer to go by "storyteller" as this is how I was accustomed to hearing stories as well as expressing them. When I was a child, my favourite part of school was listening to our teacher read us a story. It was what I missed most as I got older. The best part of going on trips with my grandparents or going dune bugging was always listening to those stories, though I could have lived without the grizzly bear story being told right where it happened, thanks Grandpa!

2. Writing... this is a given, but I'll state specifically what I like to write about. Bromances! I love that deep relationship that guys can form and because it is so difficult to describe it just challenges me and makes me completely curious! I also love writing about father-son relationships because the good fathers that are out there in this world (my dad is one of them) just don't appear that often in stories or the media. Friendship! Life is unbearable without the comfort and support of a good friend and I find that the most satisfying stories are the ones about friendship. If I can combine my other interests of exploration, mystery, and adventure, I'm golden! This is why when I read books, I generally go after the young reader books for the fact that you can find all of these elements without the storylines becoming overly complex with love-triangles, work, and other stuff that I find a bit dull.

3. Nature photography as well as architecture... and though I can hold my own with both portrait photography as well as candids, being stuck as an event photographer whilst the rest of my professional skills were overlooked burned me out on that kind of photography and it takes something going on just between my friends and I to even want to take pictures of people.

4. Geology... this goes along with my adventurous side because learning how the earth is formed and how things can survive/exist where they are just fascinates me beyond words! Not only that, but it also provides an ample source of imagination! The desert, high deserts, mountains, and craggy landscapes are probably my favourite regions to study! I love studying about volcanoes too since I live within close proximity to five active volcanoes! The countries I want to visit the most reflect all of these things: South Africa, Germany, Iceland, Norway, and Mongolia. There are a lot of other countries I want to visit, but several of them are now on the "let's hope it settles down over there" list due to civil wars and uprisings.

5. Languages... American-English is my mother language with French being my second, German my third, and Afrikaans my fourth. Due to most of my fandoms being from the UK and a lot of my friends being from there as well, I have adopted their way of spelling and a lot of slang. A lot of people just think I'm Canadian. I want to add a fifth language but I am unsure whether it will be Danish, Swahili, or a different African language. These are the languages that I am committing myself to learn because the number of languages I know phrases of is a lot more than this!

6. Movies/tv shows... I have over 600 dvds that I have bought since I first started working back in 2001. Most of my dvds are second hand and I have a small (but growing) collection of foreign movies. I have 11 German movies and 1 South African movie. There's no specific genre that I love more than another so I'll just say that the only genres I do not like are horror/gore and porn. I do not subscribe to the sudden fascination of 3D movies and I sincerely hope that it is something that fades as quickly as it appeared.

7. Music... my tastes are so varied that again, I can only state what I don't like and that's R&B, hip-hop, and a lot of other modern stuff that is just brain-numbing. It's rare that I'll like any current American hearthrob or fan-favourite. Currently I listen to a mix of movie scores (which is over 150 so don't try and pin only famous movies here) as well as German and Afrikaans music. My favourite South African artists are Bobby van Jaarsveld, Kurt Darren, Romanz, Heinz Winckler, and Jakkie Louw. I'm still working on finding other German artists with a similar style and have found so far Luxuslärm, Rosenstolz, Christina Stürmer, and Johannes Oerding. Please don't recommend Nena's "99 Balloons" because I actually don't like that song at all, though I like Nena. Other foreign artists I like are Urker and Ulytau (Kazakh); Altan Urag (Mongolian), as well as Lebanese artists: Carole Samaha, Myriam Fares, Nancy Ajram, Joseph Attieh, and Joe Ashkar. I'm also into traditional Bavarian and Tirolian music, pretty much anything folk (Mongolian throat singers and anything Native American that doesn't have the added synthesized stuff).

8. Football... what the US would call "soccer". I watch mainly the German Bundesliga and am a dedicated FC Bayern fan. I'm also a Bayer Leverkusen fan and support several players from around the league because of the national team. I root for Real Madrid because of Ozil Mesut and as far as the Barclay's Premier League goes, Arsenal fan! I also like Chelsea and depending on my mood, will root for Manchester United if I am watching the match. In the MLS I love the Seattle Sounders as well as Vancouver Whitecaps. I like Galaxy for David Beckham and probably won't care about them if/when he leaves. I can't wait for the Euro 2012 and am hoping Bayern wins the 2012 Champions League, the DFB-Pokal, and of course, the Bundesliga! Auf geht's Jungs!!

9. Hockey, basketball, cricket, and rugby... they are the other sports I love and have been known to follow. These are the sports I also used to play a lot in gym (minus rugby) and so I am very fond of them. Cricket is the newest sport love for me! Rugby... BIG Springboks fan and I DID follow the 2011 RWC in New Zealand and like every other Boks fan I was VERY angry at Bryce Lawrence for giving the game to Australia. No hard feelings Australia, I still love you. By the way, if you haven't seen the Allblack's Haka you have not seen anything!

10. Research... shouldn't be an interest but it is. I spend a lot of time researching things. From steam trains to various types of volcanic eruptions; to studying how to set dislocated shoulders to figuring out how a prehistoric creature would survive in modern London... there's very little that I won't research. A lot of times I'll get so caught up in research that I'll forget the story entirely just to read and read. Research is how I came to the conclusion that Iceland is my honeymoon destination. I mean, you can have your tropical beaches with silky sand and irritating tourists, but I'll take the craggy landscape and freezing temperatures to gaze out into the water at the icebergs floating there ANY DAY!

11. Collecting... dvds, football trading cards, German autograph cards of the footballers, My Little Pony (G1-G4), FC Bayern and Seattle Sounders fangear, jerseys, Doctor Who toys, world flags, foreign coins... I just love collecting!

12. Arts and crafts... I'm a very artsy kind of person and I like making custom My Little Ponies. I've made custom Daleks and a few Doctor Who characters, and have made so far three stuffed animals. I like making scrapbooks, drawing, painting, singing, dancing... anything relating to art!

Any questions? Feel free to ask!